Roselea

Category: Repair

  • Our Wooden Crane Leg

    As reported in the previous blog the wooden crane leg was damaged, we spent the last hour of the daylight to repairing the damage .

    About two thirds the way up the leg, is a joint. The accident caused a crack in the smaller 63mm CLS timber that bridges the joint in the larger 89mm CLS timber. We decided to fix it by taking two more pieces of the 63mm CLS timber, about 600mm long each and gluing these on both sides of the back supporting timber and against the front 89mm piece. We used dozens of clamps to squeeze all the surfaces together for the glue to gain plenty of surface area to stick to.

    Repairs-on-Crane-Leg

    Repairs-on-Crane-Leg

    We will leave it to set all day Friday as the low temperatures will slow down the setting time for the glue. We only need for this crane leg to survive  five (or perhaps 7) more lifting operations and that is the end of the homemade crane unit! Just annoying that the wind had picked up today and caught us unaware and crashed the leg over!!

  • Repaired and Modified Scaffolding Platform

    Since it got dark and too cold to work outside, we carried on in the workshop to repair the damaged platform segment (this is the middle of the 3 segments that makes up the whole platform) which we dropped the other day (from the top of the scaffold tower  onto the concrete!). We removed completely the broken 89mm CLS timber from one side of the segment and cleaned off the old glue joint etc.

    We then put on a new piece of the 89mm CLS timber, 1400mm long, all sanded to remove old dirt, onto (glued and screwed) the 1st segment of the platform so that both platforms are now the same design and have the same method of assembly.

    We are now ready to build up the second scaffolding tower later on when we are lifting the very long and very heavy steel I beams!!

  • Overhanging Roof Panel and Felt Repair

     Today, we tackled a bigger problem with the overhanging roof section along the front of the temporary living quarters, especially over our front door! The wooden sheets that makes up the roofing structure has disintegrated in two particular sections. One larger one over the aforementioned front door overhang, and a much smaller section half way along the roof line. It is another example of the original roofing felt failing under the onslaught of the sun and allowing the water to get in and rot the wood underneath.

    We had to saw away a large section to get back to reasonable sound quality wood and replace it with a new fresh piece of a 11mm OSB board. That was a piece measuring 4 feet wide by 20 inches deep. The smaller section was only 2 feet wide by a foot deep.

    Then, we replaced the disintegrated roof felt on the front edge with fresh stuff, sliding it under the next strip up the roof and lining it up so it is just hanging over the guttering.

    Temp-Living-Repair-repair-and-refelt-front-overhang

    Temp-Living-Repair-repair-and-refelt-front-overhang

    We then used 3mm wire to make little clips to fold over the trailing edge of the felt and anchoring it down to stop it flapping in any winds. We nailed the overlapping joint as usual, but the wood is wet and soft so we had to use the wire clips to secure the trailing edge, and we hope it will stay put! We may have to screw down short but regular batten strips (screwing into the chunky facia board) if we find the metal clips are not holding well enough.

  • Roofing Felt Repair

    This afternoon, we went along the temporary living building and repaired the section of roof adjoining the top of the wall, at the back nearest the fence. It is the side that faces the afternoon sun all year around and so the roofing felt has got thin and fragile. We had made minor patches to fill holes but this time, in strong winds, it ripped a rather larger section. So we bought a new roll of standard shed roofing felt, the cheapest going and cut a strip off to slide under the roof’s felt, around the corner, down the wall and overlapping the felt still hanging further down the wall.

    Temp-Living-Repair-renew-felt-at-rear

    Temp-Living-Repair-renew-felt-at-rear

    We nailed along the overlapped joint on both the wall and on the roof too. The felt still on the wall is the original stuff we put up way back in 2003 or so and it is looking ok! Because likely, it has been in the shadow of the fence most of it life and not greatly affected by the power of the sun. We only want it to last the stated 5 years this time!!

  • Tarpaulin Covering “rots” under the Hot Summer Sun!

     And finally, we had to deal with a failed covering on our Timber Store located in our Swimming Lane. The tarpaulin has been completely “fallen” apart from being blasted by the Ultraviolet radiation from the Summer Sun! We didn’t know that the Tarpaulin was a non-stable UV material, probably a cheap and nasty one we acquired sometime in the past!
    We took two old pieces we had left over from other jobs and replaced the rotting bit. All is well again .. for how long??!

  • Module Number 4 Repairs All Done!

     Today, we finished off the re-assembly of the Energy Module number 4, with the placement of the thick insulation boards around the outside of the module and then the lid on top.

    We did have to shift it slightly to make room for these side insulation boards but apart from that, everything went back in more or less.

    Module-4-Repairs-Finished

    Module-4-Repairs-Finished

    The “mess” of everything lying out and about, all went back into the hole and the sandy soil put back on top!

    Tomorrow, we resume doing the foundation trenches.

  • Day 2 of Module Number 2 Repair

     We carried on with the repair work on Energy Module number 4, the module living underneath the entertainment room. We pulled out, on one side, the vertical insulation foam boards and then pulled out the bottom 4 layers, all 480mm thickness!

    Module-4-Repairs-Most-of-insulation-removed

    Module-4-Repairs-Most-of-insulation-removed

    We could now look under the remaining insulation blocks around the edges and we dug out the silt from underneath and then tried to push down these vertical blocks of foam but they started twisting inwards so we ended up having to remove all the insulation anyway!

    We dug out all the loose soil and got it back to the smooth flat bottom. This time, we remembered to drill our hole to push down the temperature probe conduit properly underneath the module!

    Then, we started reassembling the whole unit back together again, keeping all the pieces together as they were originally fitted. We got as far as getting all the plastic crates back in place and it is all wrapped up in the rubber sheeting including the plastic cover too.

    Module-4-Repairs-Tank-and-base-reinstalled

    Module-4-Repairs-Tank-and-base-reinstalled

    Tomorrow, we will finish the repair job and good riddance to the whole saga of rain water flooding our energy modules for the last time – we hope!

  • Repair of Module Number 4

     We switched over from doing the foundation trenches and its shuttering boards, over to repair the Energy Module number 4 that had risen. We thought we might need the use of the mini-digger during the chore of getting the module back into proper alignment and depth again.

    So we started by removing the dirt off the insulation panels forming the lid, lifted that lid off and revealed the rubber / plastic wrapped Aquacell crates.

    Module-4-Repairs-Top-removed

    Module-4-Repairs-Top-removed

    After lunch, we managed to pull out the plastic crates without the sides falling in, but we did have to get the water pump out and remove another 200 to 300 litres of water still in the bottom!

    Module-4-Repairs-Pumping-remaining-water-out

    Module-4-Repairs-Pumping-remaining-water-out

    The problem is that the bottom boards, all 4 layers of it, will need to be lifted out so we can see what has happened and dig out the water borne silt that landed under the module during the thunderstorm flood we had a couple of weeks ago.

    We resume with that task tomorrow or Monday.

  • Emptied Module Number 4

     We started the repair process on Energy Module number 4 (the entertainment room – also the smallest module) by emptying the water out and putting it into our other modules. We had well over 2000 litres to drain. We used a powerful water pump with a filter to suck out and move the water using ordinary hose pipes and we got about a rate of 900 litres per hour so it didn’t take too long.

    Then this afternoon, while we had the equipment out, we also drained the swimming lane and chucked the water down our proper rain soak-away module. The meter reported that we shifted about 1800 litres when the level got to about an inch left in the bottom.

  • Module Number 3 Repair – Day 3

     Today, we finished off the job of resetting and re-establishing Energy Module Number 3 back into working order again. we dug out behind one of the ends to allow us to gain that extra 10mm we lost so we can and did get the final Aquacell crates back into the module. Oh yes, we had about an inch of water floating around the bottom of the tank from all the rain we had these last couple of days!

    Then, we sorted out the last pieces of the insulation boards on the long sides of the module and then pulled all the sandy soil back in around to compact it all back together. All the original pipes, conduits and inspection tube are now back into place, with the insulation lid back on too.

    Module-3-Repairs-Nearly-Finished

    Module-3-Repairs-Nearly-Finished

    Finally, we started immediately filling the module up with water to weigh it down this time! We will need about 8500 liters and it will take well over 12 hours of running our hose pipe. In fact, we noticed that we had about 100 mm of rainwater in our swimming lane so we thought we would nick that instead of using fresh water. We think we can get about 2500 liters from there, we will find out tomorrow, as we are measuring the amount of water being drawn and put into the module.

    Module-3-Repairs-Finished

    Module-3-Repairs-Finished