Melbourn Interlocking Slates Gets Top Marks At New Rural School

Constructing the first new school to be built under the auspices of Ceredigion County Council in West Wales meant the pressure was on to deliver the architect’s vision, supported by building solutions that could meet the desired design objectives and testing construction challenges. This was just the case with the roof specification and the decision to use Marley Eternit’s Melbourn interlocking slates. The slates have been used as the roofing design solution on the new 135-pupil school recently completed in New Quay, West Wales. The school, set on an isolated and rural site, has replaced several smaller schools in the surrounding area which agreed to combine together to benefit from much improved accommodation and facilities. A number of challenges faced the roofing contractors, Camilleri Roofing. These included the roof design and combination of pitches, as well as the extremely exposed location of the new school which meant that all the materials specified had to have proven long-term performance characteristics. Finally, the roofing solution had to, in the view of the architect team, harmonise with the prevailing brick, glass and render finish of the building. Marley Eternit’s Melbourn interlocking slates in a grey finish met all these challenges head on. The interlocking slate has offered the scheme a combination of construction flexibility, aesthetic appeal and performance to satisfy the overall architectural design, as well as helping the school to blend in appropriately within the surrounding area. The main challenge from the roof design perspective was the need to work with the 17.5 degree pitches which formed an integral part of the overall building design. This pitch suited the internal section of the building in such a manner as to provide a weather-tight and durable solution, essential when taking into account the demanding rural location the school occupies. The designed roof pitch on the scheme ruled out the use of natural slates. The architects and contractors found the solution in the Melbourn interlocking slate with its capacity for use on pitch levels down to just 15 degrees. This construction flexibility, together with its characteristic slate–like appearance and excellent environmental credentials – can achieve an A rating in the Building Research Establishment's Green Guide to Specification, made Melbourn the appropriate and highly durable choice, which was ideal for this particular school scheme. With the Melbourn interlocking slates providing the aesthetic and performance solution for the new school scheme, the location also demanded careful consideration in terms of roofing construction methods. Due to the exposed nature of the site, the design team decided to implement a Marley Eternit dry fix solution as part of the specification. This would help counter the prevailing location weather conditions, assist with the speed of construction and, importantly for the overall roofing design, achieve an even standard of finish for the roof surface and edge details. Dry fix is a high performance, low maintenance solution and provides an easy-to-fix alternative to traditional mortar bedding. When correctly installed, dry fix is designed to satisfy the requirements of BS 5534 ‘ Code of practice for slating and tiling’ with respect to the mechanical fixing of roof fittings to resist wind uplift and the provision of a weather tight roof. David Billingsley, part of the architect team from Ceredigion County Council which developed the scheme, says: “As the roof design had to work with challenging pitches, suit the internal section of the building and complement the aesthetic of the rest of the design in its rural context, in our view Marley Eternit’s Melbourn interlocking slates met these requirements.”

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