Product focus: Hallhooks!
Midland Lead adds innovative Hallhook invention to ancillary portfolio
Here at Midland Lead, we’re constantly on the lookout for new and innovative roofing and building products to add to our extensive portfolio of ancillaries.
As such, we’re happy to announce that joining our popular collection of roofing tools, care products and fixtures, is the ingenious Hallhook.
Invented by Jimmy Hall – an established product inventor boasting over 45 years’ experience working in the roofing industry – the Hallhook is a permanent, secret and failsafe device designed for use when replacing a broken slate.
Jimmy is perhaps best known for his very first invention, a lead fixing wedge called the Hallclip. Having now been trading for over ten years, selling in excess of 60 million Hallclip units, the company expanded its product range by introducing the Hallhook.
Similar to the thought process behind Hallclip, the idea for Hallhook came directly from experience. While working as a slater and tiler, Jimmy found that having tried all the slate repair options on the market, he was unable to find something that didn’t ruin the look of a beautiful slate roof.
He tried lead and copper straps, but found them unsightly and that they weakened over time. Plastic products were also unsightly, visible and time consuming to install, and a blob of silicone was found to only last weeks, so wasn’t deemed a professional roofing repair. He also experimented with metal fixings on the market, but found many were flimsy, while others took too much time, being awkward to prepare. And if wrongly prepared, he found the head of the slate could slip off the upper batten. Finally, he found that fixing with a slate hook involved trimming the head of the slate, thereby losing some head lap; something a building inspector may not accept.
So, after experimenting with all manners of ideas and devices, using his wealth of knowledge, he developed a solution that is not only undetectable on the finished roof, but also saves the professional roofer time, money and inconvenience.
The key times you’ll want to replace a roof slate with Hallhook will be:
- For general repair
- After solar panel bracket mounting
- After roof light/window installation
- After installing slate vents
If you’d like to find out how to use the Hallhook and read more about it or any of our other ancillary products, please visit http://www.midlandlead.co.uk/products/ancillary/hallhook/ or feel free to call us on +44 (0) 1283 224 555.
