How long does a thatched roof last? Woven reeds provide much more than Old-World charm to modern-day sheds, outbuildings, and homes learn how to thatch a roof with reeds.
My boots crunch through the first heavy snowfall of the year. I make my way through a woodland path and into the tidal marsh, a sharpened sickle in hand. Stems of reed plants lay bare, billowing in the blustery breeze. It’s reed-harvesting season once more.
I collect a series of stalks in my left arm as I use my right to swipe the sickle through the reeds. The cuttings create piles of reeds, called “fathoms,” about as large as I can reach my arms around to carry. Each fathom yields three or four bundles, or “yealms,” that I’ll use in the spring and summer months to thatch our cottage’s roof.
My infatuation with thatch started during a backpacking trip across Britain and Ireland with my now-wife, Sara, in 2014. We visited family friends in Somerset County, England, where we enjoyed picture-postcard villages adorned with flowing thatch roofs. In remote areas of Ireland, thatched cottages punctuate a background of gray sea, and these roofs called to me on the Isle of Mull in Scotland. Besides our own family ancestry that originally pulled us to this part of the world – with its rich culture, food, dance, song, agriculture, and craft – thatch offers me spiritual fulfillment. Its Old-World aesthetic is so alluring to the eye; I couldn’t lose it upon our return to the United States.
And so it is that I found myself in the marsh last winter.
Thatched roofs are essentially organic material layered on a structure to keep out the weather. They’re among the first types of roofs built by humans and were incredibly popular across much of the world until the industrial revolution made cheap metal roofing widespread. I think that should change.
How Long Does a Thatched Roof Last?
Most homes in North America these days are built using asphalt shingles or steel roof panels. The production of asphalt shingles results in 0.19 metric tons of carbon dioxide per ton of shingles (which pile into landfills when past their prime). By contrast, an acre of common reed will consume roughly 5 metric tons of carbon during a growing season. Asphalt roofs are rated to last 30 years, and metal roofs last around 50 years, while a well-laid water-reed-thatched roof will outlast both of them – often needing to be re-thatched after 50 to 70 years. And while shingle roofs can heat up in the hot sun to 60 degrees F above the ambient temperature, thatched roofs are excellent thermal insulators in both heat and cold, with an R-value of around 26 (when the thatch is about 12 inches thick).
Thatch doesn’t stipulate any one material; as it’s both noun and verb, I think of thatch as a process to keep water out of a home. Straw, heather, seaweed, rushes, and bracken (ferns) are all good thatching materials. But I’m of the opinion that nothing may be better to work with – or more available to use – than reed.
A Useful Invasive
Common water reed (Phragmites australis) has a bad rap in the wildlife-conservation community, perhaps for a few good reasons. It’s an incredibly prolific plant that isn’t native to the United States. It colonizes important tidal marsh environments and outcompetes nearly every species. When the plants reach maturity, feathery seed heads are released into the wind or dropped onto the ground to get pulled and spread through the tides. It’s challenging to get rid of, and conservation groups sometimes deem eradicating water reed a losing battle. This is why I meticulously cut every seed head on the reed I harvest – so I don’t spread seeds to other locations. With that said, I might offer a somewhat controversial and nuanced opinion of phragmites and why this plant should receive more appreciation than disdain.
Reed is an astonishingly resilient plant that grows nearly everywhere on Earth, including in salty runoff along highways and in urban areas. It sequesters nitrogen, heavy metals, and carbon while also stabilizing soils. For these reasons, reed is often used in greywater systems.
For thatching purposes, cutting reed beds annually creates a better reed crop for roofing and a healthier marsh as each year’s growth is removed from the environment, making it less suppressive and allowing other grasses, such as sedge, to grow. Only when reed beds are left year after year without being harvested do they begin to suffocate everything around them, including themselves.
Getting Into the Reeds
The rhythm of reed-gathering goes something like this: Take loose fathoms of reed into tightly trimmed yealm bundles. I like to prop a small plywood jig upright using two willow branches pushed into the mud to keep it from falling over. At the top, make a U-shaped cut in the plywood about 8 inches around. Take a loose reed and place it into the jig, cut end up, continuing until the jig is entirely filled.
Tie a bundle tightly with twine, and drop it forcefully onto the ground twice (and perhaps once more) to nudge all the cut ends down evenly. Then, lay the bundle the opposite direction into the jig, with the feathery seed tops upward, and tie it up tight a second time about 2 feet higher than the first. Chop off the feather heads, and dispose of them as needed or leave them behind. And so you will proceed, again and again and again, filling, tying, thumping, tying, cutting.
The flow from each step to the next is a dance until your thoughts begin to wander. The cold breeze becomes unnoticeable to you as the sun sets into the golden hour of vibrant orange and yellow hues.
Thatched Roof Construction Details
To thatch your own roof, start by sorting a few basic tools and materials. Unless you’re going for an ultra-traditional approach, consider procuring a waterproof membrane to cover your roof before you begin (as you would for most other roofing systems). Thatching takes an incredible amount of time – even longer during a first attempt – so splurge for a good membrane that offers the security of long-lasting protection.
The tools I use are quite simple and easy to come by:
- Battery-powered drill
- Stainless-steel screws
- 12-inch drill bit (long enough to get through the reed to the roof sheathing)
- 16-gauge stainless-steel wire
- Rebar wire-twister tool
- Knife
- Angle grinder
- Galvanized hog panels
- “Leggat,” or a plank of wood with a handle (that you can make from scrap wood)
The novice thatcher must make a series of decisions based on the individual roof: What features protrude from the roof? Are there any vent pipes? Do you have (or want) skylights or dormers?
All of these specifics to the roof may involve a bit more ingenuity, but in general, the basic process I’ve used to “straight-coat” thatch – build a section of roof that has no protrusions or complicated angles – goes like this:
- Lay out every yealm bundle side by side across the roof. Hold them in place with a long rod cut from the hog panel. Secure the rod with a short piece of wire wrapped around a screw and tensioned with the wire-twister tool.
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- Individually cut and shape the twine on the yealms into place so the pitch of the reed tips follow the same pitch as the roof. Ultimately, you’ll want the pitch of your roof to be at least 45 degrees, or water won’t properly run off.
- After the yealms are secured, use the leggat to beat the butt ends of the reed just how you like them to stay – becoming a monolithic mat. After you’ve reached the end of the row, begin a new row (as you would using shingles), and complete the same process all the way to the ridge of the roof. Each yealm roughly equals a square foot of coverage.
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- Bury each successive rod in the next layer’s reed so no metal “fixings” are exposed to the elements.
Of course, I’m not a master thatcher, which is a respected profession in much of Europe and Britain. I’m a self-taught enthusiast who isn’t as concerned with blemishes and mistakes. It’s more important to me to preserve this special craft in an approachable way for myself and others.
Handmade Heritage
Up on the rooftop, I gaze out over our 14-acre homestead. Cows and sheep graze the pasture, geese patrol the yard, and my wife and son eat cherry tomatoes in the garden. Just a few more bundles to go, a couple of twists of the wire, another good batting of the leggat, and I’ll be able to hop down off this cascading abundance of yellow grass to join my family in celebration.
I could tell you how many hours I spent on this thatched roof, but instead I’ll say this: I’m finishing the task feeling liberated about joining generations of humble people who’ve used local materials to put a roof over their heads. Thatching allowed me quite a lot of time to put my other problems by the wayside.
I assure you that if you’re keen, this is something that you, too, can accomplish. Consider thatching a shed or outbuilding!
Nathaniel B. Munro is an agrarian writer and homesteader striving to live a deeper, more connected life along with his family in Maine.
Originally published in the March/ April 2025 issue of Grit magazine and regularly vetted for accuracy.
