Thatched roof structures are always many people's dreams for their backyard, or a good place for them when they are travelling. Various synthetic thatched roof buildings are constructed in different names, tiki bar, lodge cabin, treehouse hotel, bure hut, etc. How to thatch a roof, or how to build a thatched roof is today's topic.

Choose the correct type of synthetic thatch roof for your buildings

Before the construction, it is necessary to choose the thatch roof covering materials as per below factors:

A. Local climate

At first, we need to know where to build the synthetic thatched roof structures, this is a big factor for deciding what type of thatch to use. Thatched roof structures are popular in various countries, no matter tropical climate or temperate climate or cold climate. The thatched roof tradition lasts for so many generations in various areas, Southeast Asia, Central America, Europe, Oceania, Pacific countries, North America. People loves the relaxed feeling and peace of mind created by thatched roof buildings.

Anyway, for different weather and different climate, the suitable types of thatched roof materials are different. For temperate climate or cold climate, synthetic thatch tiles normally has less problems, as these types of weather will harm less to the thatch roof materials.

For the beach area in tropical countries, where their local weather condition is high humidity, high temperature, strong sunshine together with strong wind sometimes, for this area, natural thatch such as nipa palm leaf thatch, natural reed thatch is easy to decay and rot, could not resist strong wind, so they are not the best choices. For this area, to build a resort hotel cottage, bali hut, or gazebo, could consider using nylon thatch for the roofing building or replacement. Nylon material has excellent chemical performance, such as stable chemical molecular bond, perfectly meet your request for UV proof. Therefore, high temperature and strong sunshine are no problem for using nylon thatch for roof covering. Meanwhile, the nylon thatch also has very great fire retardant index. Under America’s standard UL-94, among the 7 indexes for fireproof test, nylon thatch could meet the V0 grade (the best) for 6 indexes, only 1 index is V2 grade. So, for commercial building or residential thatched roof house, nylon thatch is excellent choice. And for tropical ocean countries, nylon could resist local weather very well. Just like nylon fishing net, nylon thatch could work in good condition under high humidity environment for long years. High humidity will not harm their lifespan, on the contrary, it may extend the lifespan of nylon thatch. For windproof, not only nylon thatch, other types of synthetic thatch roofing tiles are also no problem.

This is the test report of nylon thatch roofing:

https://www.beatlesthatch.com/certificates_nc4

B. The definite roof structure

Second, what type of structures you want to build? A gazebo, overwater bungalow, water park bali hut, palapa restaurant, or residential living cottage house? And what is the roof’s function, is there any waterproof layer, or other kinds of sub-roof, such as plywood, corrugated steel panel, or just wooden battens? These are other factors to decide the thatch types.

For the structures of cottage or amusement park’s gazebo or palapa building, we would suggest to use synthetic reed thatch to meet their special aesthetic tradition. For other types of structures, the architects, contracting company, consulting company or project owner could decide to use what types of thatch to use by viewing our website.

For the roof structures only be consisted with wooden battens or rafters, the best choice is synthetic palm thatch. As palm thatch panel is more convenient for installation in this kind of structure, and they are waterproof for this structure. For roof pitch angle bigger than 30 degree, 8-10 pieces of palm thatch are requested to cover 1 square meter roof to make sure the waterproof. For roof pitch angle less than 30 degree, it would require more than 10 pieces. If property owners want to use other types of thatch tiles, need to install waterproof membrane on the bottom at least, and cover the waterproof membrane with artificial thatch then.

For the other types of roofs, where there are waterproof membrane, plywood or corrugated steel sheet, any types of artificial thatch roof products are no problem.

C. Your aesthetic choice of the looking

Third, according to the design of your building of barn, sunshade shed roof, chalet, backyard cabana, bohio villa, beach pavilion, decide which style of synthetic thatch roof to use for these projects. The synthetic thatch could be divided according below:

*Texture

*Color

*Rod style or leaf style

*Fluffy or soft and straight

Measuring the roofing area:

After you choose the thatch products, the next step is to measure the roofing area, and calculate the quantity of the thatch tiles needed. Regularly, 8-10 pieces of 500x450mm thatch are enough for 1 square meters of roof. Anyway, the more quantity of thatch are used, the better looking will be. And using more quantity of thatch roof tiles will reduce the wave affect like below:

The left thatched roof looks flatter, the right thatched roof looks like wave.

The quantity of palm thatch to be used could be calculated according to previous paragraph mentioned.

For the position of ridge or valley, could use regular thatch products to cut and make the shape you need to cover these areas. Below are various special shapes of ridge and valley thatched tiles made by clients for covering ridge and valley position:

For palm thatch, we have special made ridge tile, valley tile and top cap tiles to play such roles.

Installing the artificial thatch roof materials:

As installation of artificial thatch is much easier than natural thatch roof, so, you just look for local construction company to install the thatch roof. There are several ways for installation:

1) For palm thatch:

Connect the palm thatch with fixing rail and windproof rail if clients need these accessories for better windproof;

Using staples or screws to fix the synthetic palm thatch on the plywood, or wooden battens directly.

Make sure enough overlap is kept.

2) For other types of thatch:

For corrugated steel roof panel, could install the steel wire mesh on the roof panel and then fix the thatch roof tiles on the steel wire mesh.

For sub-roof with plywood, the installation of artificial thatch is easier, just use staples and screws to fix the thatch on the plywood. About 4 screws or staples for each piece of thatch tile.

For wooden rafters, need to install the waterproof membrane at first, and make sure the vertical spacing is not too huge, and fix thatch to the wooden batten then. Need to make sure wooden battens are big and strong enough.

Installation of thatch for eave position:

For eave position, some clients would require the thatched roof structures to look like very thick like below:

For this purpose, we have developed some special eave thatch roof tile like below.

Use of other synthetic products for interior decoration:

For the other areas of the roof structure, to make the whole decoration style is similar and no conflicted, should make sure to use more natural looking decoration elements, such as synthetic bamboo woven ceiling and wall mat, synthetic bamboo poles and artificial bamboo wall panels. Below are our full range of synthetic products, you could contact Beatles Co., for more of these products’ details:

Now, the thatched roof project completed, you could enjoy the tropical flair at your own space now, and treat your guest with good relax or excellent entertainment.