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Today, we finished off doing the last three Downpipe Channels and permanently fitted into place with glue and screws. These were along the back of the building, on IJ, LM and MN corners.

This concludes the six modules that are fully integrated into our building construction, fitting into the roof structure and the Fascia. The only other two Downpipe Channels are temporary and won’t be installed until we are ready to put on the roof boards around on the “P” and where the Conservatory would be constructed later on and hence why these two are temporary to provide an end cap to the guttering system in the meantime.

We resumed the task of cutting the slot into the Fascia boards, the final stretch going from “E” to “H” sections to complete the full circuit.
We also fully installed two more Downpipe Channels, one for the DE corner and the other one at the GH intersection.

Tomorrow, we will conclude doing the final three Downpipe Channels around the back of the building, on IJ, LM and MN corners and that will be that at last! We could be doing the roof boards and start covering up the roof next – yippee!!

For the last day of June, we had a long day of work, continuing the task of cutting the slot into the Fascia boards, this time, along the front. We did section “A” and section “B” then fitting very carefully, gluing and screwing the Downpipe Channel module, making sure the sloping bottom base layer is exactly at the correct height in relation to the two incoming gutter base boards (to be fitted later on) and going downhill towards to the plastic downpipe itself.

After lunch, we had to level the sandy soil along the front of the Front Door Porch (section “C”) so we could get our mobile platform moved along there. we managed to move the platform sideways (at a 90degrees right angle) before resuming along the front. We did the “C” section alright, apart from having to remove some of the stainless screws that were right where the slot is going (we put them back afterwards!) but the fun started when we needed to “turn” the corner to do the “D” and “E” sections.
We were running out of room to move the bottom half (the actual metal scaffolding part and its wheels), we needed to avoid the fence and the last fence post. It was tricky because the wheels are hard nylon 6inch castors so the plywood strips were needed to support them from digging into the soft sandy soil. We managed to do it .. eventually – phew!

We concluded the day in doing section “D” (a nice short one!) and then the outer corner patch.

So we now have done, almost, all three sides of the house and have only the last four sections (“E” to “H”) to go and put in the final downpipe Channels in and that will conclude the work on the Fascia board and the first stage of the guttering. We will be tackling the job of putting on the roof boards next – Hurrah!

This afternoon, we created another template to help us with the task of cutting slots into the Fascia boards, this time, for the outside corners. These 45 degrees corners are only 150mm (6inches) wide so the template is quite small. Our first version was to have the flat plywood plate with the guide rail and slot in it, plus with two arms sticking out at the 45degrees angle so we can clamp the template into place.

But we found that there are slight variations at each of these corners so we decided that the simplest approach is to just simply screw the flat plywood plate straight to the fascia section with two screws . the little holes will be covered up later on so we don’t mind this “kludge” to solve this problem!!

We have used it on the back three corners we had waiting and all went well.

Now we can do the remaining corners as when we get to them as we cut the slot in the other Fascia board.

We then got our mobile platform around the corner (coming from the “A” section to the “P” section – the long side of the Great Room) and got it positioned right down the far end to continue with where we left off from yesterday’s morning work. We proceeded doing the two “P” sections plus also the corner connected to the “O”. We managed to get the tower back around the PA corner (back on the front of the house) before stopping for the day. the tower wasn’t too bad to move with all its heavy concrete blocks loaded on, we just took it easy and used lots of plywood strips on the ground to help support the wheels.

We will continue with the slot cutting on Saturday, going along the front (“A” through to “E”) and down the right side to finish off (“F” to “H”).