Making a Terrace from Reclaimed Roof Tiles

Old pig sties

Excavating the Terrace

Renovating old buildings as big as these creates an enormous amount of man-made spoil such as plaster, cement and roof tiles. The spoil would have been expensive to dispose of and we were unhappy at the thought of it going into landfill while we purchased new products for subsequent work.  We therefore turned our minds as to how we could reuse as much as possible of the spoil we are creating. 

When we bought the farm it was clear we would have to re-roof most of the buildings if we wanted them to survive for many more winters, which are surprisingly harsh here. Some tiles were reused on the main house and the little house (one of our outbuildings), but that still left us with a huge piles of broken and, in the eyes of our roofer, worthless rubbish.

One idea that has been particularly successful has been to use the tiles to create a terracotta terrace.

Stone wall near old pig sty

The area in front of our old pig sties had a long time ago been cobbled with local stone, however over the years it had been allowed to become grassed over. The problem with that was the weeds and grass continually crept into the stonework of the buildings, loosening the mortar and render and allowing the rubble stones of the walls to fall out.

Because we did not know what was under the grass we decided it would be safer to clear the area by hand. It was hard work but worth taking care as we uncovered an original drainage channel lined with concrete and in front of the pig sties the original stone surface still set in place. Sadly the stones past the drainage channel were beyond saving in situ so were removed for use elsewhere.

Once the soil and stones were removed to a depth of about 20cm we lined the area with old fertiliser sacks, kindly donated by our farmer friend. These act as a weed suppressant and mole deterrent and allow us to reuse otherwise waste products that would otherwise have to be dumped.

Adding the Reclaimed Roof Tiles

New terrace made from reclaimed broken terracotta roof tiles

We added the broken tiles a wheel barrow at a time. This allowed us to break them up into smaller pieces so that they sit tighter together. Sometime later ……. Much, much later (!) the area was covered in a top layer of broken tiles that could be compressed using our wacker. To finish the area off we made some gates for the pig sties using reclaimed fence posts and created a border that we planted with rosemary and lavender that we had grown from cuttings. In order to help suppress the weeds and make the border look more attractive whilst the cuttings grew we covered the soil with stone from the recently excavated terrace.

New terrace made from reclaimed broken terracotta roof tiles

The Bench
The finishing touch was to add a bench constructed from a reclaimed concrete shelf (more ‘spoil’ from the renovation) and two old concrete supports of the type used locally to support the main structure of wooden buildings to keep the wood off the ground. As you can see, we now have a lovely place to sit with a glass of wine to catch the evening rays.