Decramastic Roof Painting in Christchurch

What a Decramastic Roof Is, and Why It Looks the Way It Does

Decramastic - Decrabond and Harveytile are the same idea under other names - is a pressed steel tile with a coating of stone chip glued to the surface. It went onto a great many Christchurch houses through the 1970s and 80s, and it was a good roof. The problem is the chip. Over thirty or forty years the bond fails, the chip washes off into the spouting a little at a time, and the roof ends up a patchwork of bare tile and chip in different shades. It is not usually leaking. It just looks tired, and it is losing the layer that was protecting the steel.

Painting is the answer for most of them. The loose chip comes off, the tile is cleaned and primed, and a coating goes over the lot so the roof is one colour and the steel is sealed again. It is a different job to a long-run roof - more preparation, more paint, because the textured surface takes more - but it turns a roof that looks past it into one that looks new.

How We Paint a Decramastic Roof

1. Inspection and a written quote

   Corey checks how much chip is left and how well it is holding, looks for rust at the tile edges and around the fixings, and checks the ridge caps and flashings. Then a written quote with the product and the colour named.

2. Drop sheets and spouting protection

   The loose chip that comes off in the wash has to be caught, not sent down the downpipes. Everything below the eaves is covered.

3. Removing the loose chip and washing

   High-pressure washing takes off every chip that is not firmly bonded, along with the moss, lichen and dirt. What is left after that is what stays - a sound surface to paint. Then a moss and mould treatment to kill what the wash could not reach.

4. Rust treatment and priming

   Any bare steel at the tile edges, the cut ends and around the fixings is treated and primed, and the whole roof gets a primer or sealer coat that binds the remaining chip and gives the top coats something to hold.

5. Two heavy coats by airless spray

   A textured surface takes far more coating than a flat one, so two generous coats sprayed to get into every hollow in the pressed profile. On dry days, with drying time between them.

6. Clean up and walk around

   Spouting checked and cleared of chip, sheets up, the site tidy, and a walk around with you before we finish.

Painted, or Recoated With New Chip?

You can have a decramastic roof recoated with fresh stone chip, and there are contractors who do that. It costs a good deal more than painting and it keeps the textured look. A painted decramastic roof is smooth in colour and shows the pressed tile profile, and most people prefer how it looks on a house of that era. If the roof is sound, painting is the sensible money. Corey will tell you honestly if yours is one of the few where it is not.

Long-run or corrugated iron? or concrete tiles.