Roofing in Saint Lucia

Saint Lucia is a mountainous volcanic island in the Windward Islands. Like its neighbours it builds for hurricanes, heavy rain and earthquakes, and its building code derives from the Eastern Caribbean model codes.

Climate and hazards

The OECS code's preface notes that the Eastern Caribbean islands are frequently hit by hurricanes, that some face earthquake risk and two have volcanic hazards, and that many low-income homes sit in gullies and flood plains exposed to flooding in heavy rain.

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

Light metal-sheet roofs on timber framing remain common across the OECS states, with hurricane straps tying rafters to ring beams recommended in regional guidance.

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. Saint Lucia was adapting the OECS code to its own procedures with CDMP help, and the 2015 revision was prepared for Saint Lucia among others.

Sources and gaps

Published accounts of historic and Indigenous roofing specific to Saint Lucia: published information is limited. National roof-material statistics were not found in published sources.

Island-specific roofing history, materials data and the current legal status of the code: published information is limited.