How to build and maintain a thatched roof

by time news

Dhe first proven thatched roofs, as UNESCO reports, were already around 4000 BC: on pile dwellings on Lake Constance. Today, thatched roofs are mainly found in northern Germany near the coast, where reeds, popularly known as “reed” in Lower Saxony and Schleswig-Holstein and “pipe” in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, once grew naturally in moors. In 2014, the German Commission for UNESCO declared the thatched roofing trade as an intangible cultural heritage. “Thatched roofs probably make up a low single-digit percentage of all German buildings as a whole,” says Bernd Redecker, supervisor of the Reed Technical Committee in the Central Association of the German Roofing Trade. He estimates the number of thatched roofing companies to be around 150.

Old farmhouses and mills are traditionally covered with thatch. Tourist resorts are increasingly using the natural building material to attract guests, says Tom Hiss, Managing Director of Hiss Reet GmbH from Bad Oldesloe in Schleswig-Holstein. Hiss is the oldest company selling thatch in Germany and the market leader with a share of 40 percent. “We are the roofers’ partner and supply the building materials,” says Hiss, who is the sixth generation to run the company.

In 1833 the seafarer Matthias Hiss founded the company. Agricultural products such as grain were traded on the Baltic Sea. “Reet was then included from the 1920s,” says Hiss. Up until the 1980s, only reeds that grew in Germany were sold. According to the managing director, “incorrectly implemented nature conservation” and the associated official difficulties in reed harvesting put an end to this. “In the past few decades, nature conservation has been implemented purely dogmatically according to the motto to leave nature to itself, regardless of whether it makes sense or not,” says Hiss. “Thus, the harvest time was handled very rigidly until the end of February. Even if everything was still under ice and snow at the end of February and the harvest could have continued without nesting birds, the farmers had to stop harvesting.”

15 percent of the demand for thatch is still growing locally

The Hiss company started harvesting thatch first in Hungary, then in Turkey and from the 1990s in Romania. “Approximately 15 percent of the demand for reed in Germany is still growing locally, so we are importers,” reports Hiss. However, in terms of nature conservation, there are now more and more efforts to flood moors in Germany again and allow reeds to grow in them. “Meanwhile it has been found that the management of reed beds is good for the climate. Both the moors and later the thatched roof serve as CO2 storage,” explains Hiss.

It owns production companies in Mersin in Turkey with around 30 employees and in the Danube Delta in Romania with around 50 employees. The reed is harvested, trimmed and bundled before being shipped to Germany, Holland, Denmark, England and Ireland. According to the managing director, the export rate is around 40 percent; Denmark is the largest sales market.

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