Category: Roof

Membrane Installed on Section A and B with Half of Wooden Battens Plus Work on Oak Timber for Windows

This report is for the last two weeks of work, we had some of the days on other commitments, but we mostly worked on our roof with some in our workshop processing more oak during the wet days.
The first task was to put in our Rubber liner into the gutters, in section “A”, “B”, “C” and “D”,. It was a bit hit and miss in finding clear weather but we managed to complete this task over two afternoons.

The next task was to complete the Hips and Ridge lines, building up the layers to form the edge of the main slate surface and allow for our flashing slates to protect these edges.

Then we concentrated on putting up the breathable membrane on just the “A” and “B” sections, to allow us, later on, to get on with the job of putting up slates (which will, in turn, allow us to do another rearrangement of our working platforms so we can reach the remaining of the “E” section and go around the corner onto the “F” Side Door Porch).
The “A” roof is the largest section and it needs 55 rows of tile battens, each one being at least 10 metres long each. By the end of the 2 weeks, we have got that done with half the battens installed, but at least, we now have two sections rainwater proof.

Roof-A-half-battened

Roof-B-half-battened

When it was raining or strongly forecast to be (which amounted to about 4 days in total), we got on with the operation of planing our Oak timber to make the decorative Octagon shaped ‘pillar’ that stands on each side of each window. We had sliced wider planks in half with a 45degree cut and we had thought that we weren’t going to get very thick finished pieces because there seems to be lots of patches of “dips” and “bulges”. We did actually reject about ten planks anyway and got replacement ones from storage. We learnt a valuable lesson about Oak timber (well any timber!) and how random and natural they are!
We ended up with 54 finished, all 20mm thick after planing . Half are the slightly wider ones for the front facing piece and another 27 smaller ones for the angled piece going into the window frame.

Oak-window-octagon-parts-planed

After the gutter rubber was installed we noticed that water collected in the front porch gutter i.e. the ‘C’ gutter, It was over 20mm deep before starting to flow away. This shows that the temporary legs we installed when we built the porch are not supporting the roof properly. We need to install proper support before loading hundreds of kilos of slates on the roof! We need strong legs which will stand up to being bashed by materials moving around, so we decided to use metal posts. As the posts go into the ground we wanted rust proof ones, we started looking at stainless steel and even got as far as trying to order some but the supplier did not deliver to our location. Whilst searching for other suppliers we looked at aluminium (which is as strong as Stainless steel) and found it was half the price of stainless so we bought Aluminium instead. The post will be 50mm square hollow tubes with 4mm thick walls with 6mm thick plates at the top and bottom. The final task of this period of work, was to dig three holes at the spots where the metal posts will go. The holes were dug down 450mm to the standard frost level point and concrete was poured in to form solid pads about 450mm square and 150mm thick. The metal posts will then stand on these pads and stretch up to connect to the framework forming the porch, about 3.2metres high.

1st-Hole-for-prch-post

2nd-Hole-for-prch-post

3rd-Hole-for-prch-post

Aluminium-ready-for-porch-posts

Next week, we will carry on installing all the other half of the wooden battens for “A” and “B” roof sections while we wait for the concrete to cure and strengthen and start putting up Slates, firstly to finish off the last little bit of the “P” and around onto to “A”.

17 August 2019
Gutters Installed but also more Site Clearance done too

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!

3 August 2019
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

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

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

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-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!

27 July 2019
Both Sides of Q and Three Quarters of P Covered in Slates

For the first three days of the this week of work, we were lucky with the weather but also unlucky as we suffered in the heat too! But we did manage to cover both sides of the “Q” Conservatory roof sections, but for only 200 slates for each side, it took us two days to get that done. Very short strips and awkward access getting up and over the gable end slowed thing down.

Q1-slated

For the third day, Wednesday, we doubled checked our earlier procedure of transferring the slate positions on the first half of the “P” roof and make sure it was still lined up with our markings. Yes it was! Amazingly enough! Grin!
We then proceeded with the second half of the “P” roof section, starting as usual at the guttering line and working up the valley, putting slates across the fibre-glass trough. We reached the top of the “Q” roof and .. the moment of truth .. the meeting of the two surfaces! and the slates met together with joyous congratulations of getting it “just right”!

That was the first hurdle pass and we continued up and headed towards the top of the “O” ridge line where it meets the corner of the Skylight. After careful analysis and fiddling with different shaped slates and flashing slates too, we managed to get that lots sorted out too! Hurray and a Big Phew!!

Q2-and-start-of-P2-slated

That was pretty much the end of the work on the roof for this week as the forecast for the next three days were wet, wet and wet!
But next week, apparently, is going to be a sizzling hot hot hot weather all week, with a hot air from Europe rushing in!! Double Phew!

17 July 2019
Nearly 2000 Slates Mounted + Some Work on Window Frames

We started this week with good dry weather in resuming the job of mounting Slates up on to the roof. We finished off the little bit left to do on the “N” roof section and then moved around to then complete the whole of the “O” section in the first couple of days.

N-O-Complete

One of the finishing task was to place and nail the flashing slates along both sides of the Hip and Ridge lines, remembering to do this job each time we got up a strip of slates as the opportunity had only a limited window to practically and safely do the nailing while leaning over across the slates.
We had one small moment of interruption with the forecast of the weather showing an afternoon of sharp summer thunderstorms so we diverted our efforts to the workshop and got on with the task of preparing the next batch of Oak Timber to make the vertical side framing pieces of our 13 windows. We pulled out 26 lengths of Oak timber and after careful analysis of the grain patterns, we swopped six of these planks for another set. The first job was to trim off one edge to make it straight using our track saw. Then after that, we set up our bench saw with the fence guide set at 105mm and proceeded to slice all 26 planks down to this width. Some of the cut-off pieces, the bigger ones, went back on the Oak rack storage for later use, and the smaller pieces went into the garden shed to be added to other left-over pieces, also to be use later on.

Window-sides-cut-to-size

But when the sun was out and the day was dry, we carried on working on the roof, mounting more Slates, now on the “P” section. This large area has one complex situation to be dealt with and that is the Conservatory roof (the “Q” section) poking out. The way slates (and for that matter, all other types of roofing tiles as well) are installed, one has to always start at the bottom of the cascading nature of these overlapping tiles. This means that we have to start at the bottom at the gutters, on both side of the conservatory and we must get the alignment of the slates the same so when the two sides come up and meet at the middle of the “Q” ridge line, they will marry together “Nice and Neat” and continue up to finish off at the skylight.
So we had to project a couple of vertical lines and then project out sideways over the ridge line and come back down again to the gutter on the other side. We hope this will work but we will double check when we get to work on the other side and compare the positioning of the slates etc.
By the end of the week, we got about half of the “P” roof covered, almost reaching the “Q” Ridge line, which is where we stopped.

P-Half-done

So for this week’s work, we put up about 1800 slates, about the content of one crate, and next week, we will then do the two sides of the “Q” roof and start on the second side of the “P” roof (after making sure we are aligned). We hope the weather will hold good again but if not, then we will work in the workshop on our windows again – No Rest for the Crew – smile!

13 July 2019
Whole of P and Q Roof Sections All Prepared, Flashing Layers Assembled and Ready to Slate!

With a lovely prospect of good weather ahead of us, we got on putting up the final rows, about 13 of them, of the tile battens to finish off preparing them for the slates. But before the slates could go on, there were plenty of other tasks to be performed. The next job was to nail up the flashing battens along the two hips and two ridges, using a string to guide us and keep us on the straight and narrow.
The other job we did was to put up the Skylight kerb flashing strip made of the aluminium metal sheets, with the rubber membrane to actually provide the diversion of the rain water.
After that, the metal mesh went on the gutters, fixed down as usual with the thin oak strips to clamp down the edge of the mesh and rubber membrane on the gutter.
Skipping over a 4 hour job in helping a friend out with a plumbing crisis, we continued in preparing the roof sections, this time in doing the special bull-nose upright flashing strips on the two hips and again the two ridges too. This was made up of the shaped wooden strips with the woven glass-fibre ribbon wrapped over the top of the bull nose, all sitting on the rubber membrane that will provide the protection against the rain water. We put on three coats of resin, the last layer being a grey flexible top-coat to finish it off nicely.

O-P1-roofs-ready-to-slate

Q-roof-ready-to-slate

This concludes the preparation work for these sections of the roof (the “N”, “O”, “P” and “Q”) and we can start slating .. .. but the last day of the week, the Saturday, was lost to rain but we worked inside in the workshop instead.

6 July 2019
P and Q All Covered in Membrane and Almost Complete with Tile Battens

We had a very disrupted week of work, losing three and a half days, due to other commitments and meetings. It is just one of those things that happens now and again.
We at least, got all the breathable membrane up on Monday and Tuesday so the “P” and “Q” sections of the roof are both now protected against rainwater, held down with a few vertical battens and some horizontal tile battens.

Membrane-on-P1-Q1

Membrane-on-Q2-P2

The final day, Saturday, we did a solid day of work of putting up all the rest of the counter battens, and got most of the tile battens nailed up too. We had to make a slight adjustment to some of the horizontal battens near the ridge line of the Q (the Conservatory) roof where the two “P” half sections meets together, there was a little 20mm mismatch to the lines of the battens so we “corrected” four lines of battens just below on the right hand side so there wasn’t a sudden “jump” in the line of the Slates.

Most-Tile-battens-on-P1

Most-tile-battens-on-P2-Q2

Next week, we hope that we will get in a full week of work and make solid progress on finishing the “N”, “O” and some of the “P” and “Q” roof sections, putting on thousands of Slates etc.!

29 June 2019
Continuing with P-Q roof and P-A Corner plus Progress on Oak Window Sills and Headers

On Monday this week, taking advantage of the good weather, we proceeded to glass-fibre and resin the two complex junctions and the corner we installed last week. The two Downpipe Channels on either side of the Conservatory, designated P-Q1 and P-Q2, and the outer corner for the P and A roofs, the P-A corner.
These were rubbed down and smoothed off, removing bubbled up left-over glue etc. Next, the glass-fibre matting was cut up to fit the various surfaces and angles and then painted into place with the base resin layer. After rubbing that lot down smooth, the final top-coat black resin layer was applied and left to set overnight.

Q1-downpipe-finished

Q2-Downpipe-finished

PA-corner-finished

The other little job was to complete building up the layers of the plywood strips for the P-A Hip line, up to the kerb.
Upon the next day, in the afternoon (the morning was spent doing an emergency repair in a friend’s bathroom shower unit), we tidied up the fibreglass-fibre coated junctions and also reconnected the drain pipes to the Downpipe Channels too, all before the rain arrived later on.

After that small job, we returned to the workshop to continue with the job of cutting the slope into the other set of Oak timber pieces, this time for the Headers (the top of the windows). We planed the 14 pieces including our prototype piece.

Headers-sloped

Then everything was cleaned up and put away, we had finished with the planer for the time being and generally swept up the workshop.
The next several days, while we waited for the wet weather to go pass, we shaped the ends (both ends) of both the Sill and Headers so they will fit into the 13 window holes already in the house. We built two jigs to guide our circular saw to cut the various lines in a couple of directions, and produce the first step to make these complex shapes.

End-shaping-jigs

Sawing-end-of-sill-with-jigs

The saw cuts were manually finished off using an old-fashioned carpenters saw because it is made of a thicker metal to help slide into the pre-made slots. We also made use of the jigsaw to help.

Small-window-sill-ends-cut

Sills-and-Headers-with-ends-cut

The remainder of the week, Friday and Saturday, we got on with the task of applying the breathable and rubber membranes to the P and Q roofs and building up the counter and tile battens.
The first job was to install the rubber strips into the gutters, on the P roof (both the 1st and 2nd sections, either side of the conservatory) and used the double layer contact glue to stick down the rubber ends to the glass-fibre black surfaces. Then we glued remainder of the rubber that goes up the slope using the rubber glue, again allowing the two surfaces to dry a bit before carefully rolling the rubber membrane up the roof. We wanted to ensure that we don’t get rainwater slipping behind the rubber and into the gutters but on the wrong side (o boy!) as it will take a few days to get the whole P roof all covered in the breathable membrane and the chances are that we will get more rain!!

P1-Gutter-lining-glued-in

P2-Gutter-lining-glued

The last job of Friday, was to stick on the three layers plywood strips along the ridge line of the Q roof and also the outer edge too, all ready for the flashing slates (with its rubber under-skirt) to be applied.

For our last day of the week, we then got the two sets of valley counter battens that will support the glass-fibre trough installed, sitting on top of a metre wide breathable membrane. The two came together at the top, along with the ridge line. We put on excess lengths of battens, just in case we need it all when we sort out the complex arrangement of the main slates and the flashing slates meeting together and maintaining waterproofing etc.
The last task was to lay down the first row of the breathable membrane along the bottom, overlapping the rubber by 100mm and going over the hip and valley ends. This was secured down with the counter battens at each rafter position. We got the P1 section covered as well as both sides of the Q done too.

P1-start-of-membrane-and-battens

Q2-Valley-and-start-of-membrane

22 June 2019
Gutters and Downpipe Channels Installed for all P and Q and the first Third of A.

The last two days of the week (Friday and Saturday) were nice days so we got on with installing the two Downpipe Channel modules for the P-Q valley that forms part of the extension part of the building for the Conservatory coming in the future.

Then we got all the guttering done, for all the P (first section and second section either side of the Q conservatory) and the first third of the A section along the front of the house.

Finally, we got the layers of the plywood strips installed for the p-A Hip corner of the roof so we could fibre glass all the complicated junctions and corners.

Gutter-on-P1

Gutter-and-hip-on-P2-and-start-of-A

So on Monday (weather permitting) we can fibre-glass these junctions and have them all sealed, ready for the rubber membrane to go on along the two P small sections.

15 June 2019
Gable Roof Extended, Two Downpipe Channels Created and Resumed Preparing the P Section of Roof

On Monday, we extended the existing Gable section of the roof that will form part of the Conservatory. Using the new stud walls built last week, we put up a 420mm extension to the ridge beam to make a sum total of 910mm (3feet). This new ridge was sandwiched between two layers of our structural 12mm plywood, glued and screwed together with a second full single length of 95mm by 45mm treated timber underneath to reinforce the extension.

Extension-of-Q-ridge

Then a couple of CLS 63mm timber pieces were fixed to the long diagonal rafters to provide support for the new roof boards and two fresh lengths of 4by2 timber cut to form the outer rafters of the new extended roof.
The narrow strip was covered with more 12mm plywood segments and it is now ready for the next stage of counter battens and the breathable membrane to be put up.

Extended-Q-roof

Tuesday through to Saturday morning was spent working on two new Downpipe Channels to connect to the gutters and to the future Conservatory. We carefully measured each position of each channel module (PQ-1 and PQ-2) and then pulled out a couple of planks of Oak timber, 27mm thick but one plank being 150mm wide and the other being 250mm wide. We also had a couple of left-over pieces already planed from a previous job. These forms the two sides and the wider bottom pieces of the channel module.
All was planed and cut to width.

Start-of-Q-Downpipe-Channels

The next job was to put on the tongue & groove edges to join the pieces together and using a PU glue, formed a very strong joint and a much more robust module. The two sides were shaped in a particular fashion so they will slide in and under the overhanging roof boards of the “Q” conservatory roof.

Q-Downpipe-Channels-Glued

Another gluing job was to stick on two layers of 12mm plywood squares (150mm across) and stick them under the modules in the position where the plastic drain pipe will come through. After they had set, we drilled a 114mm diameter hole through all the layers (22mm of Oak and the two layers of the 12mm plywood) and then glued in short lengths of drain pipe.

Q-Downpipe-Channels-with-Pipes-fitted

While that was drying and curing, we went outside to resume work on putting up Slates on the narrow diagonal strip to finish off on the “N” section of the roof. We got half way up by the end of the day.

N-Nearly-done

On the following day, we carried on working on the downpipe channels by cleaning up all the edges, especially the newly installed plastic pipe sticking through the bottom of the channels and then applied a coat of polyester resin and glass-fibre matting to fully waterproof these channels and provide a smooth surface for the rainwater to flow into the pipework. And finally on Saturday morning, we applied the black coloured top coat layer of resin to provide the slick surface and colour.

Q-Downpipe-Channels-ready-for-fitting

While that was hardening, we brought in all the thin OSB strips that has a “bull-nose” on one edge. We discovered from the first time we used these strips to form a flashing waterproof barrier for the Hip and Ridge lines, that the resin soaked into the open grain of the material so we spent a hour or so applying Polyfilla to all of them to bulk fill these gaps.

Bullnose-Strips-filled

We are in the middle of some very changeable and windy weather at the moment so we hope we can still proceed with our work. We have been lucky so far this year in general. Next week, we will install the new downpipe channels, put on the guttering and then start laying on the strips of roofing membranes all along “P” and the “Q” roof sections.

8 June 2019