It was another week of a mixed bag of jobs and tasks, but we made progress on the guttering, oak planks for our windows and did some site clearance too.
The first job of the week was to correct a problem with our Downpipe channels where the bottom base board had warped. We basically clamped it back together again and then drilled pilot holes and screwed in five stainless screws on each edge. We did this minor operation on the A-B and D-E Downpipe Channels (these are either sides of the front door porch).
Then our skip arrived and we got on loading that instead. We started to cleared away a pile of rubble and rubbish that has been accumulating over the last few years, we found the skip we order was not big enough.
The-rubbish-heap
With a slight delay to the work on Tuesday, we got on with the job of installing the Guttering, putting eight oak pieces for the base of the gutters and another eight front pieces, including two angled blocks for each of the Downpipe Channels. This took us several days to complete, spread across the week (about 3 days in total), with some rainy weather interruptions too.
On Wednesday, saw the arrival of our second skip and we did a little bit of clearance before the rain arrived as forecasted. So we retired to our workshop to resume the task of slicing one good straight edge to all our 27mm thick oak planks. Next we entered all these planks and their minimum width measurement into our spreadsheet. It turned out to be eighty planks in total that we have been processing. After analysis, we put back all the planks that were 180mm and wider, back to our external storage racks. Also took back those ones that had bigger knots in the middle plus a half a dozen width from 100mm to 150mm, all to the storage racks too.
So Saturday, after we had finished gluing the gutters (Thursday afternoon and all day Friday), all along the “A”, “B”, “C”, “D” and a third of the “E” sections of the roof, we proceeded to fibre-glass and resin the two Downpipe Channels and the two outer corners (B-C and C-D) with our usual black coating, ready for the rubber membrane to come in. Also all the excess glue that had bubbled out, both inside and outside of the guttering, was removed and sanded smooth.
A-gutter
AB-and-BC-Corners-fibreglassed
C-Gutter
DE-Corner-fibreglassed
The last job of the day, and week, was to fill up our second skip with the remainder of the rubbish and clear away unwanted sacks of shredded plant material too.
The-Heap-is-gone
Next week, we can start on putting the rubber membrane into the guttering, which will lead us to start putting up the roofing breathable membrane and wooden battens, ready for the slates – Hurray!