Maintenance of Roof Tiles

Nothing will last unless you maintain it.

It is particular stressing on any exposed structures in tropical countries where rainfall is plenty, unbearable hot sun and high humidity. Furthermore, the poor environmental control, especially the burning of forests and emissions of burnt fuels, result in acidic rain.
My house semi-glazed roof tiles are now twenty years old, deterioration is now quite obvious. The light brownish zone is the result of the break-down of surface glaze and I can feel the sand coming out from the cement-sand concrete. This zone is likely due to the splash of rain water from sky and the upper roof. The black zone is due to the growth of moss and lichens, which turned black after death and firmly stick to the tile surface. This is in fact the most common problem of roof tiles. I remembered the neighbouring houses all used beautiful red roof tiles, but after 30 years, the roof all become black. I used dark grey tiles, so the colour change is not that obvious.

Normally, water and water jet is used to clean the black moss off, but in view of the danger of the steep slope, unsure concrete quality and water leakage into the house, I decided just to paint a coat of  Dulux Weather Shield roof paint over the roof tiles without removing the black moss.

Let's see how long it will last. At least, now it looks better. A coat of paint will definitely help the roof to last longer. 

But the cost of the paint is high. It costs about US$40 per 5 litre tin, I have to use 20 tins (100 litres) for a surface area of 12m x 20m on the upper roof.

Semi-glazed Concrete Roof Tiles and Surrounding Air

These roof tiles have served my house in Kuching for twenty years. The new upvc pipe was installed by the air-conditioner technician a few years back to discharge the condensed moisture from the air conditioner compressor. Drop by drop, this water created a hole in the semi-glazed roof tiles and now the water instead of being discharged away, it entered the ceiling below.
This shows how polluted and corrosive is our air moisture. 
What about us who breathe in the air with this moisture for the whole life? Are our lungs being badly damaged by this moisture? 

In order not to damage roof tile, it is recommended to extend the upvc pipe along the roof to the gutter or directly to the external drain.

The Borneo Highway

Finally, the Borneo Highway is taken off. It may take more than ten years to complete the 1000km, but at least there is a beginning. Four lanes will be ideal at current state.
People like me ,who travel often by road, have been cursing every time driving behind these slow vehicles or a convoy of lorries. You would be quite frustrated when the front vehicles travel at 30-50km per hour and yet could not overtake due to winding road. Sometimes when you overtake, these front vehicles also accelerate so as not to let you overtake, creating many dangerous situations. The Overtaking lanes are useless when these slow vehicles and lorries also suddenly speed up. Worst still, they don't go to the slow lanes. Slow lorries would also want to overtake slower lorries, blocking any over taking.

Fractured Phyllite

While most of the rock cores are quite fractured, there are few which are strongly bound together to form a nice core.

How thick is the Limestone bedrock?

This drilling is at the Satok area in Kuching, 11.9m earth on top over more than 30m Limestone bedrock. I wonder how thick is actually this Limestone layer, 100m or 200m thick or more. How long it took for the sea shell debris to accumulate to form such massive layer and beautiful rock?

Shaping of Earth Surface

I tended to think that Earth surface was shaped by tectonic movements, followed by water, wind and temperature, plus now the human actions. Humans could remove or build huge mountains with their monster machinery. But when I saw these two moulds built up (1m high) within a month, I have to add in the termite actions also contribute shaping of the earth surface significantly!

Although, the termites are small, but each working termite is like a bulldozer. When there are millions of them participating in the earthworks, the earth surface can be changed easily after 1 month. What about if this continues on for 100 million years?

Half Baked Phyllite

Phyllite is a metamorphosed rock baked from finely bedded Shale Rock. Quite often, the shale rock is not fully baked and its bedding layers can still  be seen.