Week 85 - Roof Window

 As you may have seen in the earlier blog entry we have already put in a few Velux roof windows, with the original plan to do this last one at the same time. Unfortunately we ran out of time and cash at the time to do it. However as we are due to move on to internal dry fit out work within the building soon, so it’s become a now or never situation to start cutting new holes in the roof

This isn’t a Velux window but a custom made, none opening large (2m x 1.6m) skylight right in the middle of the main living space in the residential apartment.

It turned out to be a fair amount of work to figure out, make and install but I am extremely happy with it. The amount of light it lets into the building on even an overcast day is really quite surprising – to the point where the temporary strip lights we have up in there have no effect on the light level at all when the sun is out.

I made the frame out of the same European Oak as the rest of the windows and the same hardware as on the roof windows facing the park for the glass (capex)

Gluing up the frame in the workshop

Aperture cut ready for the frame install

Me ‘tweaking’ the roof joists a little so the frame fits better – my tape measure was obviously having a bad day when I originally measured up! Whats 5mm between friends ay….

We also webbed out the balcony steels with timbers this week, as you can see with the ropes in the picture below, it required rigging up some pulleys etc. to help get them into place (the river was in the way again!) and this is far easier with the building the way it currently is – plenty of exposed timberwork to wrap ropes around.

Ill level with you….

The first one of these timbers we tried to put in fell straight in the river!

And when I say ‘fell’ what I really mean is we dropped it….

And when I say ‘we’ I really just mean me!

This resulted in what I am now claiming as the first game of ‘Extreme Pooh Sticks’ ever played – where instead of dropping you twigs off one side of a bridge and seeing which comes out the other first, you just chase a very large 4meter long plank down the river for a half mile or so!! Much to everyone in the parks amusement.

I haven’t quite figured out all the rules as yet, but I think the victory of the first game has to go to Graeme as he took the rather bold move of going into the river up to his knees, on a very cold winter’s day to grab it. I mean credit where credits due – I was willing to just let the thing float off into the sunset and get a repayment from the timber yard.