Mitzyboy

Confused I am, having had a car port put up recently I'm now trying to roof it and am faced with a huge array of different bamboos sheets & coverings in the DIY places.

I think I prefer bamboo to sheet, but anyone got any experience of how bamboo weathers, and which is best? It seems to vary from €10 a roll up to €78 a roll for 5 mtrs of dark hard reedy stuff

poshnbucks

mitzy....From my Boys Own Bumper Book of Bamboo I can bring you a number of startling facts it wont help you with your carport but will expand your mind and inform you of what a wonderful natural material Bamboo is.............................................. .

About Bamboo

* The Fastest growing woody plant on this planet.
It grows one third faster than the fastest growing tree. Some species can grow up to 1 meter per day. One can almost "watch it grow". Size ranges from miniatures to towering culms of 60 meters or 180 feet.

* Producing four to five time more bio-mass than trees felled for wood production.
Bamboo is ready for harvesting within 3 to 5 years versus oak, cherry, maple and exquisite rain forest hardwoods, that in some cases, take more than 100 years to grow to maturity.

* Bamboo is giant grass and Amazingly versatile with a short growth cycle.
There are over 1000 species of bamboo on the earth. This diversity makes bamboo adaptable to many environments. Bamboo is capable of tolerating extremes in precipitation. The acceptable range or rainfall is from 30 to 250 inches of rain annually.

* Bamboo is on of the strongest building materials in the World.
Bamboo's tensile strength is 28,000 per square inch versus 23,000 for steel.

* A critical element in the balance of oxygen/carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.
Bamboo is the fastest growing canopy for the re-greening of degraded areas. Bamboo generates more oxygen than the equivalent stand of trees.

* A soil conservation tool.
Bamboo has anti-erosion properties that create an effective watershed. The rhizomes stitch the soil together along fragile areas. First re-greening in Hiroshima after the atomic blast in 1945.

* A critical element of the economy.
Bamboo and its related industries already provide income, food and housing to over 2.2 billion people worldwide. There is a 3 - 5 years return on investment for a new bamboo plantation versus 8 - 10 years for rattan.

* A renewable resource for agro forestry products.
Bamboo is a high-yield renewable natural resource. Ply Bamboo is now being used for wall paneling, floor tiles. Bamboo pulp is used for paper making; briquettes and fuel. Bamboo can be used as a Raw material for housing construction and rebar for reinforced concrete beams.

* An essential structural material in earthquake architecture.
In Limon Costa Rica only the Bamboo houses from the National Bamboo Project stood after the violent earthquake of 1992.

So there you have it.........."Ay-Thang-Yew".............Bamboo has it.

bil

As with anything, usually the higher the price, the longer the lifespan.

Bamboo is quite long lasting, especially if it can be kept dry, or able to dry out quickly.

Hillybilly

If you like the look of bamboo or breza then you could always use two layers - breza or bamboo underneath with a clear corrugated sheet roof covering on top.
Carrefour of all places often have cheap rolls of breza on offer.

El Capitan

The bamboo rolls you are talking about at that price Mitzy get brittle after a short time and will break up if laid as a roof. I had tons of the stuff as screens taped to iron fencing but a lot of it has broken up now after only a couple of years.

poolboy

I tried the bamboo rolls & they lasted all of 6 months - the wind rain & sun soon took its toll.

I replaced them with corrugated sheets which I bolted down. That was 5 years ago & not a peep of maintenance since aside from annual lacquering of the wood.

Incidentally the unprotected uprights were replaced last year & the horizontals are still intact.

As you are in Oliva I got my iron man to order the sheets (& deliver them cos they are heavy), he´s on the old 332 in Vergel.

Hope it helps

Mitzyboy

Oh thats great info, where abouts is the place, do you remember the name please?

poshnbucks

You can smell the blood of the chase Mitzyboy............ but where is your quarry......................

poolboy

I do indeed as he does all my metal work jobs. Best lay them across shortest distance & leave an overlap of 6 inches or so, you can´t cut them so you´ll have to experiament. Car port is v unlikely to be truly square so follow line of sight.

Mine cost 200e 5 years ago for about 6-8 sheets to fit a single car port. I used small ripple effect sheets not the flat angular effect ones - didn´t want my house looking like an industrial unit.

Get them from Fausto Bisetto opposite Guardia Civil, old N332 Vergel. If his red van is there then so is he but he is often out on jobs. If the door is open someone is there, usually Jaime, the chap at the back in the blue overalls.

Top tip - speak in Valenciano & you get a better price - don am un bon preu -works wonders. Or tell him you know me, tall chap from MontePego.

Get him to throw in some galvanised screws with integral washers to secure them down, they are easy to fit & will stay up in a hurricane.

Also, screw them down as soon as you lay them, I didn´t & had to go out in middle of night as they are like a sail in the wind.

Good luck & pleased I can be of assistance.

Mitzyboy

Thanks
My problem therefore is probably going to be that my car port is one wierd shape. Its completely unsquare, and one of the ends is rounded. I dont do things the simple way. The curve is so large that it would definately have to be cut

bil

Ever thought of planting it?

Mitzyboy

Eh?

bil

Growing something over it?

Mitzyboy

Ahhhh ...... yes I will be doing that also, probably a bougainvillia or vine

poshnbucks

Mitzyboy....... Maybe if you built something like this you could help rotor out and keep all his illegal motor cars and other contraband herein.... You would be safe from the low flying Guardia Civil