Single Vs Double Camber?

Dreadnought Only manufacture traditional single camber roof tiles.  This section explores the differences between single and double camber roof tiles.

Single Camber

The traditional shape of plain clay roof tiles is single camber.  The single camber was designed centuries ago to set the tiles firmly against each other, providing a firm barrier to driven rain and wind.  Single camber tiles impart a quality and established look to a roof, as it ages a roof picks up light random colouring from lichins, mosses and from the mellowing of the roof tile colours. With Dreadnought roof tiles, which are all naturally coloured through the firing process, subtle and random variations in colour also exist within the tile.  It is this subtle random colouring which imparts the established and quality appearance of a good plain clay tile roof.

Double Camber

Double camber plain tiles arrived following the post war growth in the use of concrete plain tiles which have a flat underside and a convex top surface.   Double camber is not a traditional feature of clay plain tiles, it was introduced on some plain clay tiles around 1985 and was marketed as “innovative”, however it adds a regimented ripple pattern across the surface of the roof, an appearance characteristic of concrete roofs.  Unlike the flat underside of a double camber concrete tile, double camber clay tiles have a concave underside, which forms a gap with the tiles in the course beneath. This reduces the resistance of the roof to driven rain and snow and increases the possibility of tiles being dislodged by the wind. 

Single and double camber roof tiles on the same roof.

On this roof the double camber tiles can be seen on the right, along side the original single camber clay tiles.  The ripple pattern, a product of the double camber, is apparent in this photograph.