Shutting Down For Christmas

This will be the last post for 2012, and what a year !!

We finally finished all the roof tiling, just before we closed up for Christmas.

The South face all finished.

The North face also finished.

 We also have had to close up all the window openings with plywood sheeting. This is to stop the wind, which could cause the roof to be lifted off due to air pressure.

View from the North-West corner

South-West corner

South-East corner

The scaffolding on the west side is now all completed. This gives us access to all sides of the house.

Merry Christmas and have a Happy New Year.

The Slates are On

On the 23rd Nov we started putting up the trusses on the roof. The first ones were put up in two's and three's so the roofer can fix them.

A view from inside

The gap at the end

A view of the trusses the wood on the top of them is temporary bracing.

What we achieved in six hours

The roofer has left a gap at each end of about three trusses so the block layers can come back and finish the blocks for the gables from the inside.

The block layers came back on 28th Nov to finish off the gables at each end of the house.

The roofer had put a piece of timber as a guide for the block layer.

The view from the North-West corner.

 On the 30th Nov. the block layers finished on site and took away most of their scaffolding, tools and the beloved telehoist which, as a tool in building the house, has been invaluable. I'll miss it very much as I have said to many people if they win the lottery and are feeling generous please buy me one!!!

Adam and Deen came to help clean up the interior of the house. We took all the spare blocks, pieces of timber and insulation and gave it a good clean.

The inside looking much cleaner

After the top of gables where finished we have had to put up some shuttering and finish them properly with concrete.

Michael adding the temp. shuttering for the top of the gable walls

After the concrete was added the insulation that was used as shuttering as will be cut off level with the wall

The roofer add lots of bracing to the roof this took three days alone

We have used nearly 6000 nail gun nails and ten kilo's of loose nails in the roof. There has been lots of bracing in this roof.

On the 7th Dec. we started measuring up for the vapour membrane to be added to the roof. Before then all the bottom section of the roof was given a coat of wood preservative.

Adding the preservative

Measuring for the vapour barrier

The vapour barrier

 The vapour barrier was fixed and then the roof was counter battened so that there will be a 50mm gap between the vapour barrier and the bottom of the roof slates, this is done for air circulation.

The 50mm counter battens then the slate battens

Adding the slate battens

On the 11th Dec. the slates arrived from Tegral.

The slates are on site.

The battens that the slates are fixed on to took a while to set up because these make a very big difference to how easy it will be to fix the slates on to and the final look of the roof.

The first slates on the roof on the 12th Dec.

The South side roof is done first.

The North side of the house is ready for the slates. As can be seen below we were one truss over this was because we changed our mind about the way the chimney for the stove is coming out of the house its now exiting from the west gable end.

A view from the North West corner.