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Iron wood shingles or sirap are one of the traditional roofing materials of Indonesia. Ironwood is known locally as Kayu Besi or Ulin. It is one of the world’s most durable timbers.

Originating from Kalimantan (Borneo) these shingles have been used for hundreds of years by the locals there for traditional housing. The Dutch colonials introduced them to the rest of the archipelago and they are now found on many large government buildings as well as high class houses.

The roof has four overlapping layers of shingles. It has a serviceable lifespan of at least thirty years.

35 year old roof in Surabaya

Tropical Building Systems uses these shingles for the majority of projects that it has been commissioned to build. In our quest to provide as complete a prefabricated product as possible we have incorporated two very unusual and significant features in the shingle product we offer.

Traditionally, the battens are laid on the roof and then the shingles are nailed one by one to these battens.

Tropical Building Systems provide the shingles already glued (water resistant glue) and stapled (stainless steel staples) to 20mm x 30mm x 2900 mm Bangkirai battens. These are then easily and qickly laid over the rafters, utilising our innovative system for joining battens, and cutting the onsite application time down to approximately 20% of normal practice. 
 

Shingles on battens packed for shipping

Additionally, we glue a strip of aluminium foil insulation (sarking) to the top of each batten. When the roof is laid this insulation overlaps, effectively providing an extra layer of climate protection inside the layers of shingles.
This is particularly useful when designs call for exposed ceilings.

Glueing aluminium insulation to shingles on battens

We have produced many different styles of sirap covered prefabricated roofs incorporating three different styles of ridge and hip capping. The options are a built up shingle ridge, a flush shingle ridge and a timber capped ridge.

Different styles of ridge and hip cappings

Shingles exposed underneath - no lining

Two types of rattan lining

Bamboo bedeg lining