Week 11 - Taking off the roof

Although started last week with the smaller front asbestos roof this week we took off the mains roofs proper ready for the new steels to arrive next week.
There was a lot of swinging of hammers and crow bars and general aggression applied - we are now totally ruthless tradesman, who are now without roof!

 Outer skins of steel sheeting and the old felt and chipboard roof removed (still mainly on the floor)

Had the extended Wilson family workers on site this week, Sophie's cousin helping me up top ripping the roof apart and my ever reliable and hard working head laborer Graeme (sophs dad - supposed to be retired - sorry!), as well as help from some very kind friends how came by to help with the mammoth skip loading tasks at the end of each day.

 All the old timber frame/structure now also removed...

We had some amazing weather and sun that made the job a lot easier, i even got sunburned (in the lakes in September - who knew) All in all a very hard working but very successful week.

View from the park looking back at the river wall - which currently looks from here at least to be the only structure left of the building, no wonder everyone is pointing and staring as they walk past!

Week 10 - Roofs start coming off

Its been a busy week on site this week, starting with the asbestos guys coming in on Monday and Tuesday to take the last of the asbestos out of the building. It may be nasty and expensive stuff to get rid of - but it was keeping us dry... and now its not.

So as you can see we now have no roof over the (to be) flat/living area and the rear section to the river. On a positive not we are due for some great weather for the rest of the week so we can crack on with rebuilding walls and gable ends etc that were otherwise impossible because they were supporting the old roof - its also very nice and bright light to work in without roofs, who would have guessed.

First of which was rebuilding the new gable end of the building facing the road. It has been clear for a few weeks now that this old structure was quite pathetically weak and crumbing, which meant it took Ben Lane and I no time at all to have it all demolished and waste stacked up on Tuesday evening. Exactly how weak and easily destroyed is shown in the video above...

For the rest of the week i roped in Mark Stuart and Jamie Cooper to help me lug around the long timbers rebuilding the new gable end. Went up quite nicely, it is good to be able to see the new larger south facing window views.
We also removed the outer sheet steel skin of the rear roof while the weather was good and used it to try and protect the floorboards under the now roofless area from some of the elements - it will eather work or give us a nice 1st floor water feature: i know which my money is on!

 Road side roof and gable end cleared and ready for rebuilding

 Mark looking proud of his work. We rebuilt with a slightly taller apex and 15 degree pitch

 View looking backwards across the now missing and skinless roofs into the park

Our very private and/or communal toilet!


Sophie and I came to a very wet and rainy site on Saturday to mix and pour some concrete over the now finished soil pipe trenches. Sophie decided using a cement mixer was a lot like using a cake mixer, just less appetizing.

A very rainy morning, with no roof and pouring concrete may not be the perfect way to spend your Saturday, but if we hadn't, we would of met this little guy!

Week 8-9 - Rebuilding road side external walls / Finishing soil pipes

Nothing major happening on site this week, have just been finishing working on the two new road side external walls. The stud work was built a few weeks ago, so we have now wrapped them in a waterproof breather membrane and put there first external skin on. They are then battened vertically to create a 50mm air gap then a second skin attached (not done yet, will wait till after new roof) We can then do a render or batten again horizontally and clad in timber - so many layers!

New walls clad and battened

After their 3 visits to have the most fleeting of glances each time, building control are now happy with our layout and connect up of soil pipes. So we're no longer weeing in buckets but back on the throne (still need a bucket of water to flush though - baby steps) The mark II layout did require some more jack hammering, in fact another half days, But it is done now and materials on site for concreting it all back over - all i need now is a concrete mixer!