Editing Thatching (section)

===Disadvantages===
Thatched houses are harder to insure because of the perceived fire risk. In the UK, 50–80 thatched roofs are destroyed in house fires yearly.<ref>{{cite web |title=Thatching Advisory Service |url=http://www.thatchingadvisoryservices.co.uk/Thatch_Guide.asp |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121225205652/http://www.thatchingadvisoryservices.co.uk/Thatch_Guide.asp |archive-date=25 December 2012 |access-date=10 March 2013}}</ref> Because thatching is labour-intensive, it is much more expensive to thatch a roof than to cover it with slate or tiles. Birds can damage a roof while they are foraging for grubs, and rodents are attracted by residual grain in straw.{{citation needed|date=January 2023}}

[[Image:Lucy in the sky.jpg|thumb|right|Thatched hut in [[Lesotho]], Africa]]
New thatched roofs were forbidden in London in 1212 following a [[Early fires of London#The Great Fire of 1212|major fire]],<ref>{{cite web|url=http://users.trytel.com/~tristan/towns/florilegium/community/cmfabr08.html|title=Florilegium urbanum - Physical fabric - Regulations for building construction and fire safety |website=users.trytel.com|access-date=6 May 2018 |url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171026234132/http://users.trytel.com/~tristan/towns/florilegium/community/cmfabr08.html |archive-date=26 October 2017}}</ref> and existing roofs had to have their surfaces plastered to reduce the risk of fire. The modern [[Shakespeare's Globe|Globe Theatre]] is one of the few thatched buildings in London, but the Globe's modern, water reed thatch is purely for decorative purpose and actually lies over a fully waterproofed roof built with modern materials. The Globe Theatre, opened in 1997, was modelled on the original Globe, which was destroyed by a fire on a dry June night in 1613 when a burning wad of cloth ejected from a special effects cannon during a performance set light to the surface of the thatch. The nearby Rose Theatre was actually thatched with cereal straw, a sample of which was recovered by Museum of London archaeologists during the excavation of the site in the 1980s.<ref>{{Citation | first = John | last = Letts | title = Unpublished photos and sample records}}</ref>

Whether thatch can cope with regular snowfall depends — as with all roofing materials — on the strength of the underlying roof structure and the pitch of the surface. A law passed in 1640 in [[Massachusetts]] outlawed the use of thatched roofs in the colony for this reason. Thatch is lighter than most other roofing materials, typically around {{convert|7|lb/sqft|abbr=on|disp=flip}}, so the roof supporting it does not need to be so heavily constructed, but if snow accumulates on a lightly constructed thatched roof, it could collapse. A thatched roof is usually pitched between 45 and 55 degrees and under normal circumstances this is sufficient to shed snow and water. In areas of extreme snowfall, such as [[Minka#Roofing|parts of Japan]], the pitch is increased further.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.addictedtotravel.com/holidays/snow-country|title=Winter Japan at its Best|publisher=Addicted to Travel|access-date=7 September 2011|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120328175612/http://www.addictedtotravel.com/holidays/snow-country|archive-date=28 March 2012}}</ref>