# Forum Home Renovation Roofing  roof battens

## gastric me

i have to replace some rotted out roofing batten which is 22mm timber, its not the whole roof just a small part of the roof, what timber shall i use, and for 22mm batten what fastner and length of fastener should i use to connect to rafter?

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## gastric me

surely someone must know!!!!!!!!

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## rrobor

What is the roof, from that it suggests its tile. Id use hardwood and the nails would be double the length of the width of the wood. You should be able to buy standard lengths of that at a good timber supplier. For tiles the battons dont contribute much other than stopping the tiles sliding off, the weight of the tiles hold them in place. Tin is different there you use galvanised screw type nails. For timber I give the big B a miss. I wouldnt use pine, if you got a bit to do climbing about on a knotty bit of pine, it could give way and your liable to make a mess of the front of your leg.

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## gastric me

its for a metal roof actually, sorry but u confused me towards the end of ur post.. what would u "give a miss", and what timber exactly did you say? would you nail or screw them in?

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## rrobor

I would give Bunnings a miss for timber.  Now I dont like the size of your timber, screwing sheet metal to 22mm I would say is a bit light. Metal roofs lift off in wind, the wind hits the front and goes up.That creates a vacuum at the back so the roof will try to lift off. You though are stuck with the size of wood so my advice changes, get the best hardwood you can, dont spare on width and screw it down. drill and countersink your screws, If the roof is colourbond, make sure you dont let the screwheads touch the colourbond, 9 times in 10 its OK but the odd time you can get a reaction and that will show up as a paint colour change, any form of insulation will stop that

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## gastric me

thanks that makes things alot clearer, yeah ur right im stuck with the 22mm size cause i dont want to be changing all the roof battens only the rotted battens, although i was thinking if i atleast get 25mm hardwood it wont be noticeable, i was thinking 65mm nails or do you still think 65mm screws are better

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## rrobor

You could use roof nails which are screw type so less likely to pull out. Length depends on your roof trusses if these are hardwood you are going to have fun whacking those in that length, If the roof is old these trusses if hardwood should be like steel, so you got to drill if they are pine then your length is correct but use the screw type nails.

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## ausdesign

22mm roof battens ??
Can you remeasure ?

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## gastric me

i have remeasured 3 times to make sure. there definetly 22mm thick by 70mm wide

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## ausdesign

22mm battens are not standard by any means.
Having said that you've got them & obviously you want to know the correct fixing requirement.
With a 75 wide batten into a hardwood rafter I would be looking at 2/75 nails.
A main item with a sheet roof is uplift & there is a prescribed tie down requirement depending upon rafter spacing, batten spacing etc. To make sure you 'overkill' the tie-down I would nail & also run a short hoop iron strap over the batten & fix it to the side of the rafter with 3 or 4 flat head nails to each end.

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## gastric me

yeah i was thinking of also fixing  a few "pryda" batten straps... thanx for your input by the way

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## sports fan

the builder obviously got 70 x 45s and ripped them in half to get 70 X  22 why dont you do the same?  nail on with two framing nails to each rafter is plenty of fixing unless your in a high wind area

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