Roofing in Antigua and Barbuda

Antigua and Barbuda are low limestone islands in the Leeward Islands, directly exposed to Atlantic hurricanes. The country was among the first in the Eastern Caribbean to make an OECS-based building code mandatory.

Climate and hazards

Hurricane Irma struck Barbuda on 6 September 2017 as a Category 5 storm. A preliminary survey found over 40% of buildings in Codrington, the main town, severely damaged and only about 5% untouched. Roofs in general collapsed or were torn away, and corrugated iron roofing was bent and ripped off; most concrete buildings kept their walls, while timber structures collapsed. The whole island, up to about 2,000 people, was evacuated.

Roofing history

Throughout the Eastern Caribbean, older timber houses typically have steep hip or gable roofs clad first in wooden shingles and later in corrugated iron. Hip roofs, sloping on all four sides, are self-bracing and lack tall gable ends that catch the wind, and slopes of about 35 degrees or more are often preferred in hurricane regions because shallower roofs are more prone to uplift.

Roofing today

The Irma experience showed the contrast between concrete-walled houses and lightweight timber houses with sheet roofs.

Codes, standards and regulation

The Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS) developed model building codes and guidelines for small buildings with support from UNCHS and UNDP, based on the Caribbean Uniform Building Code (CUBiC). The USAID-funded, OAS-executed Caribbean Disaster Mitigation Project helped Antigua and Barbuda, Dominica, Grenada and Saint Lucia prepare national codes from these models, and published construction diagrams covering hip and gable roof framing, rafter-to-ring-beam and wall-plate connections and hurricane straps for houses under 3,000 ft² (279 m²). A revised OECS Building Code was issued in June 2015, reviewed that year for Grenada, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Saint Lucia and Montserrat, and drew on the codes of Jamaica and the Cayman Islands. National consultations on administering it were held across the sub-region in 2017 under the EU-funded iLand Resilience project. Antigua and Barbuda's national code was submitted to government in summer 1995 and made mandatory for all buildings through regulations under the Development Control Ordinance.

Sources and gaps

Published accounts of island-specific historic roofing: published information is limited.

Roofing history, material statistics and current code edition: published information is limited.