Author: Shaun

Stud Walls Built to help Extend Conservatory

We resumed work on building up the stubby stud walls, on the newly formed concrete block work and foundations, in order to help support the upcoming extension to the Gable Roof sticking out the “P” section of the roof (over the Great Room).
The new stud walls are 900mm wide and we used our nominal 2″ by 4″ preservative treated timber to put together a framework that bolted onto the 140mm wide concrete blocks and reaching up to the eves. It is attached up the full height to a post added to the inside of the main house.

Framework-for-Q-walls

Attached-to-extra-post-inside

We put on two layers of sheet material on the outside, the first one being 12mm plywood which we glued and nailed directly onto the framework and then the second layer was a sheet of 12mm thick cement board to provide the weather proofing and we glued around the edges with more PU glue and then nailed with plenty of nails to provide a strong solid racking to support and brace the main building and conservatory both.

Completed-Q-walls

We finished by lunch time Wednesday and the next job is to make the downpipe channels using our Oak timber to form the interface to our guttering system, but before then we have to move all the scaffold platform modules.

29 May 2019
Section O Battened Up, Gutters Cleaned, Platforms All Tidied Up and Conservatory Stud Walls Started!

Monday, we got on with the task of putting on the three strips of the breathable membrane across the O section, all held down by vertical counter battens.

O-mostly-Battened

Then by Tuesday lunch time, we got all the horizontal tile battens nailed into place too.
The remaining of the day was spent tidying up everything off the working platforms because we will have to move and adjust all our platform modules to go along the “P” section of the roof and around to the front of the building along the “A” section too.
The reason we are doing this now, before we have completed the task of putting up the Slates on the last bit of N and all of O, is because we need to make our “bull-nose” fibre-glass and rubber flashing protection covers that goes along both diagonal hips (the N-O and O-P hips) plus also along the ridge line between the N and P rooves and we haven’t got the “P” section done at all. We need at least the breathable membrane strips in place so it can overlap at each boundary before the flashing battens can be put into place.
This is why we are having to stop at this point and start work on the P roof.
But .. ..
On Wednesday, we realised that before we dismantled the platform modules, we took the opportunity of cleaning up the gutters, both inside and outside! There are loose nails, slate fragments and lots of wood splinters lying in the gutters, and also the joints still has the hardened glue sticking out in various places. So the morning was spent scraping and sanding the glue and smoothing the joints with chisels and sanding machines and then using a pressure washer, and a cloth filter plugged into the top of the downpipes at the back of the gutter channels, we blasted all the bits and pieces along.

Debris-from-gutters

More-debris-and-Filter-unit

In the afternoon, we also saw that we could finish off the metal mesh coverings over the gutters and screw down the oak “caps” to lock the mesh and rubber down. We also put in twice as many stainless steel dome head screws as previously to provide a stronger pressure and keep the cap tight down in more places.

O-Battened-and-gutter-mesh-installed

And here’s the time lapse…

Sooo that means we are ready to move the platforms around .. NOT!!
Another realisation is to do with the design of the valley troughs (the fibre-glass modules) and the minimum required space and clearance its needed to do its job properly. Actually, we had realised this several weeks ago so we have been thinking on this problem to how to adjust the Conservatory gable end around on the “P” section of the roof.

Conservatory-gable

We came to the conclusion that we needed to extend outwards the gable end another 300mm. Also it was felt that we really ought to build out the perpendicular stub walls that forms the start of the Conservatory and will fully support the sticking out section of roof, especially loaded with the extra Slates.
So Thursday and Friday, we dug out two trenches on both sides of the position of the Conservatory’s walls, removed the plastic rainwater pipes and the sand was compacted using a thumper and levelled off.

Conservatory-Hole-dug-for-foundation

We constructed rectangular frames to hold the concrete that will form the foundations. Then we put in three reinforcing bars in each framework (holes through the narrow wooden end and holes in the concrete blocks of the main wall). This will both help strengthen the foundation but also provide a connection point when we come to do the rest of the Conservatory later on. These foundations are only 1500mm and 1700mm long strips as we couldn’t go any further without going into our massive mountain of sand and soil we got piled up at the top of the garden!

Conservatory-Foundation-shuttering

So the last task on Friday morning was to mix nine builders buckets of sharp gravel and three bucket of cement and pour in the concrete to set over night.

Conservatory-Foundation-Finished

On Saturday, we pulled out 21 concrete blocks from our swimming lane storage yard, split four of them in half and got everything ready, including sieving three buckets of soft sand from our own natural sand dune we got in our garden ! We then prepared the foundations for the walls stripping the form work and marking them for the right angle from the wall.

Conservatory-Foundation-stripped

One wall is just a simple staircase arrangement of the blocks, starting with three and an half along the bottom (hence why the foundation needed to be 1700mm long) and the fourth and final row is just two blocks wide. This is what we want regarding how far out we need the stud walls, a distance of 900mm. The new wall is attached to the old one with a stainless steel strip bolted to the old wall which has ‘L’ brackets to embed in the mortar of the new wall.

Conservatory-Front-wall-start

The other blocks had to be laid down slightly differently because there is the Conservatory doorway positioned here, so we needed the two final rows to be both two block wide and then the usual staircase effect there after with the bottom line being just three blocks long (and the foundation only 150mm long).

Conservatory-back-wall-start

The last job of the day (and week!) was to mix more high strength concrete and pour them into the hollow columns inside the concrete blocks themselves. Oh yes, we also moved the extracted sandy soil back around the new walls and levelled the ground back up again.
Did you notice the walls are higher than those of the house? This is to get the sill of conservatory the same height as the house windows…

So next week, weather permitting, we will build up the wooden framework of the stud walls and connect them to the roof above and then we can start moving the platform modules – hurrah!

25 May 2019
M Section All Done and N Half Way There

On Monday, we resumed work on the M section of the roof. The first job was to cut, trim and seal the fibre-glass trough module to fit the top of the valley and while the resin was curing, put up more slates. After lunch, the modified third piece of the valley trough was fitted and we then finished off the small triangular patch to complete the whole of the M section. This piece of roof has over 1800 slates on it. this now means we have covered approximately 30% of the whole roof.

M-Complete

For the final couple of hours left on Monday, we swapped our tools over to begin nailing up the tile battens up on the next section, the N part.

N-partial-battening

Tuesday saw the completion of the tile battens nailed into place and then we started on putting on the slates.
But we spotted something very odd in our gutters.

N-Gutter-Bulging-rubber

The rubber liner had “swollen” up in a bubble and when we had lifted up the metal mesh, realised that it was water underneath the rubber membrane, sitting on the oak. We had never noticed it before and we had to wonder where and how the water got into and behind all the layers of the breathable membrane up on the roof. Did this mean a hole somewhere? Did this mean a sealed joint wasn’t holding? Well, we got the vacuum cleaner out to sucked out the water and made sure that no more was lurking elsewhere.
Then we got out our garden hose and emulated a very heavy rain shower by spraying water from the top of the ridge line and all the way down the hip, to make sure that all the breathable membrane was fully covered in running water. We then waited over lunch for any developments.
After lunch, the verdict was no signs of any more water bubbling up behind the rubber. We can only put down this experience to a moment when we was putting up the membrane in the first place several weeks ago (by reviewing our photo gallery) and there is a possibility that one night, there was a short sharp shower and managed to allow a small amount (about 100millilitres) of rain water to slip behind the top line of membrane up the top of the roof, where the ridge line wasn’t covered until the following day.

We will have to keep an eye on this but nothing materialised during our water test and beside, as soon as we have put on all the slates, it will be fully waterproof anyway.
We put back the metal mesh over the gutters again and resumed the job of putting on the slates, starting at the valley end and working up the diagonal. We have also learnt our lesson about providing a fixed reference marks for the left end of all the rows by projecting up a vertical line and then measuring back from this one reference line, to all the starting points on the left end of each tile batten.

N-slating-started

Wednesday and Thursday were taken up with Stephen’s Birthday and meetings but on Friday we got back to putting up more slates and continuing up the valley.

N-Slating-valley-slated

We managed to get the complicated valley all done and covered most of the N section with slates by Saturday afternoon. We had to stop because we ran out of room and we couldn’t get up and over on to the N section to complete the last few rows.

N-Mostly-slated

So for the remaining of the afternoon, we got on with the task of putting the rubber liner inside the gutter on the next section, the “O” section, and put up one central counter batten. This central batten was special because we couldn’t just nail it into place as the underlining structure, at this particular point, has a thick steel plate that reinforces the rafters. This means that nails straight down cannot penetrate into the rafter and secure the counter batten into place. instead, we used glue plus nails and positioned the batten slightly offset to one side. We fired extra-long nails at a slanting angle to hit and grip wooden rafter, bypassing the steel plate on the front of the rafter.

O-gutter-lined

Next week, we will put up the breathable membrane, secured down by more vertical counter battens and then put all the horizontal tile battens right across the O section and we can climb this to complete the N roof, and also put another 500 slates on the O roof.

And here’s this week time lapse…

18 May 2019
Starting on M Section

Today, at the start of a new week, under a wet cloudy chilly sky, we finished putting up the tile battens on the M section of the roof, all before lunch time.

Battens-complete-on-M-1

Battens-complete-on-M-2

After lunch, we started putting up the slates, going up the valley and in the three or so hours of the afternoon, we managed 32 rows with two or three slates in each. It is a slow job measuring and fitting the slate into the angled valley, we got a good way up with about 19 rows to go.

First-few-slates-on-M-End-day-6

Tuesday saw the installation of the kerb flashing along the Skylight, made up of a strip of rubber and a line of aluminium strips in front, both mounted on wooden short batten pieces spaced out every 500mm (see 1:29 in video).

Then in the later part of the afternoon, we finished off the valley rows and also finally, fitted the last couple of slates over on the I roof and the final ridge flashing slate along the J roof.

Left-Valley-completed-End-day-7

All day Wednesday and Thursday morning was a complete wash out in terms of working on the roof but we did instead do some analysis of the task in doing the windows (see Sorting Oak Timber for Windows) so wasn’t a complete waste of time.
Thursday afternoon, we resumed work on the roof and finished off the complex intersection of the K ridge line meeting with the valley coming up the L and M section of the roof. After that, we were able to mount approximately 300 slates in just two hours to conclude the day’s work. That was fast work!

Progressing-across-M-End-day-8

Friday also had some rain interruptions and we lost a couple of hours in the afternoon. But we still managed to get a further 500 slates up on the M roof, we are well started up the other valley (the M-N valley) now but probably still have another 800 slates to go to finish this roof section.

Starting-up-Right-Valley-End-day-9

On our final day Saturday, we continued putting up more slates, working up the valley, with shorter and shorter strips and in total we did about another 500 slates. There is just a fairly small triangle patch of roof left to do.

Nearly-finished-M-End-day-10

But we did have a short pause where we had to analyse why the position of one row of slates was slightly off (you will see the moment in the video below) and this is the first time it has happened. We concluded that the beginning of the horizontal row was not started in the correct position, we realised that there was too much of a risk of drifting whenever we start a new row on the left end. The lesson learnt today will help set up the next section of roof properly and mark the starting point on the left ends of each row from a known reference vertical line in the middle of a roof section.
In conclusion for this week’s work, we could have done the whole of the M roof section if we had not had the rain interruptions on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.
Now enjoy the video of us dashing about on the roof!

11 May 2019
Sorting Oak Timber for Windows
Because we had an interruption of work outside, due to rain all day Wednesday and also Thursday morning, we switched over to doing alternative work indoors. This time, we tackled the task of sorting out the design and quantity for the Oak timber used in our windows in the house. The windows will be our next task to do after we have finished putting the slates on the roof.

We have 13 windows as follows:
- 9 large windows, 1700mm wide
- 2 medium windows, 1100mm wide
- 2 small windows, 500mm wide
They all have a height of 1600mm and are set at 500mm above the floor level.

This is the basic design of all windows (showing the front and side cross-sectional views)

The glass we are planning to use is triple glazing units which measures 50mm thick so some adjustments is needed to the framing to accommodate this. We had originally planned to use double glazing, one on the outside and one on the inside. But we can get better performance in thermal insulation using the triple glazing units at barely higher prices since triple glazing is becoming more popular.

The Oak timber summary (of 2m long planks) is:
- 12 pieces of 50 x 160 mm for the sills
- 12 pieces of 50 x 160 mm for the lintels
- 26 pieces of prime 35 x 95 mm for vertical framing pieces
- 52 pieces of 20 x 90 mm for the octagon “covers”
- 52 pieces of 25 x 20 mm for the glass beading
We will start processing these oak pieces whenever we have rain in the future and build up a stockpile inside our dry house, ready for the day when we do the windows!
9 May 2019
Proceeding with L to N Roof Sections

For our week’s work, we got on with the next three sections, the L, M and N which forms a U shaped inset. We first got all the tile battens up on L section and then used up the remaining full length battens we had up on the platform to do the first eleven lines on the M roof, all by Monday lunch time.
We then started putting up the slates on the L slope, to have a change of job as it can get painful on our muscles in our legs having to crouch down, especially doing the slates.

N-End-of-Day-2

Being such a short section of the roof, we are having to stop and start a new diagonal strip of slates quite often (starting at the valley and stopping at the hip), and that slows us down considerably. By the end of Tuesday, we estimated to have put up only about 280 slates for a day and a half of work.

N-End-of-Day-3

Wednesday saw the “almost” completion, with another 300 slates, of the L strip of roof, only leaving a small triangular bit right up at the top of the valley. We needed to cut and trim the third small length of the fibre-glass trough to fit, modifying one batten to make sure the trough will go as high as possible to ensure capture of all the rain water.

N-End-of-Day-4

On the next morning, on Thursday, we trimmed off the bull nose middle part of the trough and reapplied a new layer of fibre glass woven mesh and dark grey resin to seal up and form a solid waterproof trough again.

Top-of-N-M-Valley

While the resin was hardening, we spent most of the day (running late into the afternoon because we thought there was going to be a heavy rain shower mid-afternoon plus also we had a meeting to attend) putting up lots and lots of tile battens up on the M section. We used thirty or so full length battens to cover almost the whole of this section and only has the left-over bits to fill in next week.
After our late lunch, and no sign of the rain, we took out our new modified trough out and fixed it into place and then continued putting in the final fifty slates or so to completely finish the whole of the L section, including nearly all the flashing tiles too. The final part of the intersection of the four roof sections will be completed when we reach it with the slates on M next week, as we need to know exactly were the slates meet.

N-Complete-Nearly

The next two days (Friday and Saturday) were washed out so we didn’t fancy working in the wet and slipping on the battens. We will resume next week on Monday and finish putting the tile battens on M and then start slating that segment next. We have covered about twenty percent of the roof (4 segments) so far but it will jump to about thirty-three percent when we get both the M and N sections finished, which hopefully won’t be too long in coming.

And we have resumed shooting daily videos of our work so here are the time lapse versions for you to watch…

4 May 2019
Flashing for J Hip Complete and the K Roof all Covered in Slates

We started the new week by finishing off the “Hat” covering the Hips for J-K and K-L as well as the ridge between J-L roof slopes. We filled in the little pin holes in the top of the bull nosed with plastic padding filler, rubbed it all down and coated with another top glossy finishing coat of the resin.

Then we designed and constructed a template tool for making nail holes in a slate. These slates are the flashing slates to go up the hips to cover up the rubber membrane and the jagged edge of the main slates and provide rain protection at these joints.

Hip-Flashing-slate-hole-punch-1

Hip-Flashing-slate-hole-punch-2

We tested out our new tool by preparing about sixty slates to go up the J side of the Hip and Ridge which we duly went and installed them all!

Roof-J-Complete

After that, we got on with slating the K roof, like for example, on Wednesday, we did managed to put up an estimated 500 slates in a single day session which is amazing!

Roof-K-Half-Done

But it took another whole day (Thursday) to complete the K section, including all the flashing tiles. The bulk of the roof was just, almost, simply shoving the slates onto their hooks, but reaching the other Hip meant lots and lots of fiddling with angles and slicing slates to fit the last piece into place.

Roof-K-Done-1

Roof-K-Done-2

Roof-K-Done-3

We are calling it a 2 day session to fully put up all the estimated 800 slates for the K segment so that is pretty good for us but we could beat that record when we get around to the front of the building for even bigger sections of roof to do!

Finally, we started filling in the tile battens on the L and M roof so we could start on slating them next week .. but Storm Hannah came along to disrupt our work with strong winds and rain showers so we only managed to do a couple of hours on Saturday morning!!

27 April 2019
Gutter Mesh Protector Installed, Corrected Alignment of M-N Valley Trough and Hips plus Ridge “Hat” Created for J K and L Roof Sections

It was a week of lovely dry weather. We started the week by tidying the workshop and completing the making of the Ladder Support stainless steel brackets and setting out strings to get the hip flashing straight (The roofs wobble a bit).

Skylight-safety-wire-supports

String-to-align-hips

We tackled the next job of putting on the metal Mesh Protector over the guttering where we went along the K section, round the corner into L. Then from one valley (L-M) to the other valley corner (M-N) .. ..

Gutter-complete-on-K

Gutter-complete-on-L

But before the mesh went down in around the bottom of the valleys, we had to nail into place the glass-fibre trough modules, the first section at least. But we discovered when we came to do the M-N valley that the angle was all wrong. We tried to be too clever when we laid down the counter battens to support the trough, but our lack of experience, and lack of double checking the theory, we shifted the position sideways so that the valley line would be centred to the gutter and downpipe channel! This was Wrong! it made the intersection of the slates different heights… So we spent the morning doing some open surgery on our roof, peeling back the layers of breathable membranes, moved the wooden battens and realigned it.

Incorrect-MN-valley-Before-work

Incorrect-MN-valley-All-opened-up

Incorrect-MN-valley-Fixed

The new angle of the trough now means that the two roof surfaces of the slates coming in towards the valley point are both at the same height and meeting point and makes (will do) a neat line down the valley.
We resumed the interrupted task of covering up the gutters with the metal mesh and finished three quarters along the N section just before the N-O outside corner. We haven’t done the O gutter with its rubber liner yet.

MN-Valley-installed-and-gutter-finished

LM-Valley-installed

We had one day of interruptions with a meeting in the morning and putting up the sun shield on our temporary living quarters but we resumed the work, this time, making a rain protective “Hat” for all our Hips and Ridges around the house, we have twelve Hips and five Ridges in total! This is part of providing a flashing system using slates and a layer of rubber membrane and this “hat”. We decided to go with this design because we needed to minimise the effect of the wobbly edges when they come together on the Hips and Ridges, which will be covered up the exposed cut slates of the roof surfaces, with a line of straight slates running up the Hips and along the Ridges. The hat will be a vertical piece of 19mm (¾”), strip with a rounded top (made from an OSB sheet). This is then covered over with a 150mm wide woven glass-fibre ribbon which will get coated in the dark grey resin. This combined object is sitting on top of a 400mm wide strip of rubber membrane.
We stapled down each of the layers, then using short iron wire pieces, fixed to the underside of the bull nosed strips, was bent to provide a stiff anchorage method of holding the hat upright position against the various angles of the roof surfaces coming together.

Hip-hat-support-wood

Support-wood-installed

Fibreglass-tape-in-place

The whole thing then got coated with two applications of a flexible roofing resin before applying a top coat finish. Looking at the results, we think we ought to put on another coat of the finishing resin to make sure we haven’t left any pin holes behind to let rain water in.

Hip-hat-finished-1

Hip-hat-finished-2

Finally, on the last corner of the back of the building, the O-P outside corner, we sliced off the layers of plywood that made up the hip support, put on a layer of heavy glass-fibre matting and then coated the whole thing with black top coat finish. All rubbed down and smooth, ready for going along the P section towards the Conservatory.

OP-Gutter-corner-fibreglassed

This means now that we can insert the last strip of rubber liner for the gutter along the O section and put on the breathable membrane and battens to have this section of O roof ready for slating too.
Next week, we can resume the job of putting up thousands of Slates for the K slope (and L, and M, and N, and O too!), and doing the flashing slates a the same time as we climb up the roof. We are Getting There!!

20 April 2019
Sun Shield Installed and very Minor roof repairs done on Living Quarters

Today, in the afternoon, we installed the Sun Shield tarpaulin up over the long corridor in our temporary living quarters . It seems to be very early this year, but we were suffering in the collected heat of the sun pouring into our corridor!

But the first job was to repair the Sun Shield tarpaulin because the stitching we did last year had torn apart. Well actually, the thread had frayed and came apart due to excess loading when we had high winds.

So this time, we decided to try to glue the two pieces of the tarpaulin (2.5 metres wide by 5 metres long) using contact glue. We first tested this method on an spare bit of the similar tarpaulin and it seemed to be just fine, in fact, very strong indeed! Of course, we don’t know whether the glue joint will survive in the sunshine but we will give it a try.

So we proceeded to glue the two sections together (with a 150mm – 6inch – overlap) on top of our garage, on its flat roof where we had plenty of room, plus also we didn’t have to disconnect the tarpaulin from the first anchorage point.

But we discovered that when we pulled out the new combined piece, it wouldn’t reach the far end! Of course not, we nicked 6inches didn’t we! But fortunately, we had wrapped some excess amount of the material around the fixing batten so we undid the first anchorage point after all, unwrapped it one half turn to give us the extra back again and redid everything back.

We now have a Sun Shield and aaah h.. it is nice and cool! Sigh!

To finish off being on the roof of our temporary living quarters, we inspected the surface and did some very minor repairs in the felt and also took notice that we will have to do a major roof job soon, perhaps later on in the Summer, and lay some new strips of roofing felt as the current layer is definitely shrinking and pulling itself away from the glue line. It is after all 8 years, or even 10 years since we put on the felt so it has done very well!!

18 April 2019
Rubber Liner for Gutters and Breathable Membrane Covers L, M and N Roof Sections

The work this week was to cover the next three sections of the roof surface with the breathable membrane and protect the wooden Oak guttering with the required rubber material.
The rubber membrane was the first to go into the gutters, doing our usual order of gluing down the bottom surface first (using the wet rubber solution), followed by the much slower use of two layers of contact glue on the ends of each rubber strip. We had to paint the glue on and dry the exposed surfaces using a hair dryer to speed this process up and then carefully smoothly iron the rubber into place (using our hands and fingers). We finished all three gutters on Monday.

Gutter-rubber-installed-in-LM-N-1

Gutter-rubber-installed-in-LM-N-2

The subsequent days were spent laying on the dark grey breathable plastic membrane, row by row, around the three roof surfaces, fixing each section with vertical counter battens and a few lines of tile battens to act as a ladder for us to climb up and down easily.

One of the other jobs that had to be done was to finish off building up the hip and ridge layers of plywood strips to provide the fixings for the flashing slates, on the OP hip angle and the O Ridge line.

Membrane-and-Hips-and-Ridge-Done-on-N

Then we could complete the breathable membrane coverage on the N roof with a half width strip going over the ridge line and then doing the final strip of membrane on the M roof, a very long piece over 11metres (35feet) long and then a small 300mm wide strip to provide the complete protection up onto the kerb of the Skylight.

End-of-week-13th-April-1

End-of-week-13th-April-2

End-of-week-13th-April-3

End-of-week-13th-April-4

This week sees the completion of fully waterproofing sections of the roof along the back the building that is served three downpipes, so we are now collecting approximately 130 square metres (about 1/3 of the total) of rain water from the roof when any rain falls out of the sky!! This amounts to 130litres of rainwater for every 1mm of rain fall recorded!

Next week’s set of tasks is to finish off the stainless steel brackets for holding the ladder support wire (then we can clear up the tools in the workshop), make a flexible fibre-glass plastic hip and ridge “hat” strips and then carry on putting up more slates on the K section!

13 April 2019