Roselea

Category: Site Maintenance

  • A Mixed Bag of Tasks and Jobs Done This Week

    A week of a mixed bag of lots of little tasks, jobs and errands, with a mixed bag of super-hot days, thunderstorms and a cool damp day to finish the week!
    For the first job on Monday was to finish as much as possible the of the ‘P’ section of the roof, putting on several hundred more Slates. We couldn’t finish it as the last few columns need to have access from the other roof surface (the ‘A’ section along the front of the house) so we had to stop there and started the process of tidying up everything off the platform modules, ready for them to be moved.

    P2-Slated-as-far-as-we-can-go-now

    P2-Slated-as-far-as-we-can-go-now


    But first, after almost forgetting to do it, we washed out the finished gutters using the pressure washer and sanded smooth the joints (removing the expanded glue) and surfaces along the guttering. Then we removed all the edging plywood strips off our working platforms, removed all the screws joining the modules (there were eight of them) together and released them from the walls of the house too.
    But we couldn’t move them for two reasons number 1 was that we had two crate’s full of Slates were in the wrong position, or rather, they clashed with the need to locate the line of our working platform to go along the front of the house and secondly, the old little covered storage hut (containing sheet materials) was blocking the route when we needed to move the eight modules around to the front.
    So the next job was to make a new storage rack inside the house, this time, a four layered construction with room for a large pallet on the concrete floor for the cement boards.
    After the external storage hut was emptied, we took it apart and recycled some of the bits and screws but most of it was beyond use and carried away ready for burning or other items put into the rubbish bins.
    Now the next job was to empty two crates of Slates and we moved about 3200 of them and piled them on top of our other four crates. We used our large flat bed trolley to help us with that massive heavy job!
    Slates-moved

    Slates-moved


    Now at last, we could move the eight modules, one at a time. We made it easier for us by clamping a wooden bar across the legs and carrying each one the long way around the house. The eight modules gave us the scope to work on all the ‘A’ section, all the ‘B’, ‘C’ and ‘D’ and the first bit of the ‘E’ sections of the roof, this is nearly all the sections along the front of the house. We will have to move two more modules to enable us the access to the rest of the ‘E’ section to the corner with ‘F’ but we will do that later on.
    That was the end of Wednesday and we finished a little early too because it was very hot (our air temperature was 33°C and the ground was reading 40°C on the sandy soil but our slates on the roof was reading 50°C!!

    Thursday, we avoided the hot sun by working in our workshop to process the next set of Oak timber planks, to make a series of narrow flat vertical pieces to form the octagon shaped pillars on each side of the windows. We brought in all the 27mm thick by 2metre oak planks, about 75 in total. We will only need some of them as we are making a set of 100mm wide parts and a set of 70mm wide parts, 26 of each (we should be able to get two parts from many of the wider planks). We would like to pull out the nicest quality ones so we try to avoid those ones with knots and twisted grains. We first chopped all the ends, removing any split ends and other defects and got started on slicing one straight edge using our track saw. We managed about 25 planks so far.

    Lots-of-Oak-planks-for-window

    Lots-of-Oak-planks-for-window


    We had Friday off because of other commitments but we resumed on Saturday and catching a break in the rainy weather, we went out to fix and join all the eight platform modules together and anchor them to the building, also putting on the edge plywood edging strips too.
    Scaffold-platforms-along-ABC

    Scaffold-platforms-along-ABC

    Scaffold-platforms-along-CDE

    Scaffold-platforms-along-CDE



    That concludes the mixed bag of things we did this week, but at least, we now have everything ready so we can resume work on the roof, this time along the front of the building where we continue putting on the gutters, fibre-glassing the corners, inserting the rubber and then the membrane and everything else!

  • Rearranged Working Platform Modules to Support Work on Roof Section O and P and A

    For the rest of the week, from Wednesday lunch time to Saturday (with some interruptions), we got all the platform modules moved around to the next section of the house to work on. These modules have been up for about a year now, but at last we have moved them to now cover the roof sections, O, P and A plus a bit of N we haven’t quite finished yet.
    There are 11 modules originally, we made another one and brought into service our old mobile platform (which is similar to two modules). They are all 8feet by 4feet in size and we butted them up together, going around corners and anchoring them together and to the house too, to make it very stable. Sometimes, we had to space some modules apart and we filled in the gap with more CLS timber and plywood boards.
    Another safety feature was to mount a kick edging strip right around the outer edge of the total platform walkways and working area.

    Platform-on-NO

    Platform-on-NO

    Platforms-on-P-A

    Platforms-on-P-A



    Finally, we moved our hoist system around to the beginning, near the Loke side of the house, and got it connected to the platform.
    Materials-hoist-moved-to-he-front

    Materials-hoist-moved-to-he-front

    Next week, we will start work on extending out the Gable roof section of the conservatory and have that ready for the continuation of slating the roof.

  • Loke Post and Fencing Repaired

    After the UK Mail courier driver had smashed our driveway post and ripped a section of our fencing, we managed to find another post, this time a solid concrete post that we had lying around and replaced the wooden one. Then carefully reattached the plastic webbing fence to the new post, pulling tight and trying to minimise the torn layers in the mesh.

    Loke Post and Fencing Repaired

    Replacement-fence-post


    The “hi-vis” traffic cones were all pretty much destroyed so we will have to order some more and put them out to help drivers to see our boundary line and the posts!!! It obviously didn’t work this time!! Slow Shake Of Head!!

  • CLS Timber Stack All Moved Inside House

    This afternoon, we moved all the remaining 63mm CLS Timber from its original pallet stack situated near our Loke and put the lot inside the house under a tarpaulin tent cover.

    Indoor-wood-store-loaded-up-1

    Indoor-wood-store-loaded-up-1

    Indoor-wood-store-loaded-up-2

    Indoor-wood-store-loaded-up-2



    We also moved all the untreated 100mm by 50mm regularised timber lengths from the swimming lane and put them together with the rest of the timber, in order for them to keep dry and fresh but also to be accessible when we start building the Skylight structure.

  • New Timber Storage Created and Tidied Up Old Pile of Timber

    Today, we finished off creating the new Covered Storage Area while it was raining gentle showers all day. A chest high line of “arms”, six of them, are now mounted and braced so we can load it up with miscellaneous lengths of timber. The three sleepers on concrete blocks underneath will take all the remaining 63mm CLS timber lengths we have got.

    Internal-Timber-rack-finished

    Internal-Timber-rack-finished


    The old storage tent that was situated out near our Loke, has been taken down and tidied up.
    Old-Timber-storage-dismantled

    Old-Timber-storage-dismantled


    The tarpaulin will have to be sorted out and where it has ripped, we will throw those bits away but any decent pieces we will keep. In fact, we will use several pieces to cover up the windows in our new Storage area to keep off driving rain blowing in a window!!
    Tomorrow, we will dismantle and move the pallet of the 63mm CLS timber from outside the house, to inside the house and that will clear up access for our scaffolding tower when we are working on the roof, plus also make more room for more deliveries like the slate tiles and timber cladding when we get them.

  • Odd Jobs and New Timber Protected Storage Area

    Today, in the morning, we did some odd jobs that were left over from the weekend, tidied up the workshop, repaired a puncture in one of our tyres for our medium flatbed trolley and service our air pump that provides oxygen to our septic processing unit.
    In the afternoon, we decided that we would make a new protected storage area for our CLS timber which is now badly located outside our house and is in the way of us working on our Fascia and the roof. So using the left over piece of our white tarpaulin sheet, we fixed it to the corner of our Great Room, using the internal legs and horizontal strut and rope to secure it.

    Start-of-Internal-wood-store

    Start-of-Internal-wood-store


    Tomorrow, we will build two layers of shelving, the lower one sitting on the concrete floor that will take the large number of the 63mm CLS timber lengths and a second cantilever shelf about shoulder height which will take the odd dozen or so remaining timber pieces we have left over and will be needed to for future jobs.

  • Little Jobs Completed

    Today, while Shaun is still on light duty as instructed by our nursing team, we have been doing little odd jobs around the site that needed doing. Our temporary (now 9 months old!) tarpaulin cover over the 89mm CLS timber stack needed reinforcing on the wooden struts as the single screw broke in the strong winds last week.
    We also patched our temporary (now been 8 years) the felt covering on the wall where the old felt has cracked in several places.

    Little Jobs Completed

    Back-of-shed-patched


    And after lunch, we did another patch on the roof of this same temporary building (the building itself is about 15 years old!) where a small leak was getting in and making a growing stain on the ceiling inside.
    It probably was caused by the wooden little platform (part of the prop that holds up the tarpaulin sun shield) had dented and stressed the fabric of the roofing felt and made a couple of cracks. We heated up the roof surface with a hot air gun to dry it and applied several patches of 100mm wide flashing tape.

    Little Jobs Completed

    Roof-patched


    After that, we then tackled the guttering on the bottom of the temporary building roof where it have been blocked for a while now but first, it was the job to cut down a broken branch of ivy, fallen away from the boundary hedge and leaning on our roof.
    Little Jobs Completed

    Ivy-Collaped

    Little Jobs Completed

    Ivy-Cleared



    A combination of loppers and sabre saw to cleared that away, before we got on with digging out the bottom of the downpipe from the gutters to find where the blockage is. It turned out to be right at the bottom of the pipe inside the aqua-cell module where we had only a small gap between the cut end of the pipe and the bottom of the crate. We pulled out the pipe and banged out the smelly mush of leaves and gritty silt!! The aqua-cell itself was fine and still empty, thanks goodness for that!
    Little Jobs Completed

    Gutter-Cleaned


    We put everything back, cleaned the whole length of the guttering and hopefully that will last another couple of years before we will have to clean it again (or dismantle it!!) – Smile!

  • Repairs To Tarpaulin Covers Over Timber and Boundary Fence Replaced

    Today, we went outside, all kitted out in thermals and work clothes for the first time in weeks and tackled some jobs around the site that needs to be done.
    The first little job was to repair the tarpaulin cover over our stack of 89mm CLS timber where bits of the temporary wooden framework have been pulled apart in the strong winds we had several weeks ago. It also ripped the tarpaulin. But we managed to screw back together the framework again and then reattached the tarpaulin back onto the framework, avoiding the rip.
    The second job was to bring in all the rafters that will need the bevel cuts on the ends. We were planning to do those in the afternoon when the daylight fades. These rafters have been sitting outside in the middle of the house under many layers of fresh tarpaulin.
    And then after lunch, we removed the broken old plastic fence along the Loke Boundary which had finally been broken by the winds. We replaced the whole section with new wooden posts and a new plastic black meshing too.

    Repairs To Tarpaulin Covers Over Timber and Boundary Fence Replaced

    New-Loke-Fence


    The whole length was 30 metres long and we situated a new post (using off cuts of 63mm CLS treated timber) every 5 metres. We dug a hole using our hole digging tool and a narrow spade to make 500mm deep holes to hold the post vertical and bedded down tight.
    The last 5 metre section was angled inwards towards our driveway and manhole cover to the sewage system.
    We finished quite late as it was getting dark and we felt that was enough for us for our first day of real work again!!
    Tomorrow, we will start by installing the long rafters up into the “P” section of the roof and then cut the bevel ends after that.

  • Roof on Storage Cover and Garden Shed Repaired

    This morning and yesterday, we did some maintenance work on our various structures, to repair leaks in the roof of the garden shed and the temporary plywood storage tent cover.
    The plywood storage shed got another layer of tarpaulin put over the roof area yesterday, it might not be a perfect solution but it needs only to survive another month or so while we are building the roof on the house.
    The garden shed got some attention this morning, taking advantage of the sunshine and we put on a couple of patches on the shed roofing felt. The roofing felt is getting old and starting to “go” crunchy but it hopefully will last long enough as it only need to survive for another year or so!

  • CLS 89mm Timber Needed Spreading Out to Dry Properly

    This afternoon, after lunch, we quickly set up a new stack of all the 89mm CLS timber planks, to spread out every single length so that plenty of air could blow around them and dry them off. The original pallet was packed too closey together and the rain water was able to get in between the layers and soak side ways into the stack of timber. The weather has been cooling off these last few weeks and was unable to keep the timber dry before the next rain shower came along.

    Timber-drying-rack-and-storage

    Timber-drying-rack-and-storage


    We built a quick tent over the new pile to keep the majority of the rain off the pile now and over the next few days, it will dry out much faster now with the air moving freely between every single plank.
    It is important to have the timber as dry as possible because we want to use wood glue to make our rafters and the wood glue only works properly when the surfaces are dry.