Plain Tiles with No Battens, Repair - is it possible ?

[rideforever]

Hi. Have the beginning of some dampness under this roof. House is 120 years old, this roof has no felt or battens, the slope is wooden boards and the tiles nailed straight on. Looks like the last 5 rows of tiles are losing nails and shifting, I'd like to replace just them (rather than redoing the roof which is okay) but is it possible? How can you hang them?
Cheers

 

[Wayners]

Do it properly.
Stick insulation in as well.
Not a difficult job.

 

[rideforever]

I was up on a similar roof last week it appears there are some good options.
This roof is double lapped which means about 1.5 " overlap of the 2nd tile, so you can no doubt get a self tapping screw through the gap with a strip of lead on it and use it to hang the tile.
Another option is to hang the tile with lead onto the tiles below but of course there is pressure on other tiles then and they could all go.
3rd option is to gripfix the tile in, possibly could be justified to get 5-10 years more life, perhaps using a bit of extra wood between the slope and tile to reduce amount of glue to use.
Dirty, but could be worth some years.
I would not recommend replacing a roof for one tile, but then so many people are in love with their financial suicide, just watch.