Picture 1: My parents’ home before the new roof. Several of the metal sheets had holes in them and they were held on by bricks.
As we redid the power in my parents’ home and prepared to bring power to my Aunts’ and Uncles’ residences, we realized that to protect the lighting we needed to have water-tight roofs. Some of our roofs were metal sheets with holes in them and others were made of grass (straw), which are very vunerable to leaking during the rainy season and more of a fire hazard during the dry season.
Picture 2: The home after the new roof, installed by me and the team at National Solar, led by Alfred Maele
Here are the steps we followed:
1. First, we removed the old roof.
2. Then, we repaired the top of the walls if necessary
3. Next we installed new roof beams make of plywood treated to resist termites.
4. Then, we installed new iron sheets and nailed them to the beams with special nails that have a waterproof gasket around them.
My cousin’s home formerly had a grass roof. Here we are installing the new trusses.
My Aunt’s home. You can see my home and the windmill in the distance.
Another Aunt’s house with the roof in progress