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!