Summary:

Roof is one of the main parts of a building constituting an assembly of components covering the top part of the building and protecting it from precipitations, wind and temperature fluctuations [Żeńczykowski 1976]. A roof is usually composed of a supporting structure and covering [Fuks 1971]. The supporting structure may be made of wooden, reinforced concrete or steel elements [Rycąbel 1971]. Roofs on rural buildings are most frequently wooden constructions. The roof covering is the outer layer of the roof directly covering the building top. The roof coverage is usually composed of two layers: the ground beam and insulating layer. The ground beam may be boards (rarely used now) or scantlings. The aim of the work was to present the most frequently used constructions of roofs and their coverage systems in rural buildings, their technical condition and tendencies in this respect. The examples were three gminas from the malopolskie province: Raciechowice, Łącko and Alwernia. The Author’s own field work results were used in the paper and data collected by students for their Master theses prepared under the author’ supervision. The investigations comprised: 64 agricultural holdings from the Raciechowice gmina, where every 20^th holding was randomly chosen from the Agricultural Holdings Register, 58 holdings from the Łącko gmina and 77 buildings from the Alwernia gmina. Field studies were conducted in 1998- 2004. The results of research were given in the further part of the work and particular attention was paid to the roof covering systems. The share of individual materials used for building roof coverings was diversified in individual gminas, as may be seen in the Table attached. It may be due to local conditionings, material accessibility on the market and tradition.