Blog

Today under a very strong Sun, we continued our way around the house, taking down each section of the Fascia, gluing the ends of the rafters and the joints and putting it back up again but this time with both stainless steel screws, wound in and tightened right down.

We completed the F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O and the last part of P sections! Hurray! Now we can get on with the next task of mapping out the angles of all the gutter runs, taking into account the prevailing direction of the rain and the collection area on each section of the roof.

We finished off the “P” section of the Fascia boards where they connected to the temporary Downpipe Channels (which are alongside what will be the conservatory).

After that bit was done, which saw the final conclusion of getting our Fascia Board up, all 77 metres of it on 15 sections of roof, all aligned up and no extra bits needed doing or repairing, we were ready to begin the task, the long task, of permanently fixing and gluing all the Fascia Board into place.
We started at the conservatory end (on the front part of the “P” section) and began taking down each section of the Fascia, after pre-screwing the second screw first (provide a pilot hole to help us align the boards), gluing all the ends of the rafters and the butt joints with their biscuits and mounting everything back up again! We got as far as and completed section “E” so we managed to get all the front of the house done.

Under some glorious sun, we continued with the mounting up of the Fascia Boards. We resumed on the “H” section, then around an outside corner which had it 45° bit put on, done the “I” towards a downpipe inner corner, together with the neighbouring “J” section. This joined up to the “K” long section (on the back of the building) via another 45° corner. Then a duplicated corner, again an outside 45° angled piece, to connect to the “L” section heading back into an inner downpipe corner. And the “M” Fascia was mounted up which has a double ended internal downpipe at both ends. Finally, the “N” Fascia board is loosely held up and we will finish that tomorrow, along with the “O” and “P” and that’s it!

We didn’t stop this time to do the Downpipe Channels as we wanted to concentrate on getting as many of the Fascia boards fitted up as possible. We will have five of them to do so probably will take the whole day.

Yesterday we tackled the job of installing one of our Downpipe Channels for the first time, now that we have up enough Fascia board. The “AB” corner was our designated target. After careful positioning of the channel module, from below and then from above, and double checking gaps between pencil marks etc., we then proceeded to hand saw the end of the rafter and the Fascia timber itself, at the required 45degree angle and ended up with a gap of 160mm wide. The Down Downpipe Channel fitted nice and neat – thank goodness!

We then screwed the back of it, to secure it onto the wall and with that extra support, we could then sawed the excess material off the vertical walls of the channel as they were protruding above the slope of the roof.

Then we mounted up the “E” section of the Fascia boards, as usual, starting at the outside corner (part of the Side Door Porch) and positioning and screwing up the two and half pieces to form the “E” section.
Today, first of all, we cut joined several pieces together in the “F” section by the usual tongue and groove joint, all glued up and drying, while we went outside to do the next Downpipe Channel module, this time for the “DE” corner (the other side of the Front Door Porch) and got that fitted in with a similar method as for the previous module.

Then we carried on with the “F” portion of the roof (the Side Door Porch), now that the glue was set and cleaned up, and around the right end, this being the “G” bit of the Fascia. These two sections were drilled and screwed into place, including the two outside 45degree corners too.
The last job of the day was to fit the next Downpipe Channel, which is a straight one coming along from the “G” section. It was a complicated joint to fit the module again against the Fascia board but also making sure it had the required slope and clearance for the downpipe connections as well.

Tomorrow, we will continue the circuit of the house with the “H” section to do next and then “I” and so on.

Yesterday and today, we carried on processing the Fascia boards, sorting out the pile of Oak pieces, taking off the bad ends, adjusting lengths for outside corners, slicing bevel ends, cutting biscuits joints and sanding down rough patches. We got sorted enough pieces so we could tongue and groove several lengths ready for the “C” section of the roof as well for the “N” section too.
So after lunch today, we took out the pieces for us to mount up the Fascia board for “B”, “C” (along the Front Porch) and “D” (the two sides of the porch). We started on the two outside corners first, getting the little 45degree angled block positioned into place connected up to the two long sides, which allowed us to chop off the complicated angled slopes coming off the Fascia boards. Then eventually getting the whole “C” section up and screwed into place.

We are making quite good progress and we have almost finished sorting and processing the Oak Fascia pieces and the remaining job of mounting the Fascia will go quicker. On Monday, we will try and put up one of our Downpipe Channels to see how that will go in and what adjustments to our technique we may have to do. We Will See!!

Yesterday and today, we continued with the processing of the set of Fascia Boards that has the 32degree slope on them, and sorted them out to form sets for the five sections of roof that are the same angle. These are the “A”, “E” (along the front of the building), “G” (the short sticking out bit on the right hand side of the Side door porch) and finally the “I” and “M” (along the back). The outside corners all have the 22.5degree mitre cuts (all of them except “M” as it is completely an inside job!). and all the intermediate planks have a biscuit joint to help align the faces together. We also had to join pieces together using a multi-finger tongue and groove joint to extend the last board arriving into the inner corners (where the downpipe channels are situated).
We had the “A” and “P” section of the rafters all ready for mounting up the Fascia boards so we took these two sets out and gave it a test run.

We started at the outside corner and positioned the first planks from both “A” and “P” plus the 150mm wide 45degree angled piece and joined them together so all was aligned. We then continued along the “A” putting up pieces and all is fine. Because it was looking good, we decided that we could do the next step of using our drilling template and make the clearance holes in these Fascia boards and screw down the top hole only to keep it all secured.
Tomorrow, we will finish off the last plank on the “A” section and then start work on sorting out the “C” section (Front Porch) and have that ready so we can do these outside corners for both BC and CD, which in turn, will allow us to put up “B” and “D” Fascia plus also the “E” section too! It is coming along! Hurrah!!