Roofing in Ghana

Ghana stretches from a humid Atlantic coast and forest belt in the south to dry savanna in the north. Traditional roofs followed that gradient, with steep palm-frond and grass thatch over earth or wattle-and-daub walls in the forest zone, and earth or thatch in the savanna. In the 21st century the country is roofed almost entirely in metal sheet: in the public sample of the 2021 Population and Housing Census, more than four in five people lived in buildings with metal-sheet roofs.

Climate and hazards

The south has two rainy seasons and high humidity, which rot organic roofing and encourage mould and termites. The north has one rainy season, a long dry season and the dusty harmattan wind. Heat gain through thin metal roofs is a comfort issue across the country, and coastal buildings face salt-laden air that shortens the life of uncoated steel.

Roofing history

The best-documented historic roofs are those of the Asante kingdom, centred on Kumasi, which flourished in the 18th and 19th centuries. Drawings made by Thomas Bowdich in 1817 record its architecture. The surviving Asante shrine houses were originally covered with steeply pitched palm-frond thatch over walls of timber, bamboo and earth. In 12 of the 13 buildings UNESCO recorded, the thatch was later replaced with lighter, shallower corrugated iron, a small-scale picture of the shift that took place across the country during the colonial period and after independence in 1957.

Traditional and vernacular roofs

• Asante shrine houses: rooms around courtyards on raised plinths, with steep palm-frond thatch and earth walls decorated with bas-reliefs (see Asante traditional buildings).
• Thatch: in the 2021 census sample, about 3% of people still lived under thatch, palm-leaf or raffia roofs, and a small share under bamboo.
• Earth roofs: about 1.5% lived under mud or earth roofs.

Roofing today

The 2021 census asked for the main material used for the roof. In the census's 10% public microdata file (about 3 million person records, unweighted), the distribution was:

Main roof material	Share of persons
Metal sheet	82.8%
Slate/asbestos	8.2%
Thatch/palm leaves or raffia	3.2%
Cement/concrete	3.1%
Mud/mud bricks/earth	1.5%
Wood	0.6%
Roofing tiles	0.4%
Bamboo	0.2%

These are counts of people in the sample file rather than official weighted tables of dwellings. The 2017-18 Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey gives a similar picture at household level: in its file of about 13,200 households, 80.4% had metal, tin or corrugated iron roofs, 7.0% slate/asbestos, 4.4% thatch, palm leaf or raffia, 1.9% roofing shingles, 1.3% cement and 1.1% earth (unweighted counts). The second-largest category, "slate/asbestos", covers sheet roofing other than metal, while roofing tiles of any kind remain rare.

Codes, standards and regulation

Ghana's first comprehensive building code, the Ghana Building Code (GS 1207:2018), was launched in 2018. It was prepared by a 22-member technical team drawn from the Ministry of Works and Housing, the Ministry of Trade and Industry, the Ghana Institution of Engineers, the surveyors' and architects' institutes, the CSIR Building and Road Research Institute and the Ghana Standards Authority. It has 38 sections covering planning, design and construction of residential and non-residential buildings. The Ghana Standards Authority publishes and sells the code, and copies were distributed to metropolitan, municipal and district assemblies.

Industry

Ghana has local roll-forming and roofing-sheet businesses, and the cement industry publicly endorsed the 2018 building code.

Notable roofs

• Asante Traditional Buildings near Kumasi, on the UNESCO World Heritage List since 1980: rare surviving examples of the Asante thatched shrine house, most now under corrugated iron.

Local roofing terms

• metal sheet: the census term for corrugated or profiled metal roofing.
• raffia: raffia-palm leaves, recorded as a thatch material in the census.

Sources and gaps

Details of individual roofing manufacturers: published information is limited.

These census figures come from the public 10% sample file and are unweighted; Ghana Statistical Service housing reports would give official dwelling-level shares.