Anyone got experience of Norfolk thatchers?

[Penners]

A penny has finally dropped about your fireboards which I'd assumed were some form of thatch sarking over the rafters...

Yes, AMc, that's how I envisaged them, too. Rafters, topped with sarking fire boards, topped with thatch (with an air gap under the thatch, as recommended by Stephen).

Many thanks for your info. I hadn't heard of Hardibacker.

 

[AMc]

Many thanks for your info. I hadn't heard of Hardibacker.

Its a (shhh cement based) tile backing board which is totally waterproof (& probably fireproof and bombproof). We used it to line our shower cubical and to cover the boxed in shower pipework in the other bathrooms. It comes in half sized boards partly because it's very expensive £30 a sheet (?) and very heavy so a full sheet would probably be a 2 man lift.
If you want to destroy a jigsaw blade then cutting a 6" diameter hole for a shower valve will turn a new blade into a flat, scorched bit of discoloured metal in a few minutes There is surely a better way but their website only mentioned their own knife blades and tools which I couldn't find to buy

I would imagine 'pink boards' as the builders called them would provide an effective barrier to stop fire spreading up into the thatch and would hold a burning thatch out of the attic for long enough for a smoke alarm to alert the occupier to vacate.

 

[Penners]

Many thanks for your info. I hadn't heard of Hardibacker.

Its a (shhh cement based) tile backing board which is totally waterproof.

Ah - so the same kind of product as Aquapanel, I imagine. http://www.aquapanel.com/index.php?lang=en&page=products&view=interior

I reckon that would be too heavy (and too expensive) to use as a fireproof sarking.