Category: Build Progress

At last, we managed to get back out to work on our roof after all the twirling rain showers we had over the last four days – we had nearly 15mm of rain in total!
We carried on with covering up the “P” section of the roof, the last little bit left to do, going up towards the Skylight and out along the “O” Ridge we didn’t complete last week (this was because there was a complex bit of joinery where the “M” and “P” all meets at the kerb corner of the Skylight.

This concludes the “P” and last section of our roof, all the roof is now covered in a layer of 12mm plywood, ready for the next stage, this being the counter battens and then the tile battens with the breathable membrane between and then the slate tiles on top. But first, the next job is to do the Skylight module down the middle of the roof.
The rest of the afternoon was spent tidying up all our tools and equipment, including starting to dismantle our mobile extended platform so we can make use of the better quality scaffolding castor wheels to build up our working platforms for inside the house and up on the Skylight.

Another day spent on the job of covering the roof with plywood boards, but we are making good progress. We have completed half the “P” section of the roof (in terms of total surface area) and definitely half the “Q” is DONE!

A day of other comitements tomorrow but we will resume on Saturday and maybe get it all finished by the end of the day! Yippee!

We moved on to doing the next roof section, the “O” steep roof but it was quite small and only needed three boards to complete it.

Then it was time to start work on the last major section of the roof, the Great Room “P” roof section. But first, we had to move our mobile platform from one end of the house beside the Garage (on the “H” and “I” corner of the roof), all the way along the front and down the side so we can get access to the roof and then moved all our equipment and tools around on to it.

Next was the task of drilling the little clearance holes behind the Fascia board so we can run a conduit or a water pipe so we can self-water any hanging baskets etc. or have sensors or LED lighting up in our eves. We also made sure that there was no excess sticking up pieces of webbing on the rafters so our boards will lay flat and get a good glue bond.
Finally, we had time to start the first row of posh plywood boards and put up two of them to get us going.

Tomorrow, we will continue with the “P”, running up the “Q” and down the other side and in a few days, we will have the whole of “P” and “Q” done and that would be it – at last!

Under a slightly hazy sky, a lot more wind, temperatures hovering around 28°C hence the blazing Sun wasn’t so harsh, we continued to work on the three roof sections which form the three sides of a rectangle. We got done the bigger area, the ‘M’ and also the ‘N’ section all completed and so, along with the ‘L’ segment finished yesterday, all three are now done.

We can move along to the much simpler ‘O’ section which won’t take too long and we will be back on the mobile platform to start work on the biggest roof section, the ‘P’ along with its companion the ‘Q’ dormer roof (will connect to the Conservatory) and that will take a few days but we could see the whole roof being done by the end of July (Tuesday)!

What a blistering hot day! Our Thermometer recorded 28°C today!
Under that heat, we continued putting up plywood boards and we got the ‘L’ section completed, almost all of the ‘M’ and we are making progress on the ‘N’ too.

We stopped a little early today, about 5:30pm, because of the heat, especially in this region as it is a trap of three sides, holding in the heat! We were drinking lots of cold water in our vacuum pint tumblers but it was still very hot.
Tomorrow, we will try and get this region of the roof all done before the forecast of rain arriving in the afternoon (only 30% chance) but whatever happens, we will progress and soon get along to the ‘O’ section and finally the large ‘P’ roof around the corner with the little ‘Q’ sticking out dormer.

For another shortened day of work, we started on the “L” and “M” sections of the roof and got the second row fitted.

It is very very hot out there in the full blast of the Sun and we are quite glad that we are only working a half day today. We will continue on Monday after we have rested and give our bodies a chance to recover, especially our knee joints as they are feeling the strain after having to clamber up and down the roof a few dozen times on the series of foot rails.

For our half day of work today, we started on the next section of roof, this time it was “K”, and we got it all done! It only needed two more rows of plywood boards and one tiny little “cap” to complete it all, including coping with the steel structural strap going up the middle rafter (we had to drill clearance holes for the head’s of the coach screws).

Then, we hauled up 21 more sheets of plywood up to our working platform so we can start work tomorrow on tackling the three sections of roof that are all grouped together, the “L” and “M” and “N” on three sides of the rectangle.

Yesterday and today, we are progressing on covering the roof sections along the back of the building. We finished the first row, using our posh plywood boards (section “M”, “N” and “O”)

Then moving back to the beginning, started laying boards up the slope of the “I” and the “J” sections. It was incredibly hot in the late afternoon sunshine! But we did managed to process about 12 sheet in total!

Today, we carried on with the “I” and “J” roof sections, including working around the Chimney support arm, making sure we minimised the lack of any support for the plywood edges while accommodating the metal square pole coming through the roof panel.

Tomorrow, we will move around the corner onto the “K” section of the roof and carry on along the back of the house.
The video below is the combined two day worth of our activities!