I'm really not very good at these WIP postings. I'm sorry to say it's been 5 months since my last update.
I'd all but given up on getting the EPDM on and the roof watertight before Xmas because of the incessant rain we had leading up to Christmas, Mike had advised not to fit the insulation and the top deck of ply unless I could get the EPDM promptly as the water would get trapped leading to rot.
Life then threw us a real spanner in the works, I was due to fly out to Majorca with my parents for a 10 day holiday over the Xmas period, unfortunately the evening before we were due to fly my mum suffered a stroke, so the holiday was cancelled and I unexpectedly found myself at home over Xmas. After a couple of days of turmoil and shock, I noticed the weather had been dry and was forecast to stay dry for most of the week, so to take my mind of things I decided to crack on with the roof. (Mum is making a good recovery and is back on her feet)
There's not too many photos of the roof covering as most nights I finished working by torch light.
- celotex 1
- (342.81 KiB)
- celotex 2
- (322.18 KiB)
- completed roof
- (397.21 KiB)
All the EPDM came from Rubber4Roofs, who are 20minutes from me, I found them incredibly helpful and they didn't laugh too hard when I rang them in desperation having kicked over a pot of primer on the roof!!!
I went for the thicker 1.5mm rubber, the extra cost was marginal and it gave additional peace of mind. I had help getting it on the roof, the roll was VERY heavy, it was a struggle even with the extra pair of hands. I'm fortunate that my bedroom window opens onto the orangery roof, so the best way was to lug the roll through the house, up the stairs and out through a window.
The drawback of those bedrooms windows is I now look out over all the air bubbles trapped under the rubber!!
Just after I got the roof watertight (apart from the great hole in the middle), the weather returned to it's usual wet and cold, so I turned my attention to the insides. I need to remove a chimney breast as the downstairs wall is being removed, the external stack had already been removed to below the roof line, so I started in loft working down until I broke into the bedroom.
- Chimney part way
- (203.83 KiB)
and just kept going
- bedroom chimney down
- (225.72 KiB)
- kitchen chimney
- (255.75 KiB)
Up to now, the chimney has been constructed with lime mortar, and a quick tap, either with hand or hammer was enough to free the brick, however when the chimney breast in the kitchen was bricked up to take a gas fire (originally the chimney housed a range cooker, you can still the tiles splash back), the left hand pillar was rebuilt at some point with rock hard mortar, my SDS chisel won't touch it, but as the wall is currently only single skin I don't want to use too much force to demolish it. I'll insert a beam to support the upper wall before taking a sledge hammer to what remains of the chimney breast.
Although I thoroughly enjoyed the process up to now, I couldn't wait to get back to some woodworking and here was my first opportunity, the roof lantern
- wood pile
- (468.55 KiB)
A lovely pile of Sapele
The long 4m cill sections were awkward running through my P/T, but I was fortunate that boards were pretty flat and twist free to start with.
- long cill
- (227.03 KiB)
I wanted to do something to break up the plain rafters and was going to go for chamfers until I found the large round over bit
- mouldings
- (202.87 KiB)
The only space I've got large enough and out of the weather to dry assemble the lantern is in my kitchen, it really does give it a sense of scale, the lantern fills the kitchen, I have to breath in to reach my cooker!!
- roof lantern
- (287.32 KiB)
The lantern is pretty much finished, I'll break it all down now and paint it before reassembling in position on the roof.