How To Install Redland's Uni-Vent Rapid Ridge

The Redland Uni-Vent Rapid ridge and hip pack is a 10m pack that works, as the name suggests, on both our ridge and hip – one system for both details. It also works with half-round and uni-angle tiles, to give us a huge amount of flexibility in one box. The first component in our Uni-Vent Rapid ridge and hip pack is our batten strap. They come in the box and we’re installing them as we have here, over our ridge batten, to keep it firmly in place. This creates a firm fix on the timber, into which we will mechanically fix our ridge or hip.

The Dry Roll

So once we have our ridge batten firmly installed, our next step is to install the dry roll. As we can see, the dry roll has gauze in the centre, to allow the breathability, we have a tape running down the centre of that gauze, to line up with our ridge batten, and then a corrugated tap with a butyl fix underneath on both sides, to adhere to the tile surface. This will weatherproof our system while allowing some breathability through the gauze at the top. Starting at the end of the ridge, we line up our roll, ensuring the central tape stays on line with the ridge batten. Once it’s in place, we can remove the first bit of the tape here from the corrugated tape underneath and fix our butyl to the end of the roof, at the edge of our verge. When installing the dry roll, we take it out along the ridge batten, always ensuring the central tape here is lined up with the batten itself beneath. Then when fixing the system to a profile tile, like we have here, we pull the tape out and we first fix the butyl to the top of the roll, before then working the corrugated tape evenly into the troughs between. By doing this, we maintain a nice, even line across the roof. We’ve taken the roll out to the other end of the roof and then once we reach the other end, we’ll cut it clean with enough spare material to lap over the edge of the verge.

Ridge-To-Ridge Seal

Now we’ve installed our dry roll, we need to assemble our ridge-to-ridge seal. First of all, we have the flexible plastic seal, which sits in between our ridge tiles, designed to carry any excess liquid back onto the roof space. We have the metal clamping plate which fits over the top – very important we install this, because this is what gives the mechanical fix its strength. Then finally, the fix itself – we have the screw which we fix firmly into the top of the unit, and then that will be drilled down to fix the unit in place between the ridge tiles.

With our ridge tile firmly in place, we’re now going to fit our ridge-to-ridge seal. We take it under the ridge tile here and snap it into place, making sure that the mechanical fix is sitting above the ridge batten, and these two pips are sitting on top of the tile, holding it in place. Then, before we install our second tile, get a little bit of bite here on our mechanical fix – that will give us some rigidity when we start to put the next tile in. Bring the tile over, slot it into place, making sure these lips and a central clamping plate sit up above the tile. Make sure there’s a nice line on our tiles, sitting on the line of the tape here, then we can drive the mechanical fix home, to hold the system in place.

Conclusion

We’ve now completed the installation of our Redland Uni-Vent Rapid ridge and hip system. We’ve installed ridge system, we’ve got our batten straps holding that ridge batten down nice and tightly, to give us a secure fix. We’ve got our roll in place, our breathable membrane to allow the ventilation into our loft area, and we’ve also got our ridge-to-ridge seals installed in between each tile, to give a secure mechanical fix in accordance with BS5534. As well as all of that, we’ve now got a mortar-free, dry fix system which is providing a second fix for our perimeter tiles up here on the ridge.