Russell presents a new concrete roof tile with the beauty of natural slate.

The start of 2008 sees the launch of Moray, a new range of Russell® concrete roof tiles from CEMEX UK, the leading building materials supplier. Many architects, designers and specifiers want a tile, such as Moray, which has the beauty and ‘feel' of natural slate, with the guaranteed long life expectancy of concrete at the lowest laid cost.

Moray is a thin-edged tile, which is greener by design. It was designed in-house and uses 40% less materials in the production compared to standard concrete tiles. As well as savings in materials, the more compact design gives ‘knock-on' environmental benefits such as reduced packaging, reduced transport as up to 25% more tiles can be stacked on a pallet and it is easier to handle.

As an interlocking tile, there are also additional savings when fitting Moray over slate tiles. A slate Aluminum Roof is often double or triple lapped so more tiles per roof are required which means more tile costs, labour costs and complex fitting. It is estimated that the average roof requires from 70% more slate tiles than Moray and will take twice as long to fit.

The new tile has a fine ‘ribbon' design imitating slate and is available in the natural colours of black, grey and anthracite. Moray is a derivative of two existing CEMEX premium ranges of Lothian and Galloway, all of them named after areas in Scotland, reflecting the location of the production plant at Lockerbie.

As a Premium range it is anticipated that Moray will be used by roofing contractors and house builders on a whole range of developments from individual houses through to bigger developments such as nursing homes. For architects, the inclusion of Moray with its thinner profile, gives the roof line a more graceful and neat profile