Six years with a leaky roof

I thought it would never be done, but at last I decided to go for it.

I love kampung-style house, in a limited way, but I could not afford to live in one. It would be too expensive to maintain, so instead I live in a brick house, like everybody else.

The old Cengal roof. It looks dilapidated from the top,
but mind you, this is Cengal. It would last at least
a century.

I had a cengal roof added to a veranda as a place for the family to enjoy the outdoor, but unfortunately it was not well built, so during heavy rains, it tends to leak. Since it was made of Cengal, it is too heavy, bulky and difficult to dismantle and rebuild.

I have always been wondering why we would always use tiles for our roof. I thought they are bulky and expensive, and I thought shingles as used in American homes would be ideal. I had thought from watching many home improvement projects in America that it would be something I could do myself.

If at least in my dreams.

To bring to the fore of my kampung life - something which I did not have, to be honest, I decided to have a wooden Cengal roof. It is beautiful, I love it - I would imagine life in Lenggong or Taiping, right here in the middle of KL, but it needs to be well-built and well maintained, something which it was not.

So in order to repair the leaking Cengal roof, I decided to use shingles on top of the roof to stop the leak, but from the veranda I could still enjoy the beautiful Cengal roof as it was meant to be.

Every grain of it.

I like shingle roof as they are very light, and have different shades, so it created some very nice pattern when seen from a far.

The new look

This is my first experiment with this type of roof, so if this is successful, I would love to incorporate more of this in bigger projects in the future.

So let's see if it can keep my veranda from the rains! ;)

Ensuring they are leak free

As a parting shot, let's enjoy this song from the band from New Zealand, the Split Enz.

They should know very well what I had experienced, for they had spent six months in a leaky boat. Don't ask me how they survived!


EPILOGUE

So today 31 May's night; it is raining cats and dogs and no more leaky roof! Yay!!!