Roselea

Category: Roof

  • Skylight Double Glazing Units – Part 1

    We started the new week by tackling the task of installing our new double glazed units up in our Skylight. We have twenty-two units to put up, 8 triangles and 14 rectangles.
    But, the first job is to prepare the framework and make sure that it is nice and solid, without any gaps etc.
    So, using our new High Platform, we went along and blasted out all the crevices with compressed air, put in short lengths of 10mm PU “sausage”, squashed into the gaps, to help to reduce the amount of sealant, squirted in plenty of sealant and bringing it all up so everything is more or less smooth and level.

    Next, we gave the windows a thorough clean on both the outside and inside. Shaun went outside on top of the roof with a bucket of hot soapy water and armed with a squeegee and sat on the Skylight itself. He lent over to reach all corner of each window with the microfibre scrubber pad and then drew off the water using the rubber scraper. The windows haven’t been cleaned for several years so it took a while to get the dirt washed off. Shaun shuffled clockwise around all twenty-two windows and ran out of energy, and clean soapy water, by the time when he reached the solar panels so we will come back another day to do those.

    Shaun washing skylight windows

    Shaun washing skylight windows


    We will invest in a long handle cleaning tool that can telescopically extend out but also has a hose pipe going up the middle to supply a flow of water at the same time while scrubbing the surface. This tool will also serve to clean our seventeen solar panels as well. It will save us having to clamber up onto the roof tiles and be able to do this task from the ground itself, or at least, on a high platform at the gutter level.While this was happening, Stephen went around inside to clean the inside surfaces of the windows, using a little gadget that scrubs and sucks up the dirty water at the same time. But, it was also needing several washing cycles and each were polished with a microfibre cloth. He was standing on our high wooden platform. These windows needed to be extra clean because they won’t get a second chance after the double glazing units gets sealed in later in a few days.

    We were considering what sort of battens to secure and fix up the glass units, and after thinking about making it out of Oak, we decided to phone our local timber merchant and ordered a set of planed 21mm square beading. They come in 4.2metres lengths and we calculated that we would need 23.5 pieces so we round this up to 25 lengths just in case. It is quite shocking to how high the price of timber is these days, it cost us about £1 per metre of 21mm by 21mm planed pine wood and only a couple of years ago, we paid £1 per metre for 63mm by 38mm planed timber!!

    Next we adapted a compressed air sealant dispenser tool so that we can get a constant pressure and flow of the low-modulus neutral cure glazing sealant that we need to squirt all around the edge of the 28mm thick glass unit and make sure that it is completely filled in. The problem we got with our existing tool, is that it is too long. It was designed to take a higher capacity sealant tubes that were 1½ inches longer. It is a pity that there wasn’t a unscrewable section on the body of the chamber and therefore adjust the tool to take shorter sealant tubes.
    We made an internal extender to take up the slack by cutting out three circles from a piece of 12mm thick cement board, measuring 47mm diameter, using a core cutter. These three pieces were glued and bolted together to squash the joints and waited overnight for the glue to set. Next we found a little length of 50mm wide plastic pipe which is a fraction too wide to fit inside so we sliced a very small chunk out of it so it can close up to fit smoothly into the gun. Then, we “turned” the solid cement plug very fractionally so it also just fitted smoothly inside the plastic sleeve. We made sure that the cement core was exposed by 5mm or so so that we can slide on a fat O-ring rubber seal over the cement core and sit snuggly down to the edge of the plastic sleeve. The whole lot (minus the rubber O-ring) was glued all together so that it forms an air tight plug with just a small hole down the middle to allow the compressed air to enter the tube of sealant. The O-ring squashes up tight to the ends of the sealant tubes and the cement plug also seals against the original rubber seal at the bottom of the gun.

    Air powered Sealant gun

    Air powered Sealant gun


    It works very nicely without any air leaks! We can now go ahead to provide a steady flow of sealant for our glass units when we get them installed up into the Skylight.

    We also modified some sealant nozzle to flatten them to allow the sealant to be pumped into narrow gaps around the units.

    Modified sealant nozzle

    Modified sealant nozzle

    Our wooden battens arrived this morning (Wednesday) and we got on with shaping all 25 pieces in our router machine attached to our router table. We just wanted to put on a single extra flat surface on the corner of the square 21mm by 21mm batten, to chamfer at a 45degree angle a third flat surface to provide a slightly more pretty finish than just plain square.

    Double glazing battens

    Double glazing battens


    We then proceeded to give all pieces two coats of primer and undercoat, rubbing them between coats and get them ready for when we install the glass units.

    The last piece of work for this week is to make the moisture extraction system. It sounds fancy but all it is, is a tray of desiccant powder with a breathable tape over the top. We bought a heap of long 1inch wide by ½inch high extruded aluminium trays, measuring 5metres long. We then cut these up to make two trays, one at the top and another one at the bottom, in each square window and one tray at the bottom of the triangle windows. We had pre-built a little “shelf” in each window, to hold these trays of desiccant but, we discovered that some of them are slightly tight so we sliced off a couple of millimetres to reduce the height of these trays. We made 36 trays in all, with eleven of them reduced in height. We also rounded the ends and then taped a small piece of aluminium tape to seal off the open ends, to retain the crystals.
    Lastly, we test fitted a couple of our triangle glazing units because we discovered that the last two units that we had to order again were not correct. We were cleaning off some sticky tape that the glass people had put on and cutting off excess amount of the tough sealant that is filled inside in between the panes of glass, when we tested the angle of the “right angle” corner and discovered that wasn’t correct. We then measured all three sides and the glass people neglected to take any notice of the hypotenuse and just assumed that these two triangles were exactly right angles when they were not. For some reason, they failed to noticed that these two triangles had special angles. We took them up to the Skylight and made sure that we couldn’t get them in. We will now have to go and chase them up and get them to admit their mistake. What a Fuss! We tested two more triangle windows, number 22 and number 19. Number 22 fitted in straight away but number 19 was ever so slightly too tight and we had to make some minor adjustments to the wooden framework so we could eventually get the glazing unit to fit into place.
    Finally, just for completeness, we also tested one of the square windows, number 18, and it went straight in with no fuss at all.

    We will carry on in dealing with the Skylight windows so it is all done, before we resume working on the Great Room.

  • Decommissioned the Slicing Table and Converted it into a High Working Platform

    Today, after we have sliced up all the remaining foam boards yesterday, we proceeded to demission the slicing table, taking off the sabre saw that had been mounted underneath the table (with the blade sticking up through the top) for the last couple of years. We converted this table and extended it original 8foot by 4foot size by adding another 2feet width to the long side, reinforcing the framework, extending and putting in additional legs and then stiffened the whole thing up with bracing structs so that the new working platform is much stronger, safer and also much higher so we can reach comfortably the Skylight.
    Skylight work platform,

    Skylight work platform,


    It has a tactile edge strip all the way around the edge of the 8feet by 6feet platform so our feet can detect when we are getting close to the drop off, especially that the platform is five feet off the ground now! We will need a step ladder to climb on and off it!!
    We are using this platform so that we can easily install our double glazing window units, but also, we can build the upper boxing on the back half of the Skylight for the air ventilation, solar panels, the window blinds and lighting units, all inside this box-shaped construction.

  • Sliced Off Dangling Metal Posts

    The first use of our new High Platform, that we built earlier in the day, was to go along up in the Skylight and slice off the small metal posts that are hanging downwards from the steel cross members in the skylight. These posts were originally intended to allow a wooden framework to be constructed, to box in half the Skylight and extend the flat ceiling portion of the room.
    But, we decided that would feel too “crowded” and we liked the idea of opening it up and make it more airy and also allow more of the Skylight sunshine to pour in and reach the back half of the rooms.
    So, we used our 5foot high platform and a pair of angle grinders tools with one having a cutting disc and the other having a sanding disc. We proceeded to slice off all eight stubby posts.
    Removing Downward stubs on Cross beams

    Removing Downward stubs on Cross beams

    Stubs cut off

    Stubs cut off

    Stub free cross bars

    Stub free cross bars



    We will weld on some new metal tabs in the future and allow us to screw up a set of sheet material to form the box that will house the ventilation ducting and other bits and pieces living up there.

  • Installed Water Microbore Pipes and Nineteen Nozzles – Part 2

    Over the last couple of days, we installed water pipes inside the roof of the Great Room, drilling 15mm holes through each rafters, located about a metre up the slope from the walls and threading the 10mm diameter microbore plastic pipes. We have two separate runs both start downstairs underneath the floor at the end of the Hall as it enters into the Great Room. One pipe goes off towards the back of the building, inside the wall that separates Bedroom One and the Great Room and then goes up until it meets the roof rafters where it is threaded through the holes in each rafter going half way around the Great Room. The other pipe goes off in the opposite direction, through the Kitchen / Great Room wall and then goes up to meet the roof rafters and also threaded through the roof rafters as well. We have decided to locate eleven spray nozzles on the first run of water pipe and a further eight nozzles on the second run.
    Nozzles all connected (1)

    Nozzles all connected (1)

    Nozzles all connected (2)

    Nozzles all connected (2)

    Nozzles all connected (3)

    Nozzles all connected (3)

    Nozzles all connected (4)

    Nozzles all connected (4)


    Each location then has a T-junction adapter and short lengths of 10mm copper pipe that has an quarter-inch female adapter on the end so that we can screw in a spray nozzles at the final stage after we have decorated the ceiling surfaces etc.
    A Low nozzles

    A Low nozzles

    A High nozzle

    A High nozzle



    There will be two more nozzles located right up to the under side of the Skylight so we can spray a mist of water directly over the Gallery as well. These will be installed later on when we have built the bottom part of the Skylight ceiling modules. We have also discovered another high pressure pump, this time it is a battery powered pistol shaped water pressure washer kit but it turned out to offer even higher pressure and faster flow rates. This handy neat little machine can generate over two megapascals of water pressure (this is about 20 bars or 300psi!) and this would be ideal to drive many more nozzles like we have here in the Great Room plus also produce a finer spray of water droplets and reach even further around the room. Connecting to it will be a bit convoluted but overall a very neat piece of kit!

    One of the final things that will do, is to perform a pressure check with compressed air first and then with water, and make sure all our joints and nozzles are good and tight. Once we are happy with that, we then can proceed to finishing off filling in the roof rafters with glass wool and sealing the roof with vapour barrier and 11mm OSB wooden sheets etc.

  • Installed Various Lighting Conduits Inside the Roof Rafters

    This week, we have been installing a set of conduits for routing electric lighting cables to various hidden locations all over the ceiling in the Great Room. We wanted to make sure that we can install additional lighting units without having to rip holes in our beautiful ceilings. One such location is the Dormer that will backs onto our Conservatory which we have left open, exposing the original roof rafters and we thought that it would look great it it had some lighting hidden behind the rafters so the Dormer would glow with a gentle illuminations. We threaded through the walls a series of 20mm diameter plastic conduit, coming from the lighting channel running around the whole room at the top of the walls, and bends to behind the exposed rafters, with additional conduits so that the middle three rafters are all connected together.
    Conduits between domer rafters

    Conduits between domer rafters


    We have also put in a twin set of conduits that takes an pair of electrical wires and a thin rope that connects to our flat ceiling lighting module that runs down the middle of the ceiling, right up at the top of the ridge line and pass the end of the Skylight.
    This “mobile” module will be nearly 7metres long and 300mm wide, constructed using steel angle iron to form the basic framework, to attach a series of pulleys, six of them evenly spread out along the length. The rope travels down the conduit from the Triangle Void above Bedroom1, behind the large upstairs work room, where we will have a winch to unwind the rope and we can lowers the lighting module all the way down to the ground floor. The rope comes out at the top of the roof and drops down to the first pulley, goes horizontally to the second pulley, then goes back up to the ridge line where the rope is threaded through the next two pulleys mounted up there. It then goes back down again to pulley number three and four, when the rope returns back to the ridge to the final two pulleys before the rope comes back down for the final time to loop around the fifth and sixth pulleys on the lighting module itself, where eventually, the rope goes back up to the end of the Skylight and get tied off. This gives a pulley ratio of Six to One so if the lighting module weighs 60kg, which is likely with all the metalwork, the wooden board and the finishing plasterboard glued on the underside, with all the lamp units, seasonal decorations etc. then the weight on the rope back at the winch, will be only 10kg approximately. We bought 3mm thin rope, designed for parachutes and it has a breaking strain of nearly 200kg so it should be quite safe for years and years!
    Center Light conduits start here

    Center Light conduits start here

    Power runs up to center

    Power runs up to center

    and lift rope runs to the end

    and lift rope runs to the end



    We will build the mobile lighting module later on when we have finished filling in the roof rafters and got them all covered up.

  • Surface of the Ceiling is Levelled Up and the Dormer has been Filled Up

    We spent three days levelling up all the “ceilings” of the Great Room. We wanted to make sure that the overall surface of each plane of the sloping roof is nice and flat, without any major wobbles. To achieve this, we mounted our green laser line generator on the side of each section of the roof rafters and adjusted the laser line until it is on balanced all even from one edge to the other edge of the roof.
    Using laser to align rafters

    Using laser to align rafters

    Measuring Rafter alignment

    Measuring Rafter alignment


    Then, we stapled various different thicknesses of wooden shims, depending on where the green laser line is in relation to each spot on every single rafter. We had a collection of 1.5mm plywood, 3.5mm hardboard, 6mm MDF, 9mm plywood, 11mm OSB and even some 12mm plywood pieces, all stapled using our air staplers and using 50mm long staples. We sometimes used combination so that we levelled up every rafter so that all of them matches up in one flat plane.
    Spacers to align rafters (1)

    Spacers to align rafters (1)

    Spacers to align rafters (2)

    Spacers to align rafters (2)



    We progressed right around on all four individual roof surfaces we got in the Great Room, especially the “O” section where we had to cope with one of the rafters having a steel band with lots of hex headed screws in as well. For this roof plane, we had to put in an entire strip of 11mm OSB board, with various thicknesses of shims so that we can mount our 11mm sheet right across the ceiling surface and miss the metal band and its screw heads.

    In the meantime, we then got on with filling in the space in the Dormer section with glass wool and then covering it up with our usual black plastic vapour barrier and protecting the plastic with our 11mm OSB sheet material too.

    Dormer boarded out

    Dormer boarded out


    This section is now ready for the layer of Fermacell plasterboard sheets in a few weeks.

  • Research in Different Kinds of Water Nozzles for a Fire Suppression System – Part 1

    We have been researching into what we would need to incorporate a fire suppression system, using spray nozzles to produce a fine mist of water droplets. We have found that if we use micro-bore 10mm water pipes, we can lay in a network of a water pipe running around inside the roof rafters, and now and again, have a “T” junction to a spray nozzle outlet. We have been testing various different sizes of nozzles, connected to a high pressure water pump and seeing what amount of spray is produced.
    Our first attempt of a nozzle was to drill a tiny little hole into a brass end-cap, measuring just 0.3mm diameter, we also made two more end-caps with slightly larger holes, 0.4mm and 0.6mm. We tested all three and all three produced a very fine single jet of water going straight out of the nozzle without breaking up into a spray of droplets at all! We realised that there is more to the method of producing a spray so we bought a set of spray nozzles off the web, a bag of 30 nozzles with two sizes, 0.3mm and 0.4mm holes. The only slight problem is that these new nozzles had a American inch threads, labelled “10/24” (which is 0.196″@24 thread per inch). We took our brass end-caps and drilled a 3.7mm hole and then tapped a thread using a 3/16inch (0.187″@24 TPI) tap. It was compatible enough to allow us to screw in our new nozzles. So we tried the 0.3mm hole, producing a very fine misty like cloud which wouldn’t go very far and had a low thermal mass, which may not suppress a fire very well.
    We then drilled out their little hole with various sizes, from 0.6mm, 0.9mm, 1.1mm to a 1.5mm holes and each progressively produced heavier droplets in the cloud of spray. We felt that the largest hole was a bit too heavy and the “cloud” was much smaller. It looks as if the 0.6mm hole size was vigorous enough to generate a large cloud and quite a lot of thermal mass, to cool down a fire and reduce the smoke levels.
    The test results were all for a single nozzle and the pump was generating pressures of approximately 8bars of pressure (800kilo-pascals)so we knew that we had to make sure that multiple nozzles would work as well, so towards this aim, we made up four more nozzles, each with a 0.6mm hole size and then joined all 5 together and re-run the test and we still generated a huge cloud of spray and the output pressure from the pump only fell down to 6bar.
    Mist nozzles test

    Mist nozzles test


    This means that the method and choice of pipework is ok and gives us a solution and we can order a whole bunch more of these 10mm T junction pieces, along with more inserts for the plastic coil of 10mm pipe we already got.
    They will come in a few days time.
    This will allow us to install about fifteen nozzles in total for the whole of the Great Room, running around in the lower part of the sloping ceiling and up around the Skylight as well.

  • All Remaining ‘Seconds’ Insulation is Now Hiding into the Roof Rafters Above Great Room

    The final load of our third hand rubbish pieces of hard PU foam boards have been processed and most of it is now stuffed and glued into the roof rafters above the Great Room.
    In the end, we had plenty to do the job, with most of the rafters now having well over 250mm thick of PU insulating material inserted.
    Great Room Foam insulation placed (1)

    Great Room Foam insulation placed (1)

    Great Room Foam insulation placed (2)

    Great Room Foam insulation placed (2)

    Great Room Foam insulation placed (3)

    Great Room Foam insulation placed (3)

    Great Room Foam insulation placed (4)

    Great Room Foam insulation placed (4)



    We had only a pile of thin pieces and trimmings to act as evidence that we had any of this type of building material.

    The next job will be to insert the final layer of glass wool to act as a fire break against the unlikely occurrence of a fire, to prevent it reaching our plastic PU foam boards.
    This will be covered up with the usual DPM plastic membrane to provide a vapour barrier, and this in turn will be protected by 11mm OSB wooden sheets.

    But, first, we will go right around the whole room and make sure that all our electrical conduits are installed etc. and we will report on that in another blog report!

  • Creating a ‘Dormer’ for the Great Room

    We decided to add a ‘feature’ to the Great Room by exposing the rafters where they run in front of the Conservatory Extension Gable wall. We are going to continue the room walls up to the roof of the Conservatory extension and keep the roof exposed on the inside. This will form a ‘Dormer’ niche, this allows viewing of the rafter size and illustrates the depth of the main roof.

    To this end we insulated the external wall to about 200mm depth

    Conservatory gable with Foam insulation installed

    Conservatory gable with Foam insulation installed

    Then framed the extension of the wall up to the roof. We then need to extend the roof surface of the extension the inside of the main roof. We was a little tricky because there was not much depth to align thing with so we fixed a strip of Osb down the roof to get an alignment then fitted noggins between the rafters.

    Framing Dormer intersection (1)

    Framing Dormer intersection (1)

    The noggins needed to have a complicated compound cuts to get them to align correctly which took quite a lot of ‘trial & error’! We finally got them cut and glued in place.

    Framing Dormer intersection (2)

    Framing Dormer intersection (2)

    Framing Dormer intersection (3)

    Framing Dormer intersection (3)

    Dormer Framed

    Dormer Framed


    We initially made the 3 sections each side of the centre then looking at it decided we had to make the last sections as well.

  • Taking Measurements and Getting Quotes for our Triple Glazing Windows in Skylight

    We spent the last three days measuring all our Skylight windows so that we can send off for quotations for creating triple glazing units. Now that we have built our new working platform, it meant that we could get the whole job done in one go without interruptions.
    We decided that we would use lots of thin insulation boards that we had left-over and proceeded to cut a ‘template’ for each individual window in turn. We found some slightly thicker boards, measuring 40mm thick and also very flat as well, so we could test to how easy, or difficult, it was in moving the template into place, avoiding the various obstacles like the steel cross ties etc.
    The proposed triple glazing units are currently selected to be using 4mm thick glass panes with 16mm cavities which makes an overall 44mm in depth. Our 40mm template is a good size to test the installation of the real thing later on, the heaviest glazing unit being at around 40kg each.
    Happily, we can report that all 22 windows passed this particular test with flying colours!
    Another reason for using a thick foam board, is to also find out to how ‘flat’ our wooden framework is up there in our Skylight that we built all those years ago. The PU foam material is quite stiff and we can detect whether the pseudo glazing unit template sits rock steady or wiggles.
    Generally speaking, the majority of each window hole was pretty damn close to being flat and we will be able to get away in using only 3mm or 5mm thick sticky foam tape for the first stage of sealing the units into place. Only one window had a serious wobble, caused by a break in our framing timber. We will have to do some tidy up of the joint and recondition it so it is back to the same original coatings of fibre glass resin.
    After the 40mm foam was close to the right size (fits with a little ‘slop’), we made a copy onto 20mm foam and measured and labelled it and inserted it into the skylight. It was quite slow in getting each window done, we didn’t want to rush it as it will cost many £1000s for the windows, especially the triangular ones, four of them at each end of the Skylight.

    Each template is numbered & measured

    Each template is numbered & measured

    The list of our windows breaks down into these quantity and approximate sizes:

    • Great Room: 4 triangles measuring about 1150mm high by 1100mm wide and 2 rectangular – 1120mm high by 1190mm wide
    • Sitting Room: 5 rectangular – 1120mm high by 966mm wide
    • Stairs/ Hall: 2 rectangular – 1150mm high by 750mm wide (one of these is a special shape!)
    • Study: 2 rectangular – 1145mm high by 1066mm wide
    • Work Room: 3 rectangular – 1145mm high by 996mm wide 4 triangular ? about 1140mm high by 1110mm wide

    Skylight glazing

    Skylight glazing

    To measure the triangular templates we created a tool from aluminium bars which could hold against all 3 sides and measure the correct size of each edge (the foam is too soft/crumpled to measure directly)

    The Triangle Templates

    The Triangle Templates

    Measuring Triangles 1

    Measuring Triangles 1

    Measuring Triangles 2

    Measuring Triangles 2


    We have sent a request for a quote off to our local manufacturer, based in Norwich. We wait to see what they can do.

    We have requested that the outer pane of glass is treated with the infra-red reflective and absorbing treatment so we can reduce the sheer amount of heat that we get during the Summer months! Hopefully, it won’t be too expensive. We will have to have safety glass in one way or another but we may be able to have a lowest pane to be laminated and the other two higher panes can be ordinary glass, to save money of not having it made with toughened glass. We now wait and see ! This expenditure will be the last major outlay for the basic building structure and materials.