Roselea

Category: Cladding

All Cladding materials and work on walls

  • All Larch Timber Scorched and Chemical Dunk Trough Built

    The last two weeks saw the completion of scorching all the Larch cladding timber. A total of 596 planks of varying lengths from 3metres, right up to 5.7metres and different widths of 75mm, 100mm and 125mm. They all had a position in a list that describes how much scorching each had, from level zero (not touched by any flames) to a deep burn at level 5. We eventually, after having to do running repairs and improvements to the Scorching Machine (a new Motor driver heatsink amd replacement snadpaper on the drive rollers), processed all 441 Planks that needed scorching. Our canister of Butane gas, had 19kg of gas at the start. This went down to just 2kg at the end so how about that then?!

    Replaced-sandpaper-on-drive-drums

    Replaced-sandpaper-on-drive-drums

    New-Heatsink-for-motor-drive

    New-Heatsink-for-motor-drive

    All-the-scorched-planks

    All-the-scorched-planks


    The next task was to do a grand tidy up of the whole area, moving the scorching machine over to be stored away in a corner for emergencies, sweep up the brown “charcoal” dust that was produced by the scrubbing process, probably about good bucket load and a general sweep right across the middle of the building, another 2 buckets of mostly sand.

    Pile-of-removed-burnt-wood-dust

    Pile-of-removed-burnt-wood-dust

    Then, we sorted out all the scorched planks into two main piles, one for fire treatment; these planks are destined for the back of the building nearest to the boundary and the side next to the garage too. The other main pile is earmarked for the front of the building and only going to have the single treatment of being oiled. The two piles are quite similar in size.

    The last day on Saturday was spent building the basic structure of our dunking trough to apply the necessary treatments. It is a long trough nearly 6metres, 160mm wide at the bottom and the two sides gently fans outwards to a height of 100mm. Then a 4foot wide draining board was constructed all the way along one side so we can position the freshly dunked planks up on the slope and reclaim the dripping liquid and recycle it for the next planks.

    Dunking-tank-on-Saturday-13th

    Dunking-tank-on-Saturday-13th

    Dunking-tank-on-Saturday-13th

    Dunking-tank-on-Saturday-13th


    Next week, we will seal the trough with plastic layers to retain the liquid and then start treating the Larch timber.

  • The Larch Timber for Wall Cladding Arrives

    Today saw the arrival of our Larch wall cladding timber! But it was most unexpected and the first sign that it was coming, was a phone call from the driver saying “I’m ten minutes away!” We were told delivery would be 2-3 weeks and it’s only been 9 days!
    O boy!
    The day was a very wet with virtually continuous rain all morning and we hadn’t planned to be out in it at all! But the phone call changed everything!!
    We hastily got changed into work clothes, put on rain jackets and gloves and got outside into the rain!
    The first job was to guide the lorry down our Loke, but at least and thank goodness, the driver was confident to reverse his soft shell high sided vehicle, all the way down to the bottom. The delivery truck had no crane and was expecting a fork-lift vehicle on site to unload the two pallets but alas we don’t have one of those!

    This meant that the whole lot, all 5 tons of it, had to be unloaded by hand, plank by plank, a total of 600 Planks!
    We got two trestle tables out to help organise carrying piles and several two by sixes to laid on the ground to support the larch out of the way.

    The load arrived at 10:10am and we got it all unloaded by 12:40am, a total of two and an half hours of solid back breaking continuous effort without a single rest!

    Larch-Delivery-1

    Larch-Delivery-1

    Larch-Delivery-2

    Larch-Delivery-2


    There are three different widths (145mm, 126mm and 95mm) planks and they came in various lengths. The narrow ones were the longest with most of them being nearly 6 metres long!

    The-3-Widths-of-larch-rainscreen

    The-3-Widths-of-larch-rainscreen

    The larch planks are very nice indeed, with hardly any knots and very smooth!

    The first quick analysis of what we got, seems to suggest that we were delivered 870metres of the widest planks, and about 810metres of the other two planks each. We ordered 850metres of each width.

    On the following three working mornings, Friday, Saturday and Monday, we moved all of them inside our main house so we could more precisely tally what we got, but also to stack them up in a much neater way, allow the planks to air and dry off from all the rain and get them ready for the two liquid treatment procedures they will need.

    All-the-larch-cladding

    All-the-larch-cladding

    The tally results for our timber were as follows:
    * Widest (145mm) : 213 x 4 meter = 852 meters
    * Medium (126mm) : 75 x 3 metres and 156 x 4 metres planks making 849metres
    * Narrow (95mm) : 62 x 5.4 meters plus 90 x 5.7m and one 4.9m = 852 meters

    This has meant that we were interrupted from our work on the roof and doing the windows! But it has to happen anyway.