Dormer Window

I went back to the "Complicated Little Roof" today to fit the roof on the dormer window.
It was no easier than the rest of the roof as the drawings were next to useless and the customer wanted it different to how it was shown anyway. Once we'd worked out what overhang he wanted (it's different to the rest of the dormers on the house as it sticks out from the brickwork) I managed to get the rafters and ridge board up and then cut the long compound mitres on the jack rafters (which fitted first time - to my surprise!).
I've got a day left on this roof when the next window turns up, I just hope the weather is as dry as it was today (although maybe not as cold). The main downside today was I had to put my tools away in the dark!

Complicated Little Roof

I had my first time off ill from work in 6 years this week, but by Tuesday night I was ready to get back at it.
I started this little roof on the Wednesday morning and straight away I knew it wasn't going to be straight forward. There's 4 steels marked on the drawing to go in; to take the old roof and support the ridge beam as well as the end gable brickwork, there's also a dormer window and a large valley gutter one side with a parapet wall containing a concealed gutter on the other. The first thing was a bit of head scratching and deciding where to begin ( as the picture below with drawings, bevels, scale rule and calculator shows!)
We decided to get the "cranked" steel in first, then the steel that's supporting the old roof, involving stripping the tiles, removing the old dormer window and cutting the old rafters.
We then managed to get a couple of rafters up with a ridge board (scarf joint ready cut) ready for us to place the new ridge beam so the brick layer can build up to it.
The sun was setting fast as we finished off tonight, but next week should see us shoot ahead with it (although I can already see that the drawings are missing another steel as there isn't one to pick up the shorter section of the new roof, so i guess we're have to come up with a solution for approval!).
Only a small roof but hundreds of things to think about! People forget how much a carpenter has to remember!

Structural Work On Roof Done!

I managed to work through the list from the structural engineer over the last few days and tick off every item from his list.
The first was to remove a section of the wall plate as the cantilevered section was rotten (the bit sticking out past the wall). This wasn't as awkward as I thought it might be, just a few 6 inch cut nails to contend with. I half lapped the new section of wall plate on, which I planed down to size as it wasn't standard, and added the strap across the top to meet the requirements the engineer had set.
This picture shows quite well why I think the roof should have been replaced- the rafters are cut on to the wrong side of the wall plate creating pressures and forces in the wrong place so its pushing out not down. I know the purlins reduces the load but I just don't like to see work left thats not right!
The next step was to splice the barge board on the end where it had gone rotten, as well as add a new cocking fillet.
I then had to add 450mm new ends to the rafters which had the worst levels of decay.
The worst job was to then chisel a section of wall plate around 4m long and add a ply facing. This was to straighten it up and provide a fixing for the gutting. This job did my chisels no favours as it was full of nails.
I also added a ply soffit to both ends and fitted the a complete new gable ladder with barge board on the far side (not an easy job on your own!).
When I'd finished I couldn't help but add a fineal to both ends just to finish it off (I wont get paid for that bit but I don't care!).

Adding a Purlin to a Roof

We're still waiting for decisions to be made about the roof at Summerfield park, but I did get permission to undertake all structural works detailed by the structural engineer.

This involves things like splicing the wall plate, repairing rafter ends and changing the gable ladder on one end (the whole roof should really be replaced but I've been shot down on that due to the councils tight budget so I'll just do as I'm told).

I did have an argument with the structural engineer when he came as he originally said that a prop in the roof was doing nothing (it was under so much tension you could play a tune on it)- but to leave it in just in case (this way he wasn't going against his original survey. I wasn't really very happy with this answer, so I got him back out to look again, he then agreed with me that something should be done. I suggested a high level purlin should be added, he just needed to tell me the size.

In the end it had to be 250mm x 100mm by just over 5m long and to be C24 strength. It took ages to find someone who stocked a timber this size and strength (most suppliers stock up to 4.8m and normally only C16 strength), still it turned up yesterday so today I could have a bit of extra help to get it into the roof.

I wont say how it got up there for many reasons but it involved 5 men and quite a bit of grunting. Once it was in the loft space I let the other guys go to another job, just leaving just another chippy and myself to fit it. A little brick work making a recess in the gable wall to take it, then packing it up with slate and using mortar to fix it in. I think it was at the limit of what we could lift between us but we were both really pleased when we could take the old prop out and have the rafters sit on the new purlin.

I think I'm doing the rest of the repairs on my own, should keep me out of trouble!

Bit of Roof Work from a few years ago

I was looking through some old photos the other day and I came across a roof that Andy and me did back in 2005/2006. This was a lovely old barn that we were there to convert and we saw it through from start to finish, in fact this was a barn i used to play in as a kid as it's only a few miles from where I grew up. Andy still works for the firm who we did this through, they were a great little firm to work for.
When we started this roof I was a bit more daunted than Andy (or he didn't let it show) as the one side had a massive run where three full lengths of timber had to be used for the rafters, being birds mouthed onto purlins and the angle of the one side of the roof made things even more complicated. As well as this when we got there we had to brush the snow off the scaffold! I remember being dogged by bad weather and hiding under blue sheets out of the rain, the yard in front of the barn had a puddle that was over a foot deep! When we got the rafters on it was a great feeling, made slightly worse by the fact that we had to then felt, batten and tile the whole thing.
The tiling started in the new year and here I learnt a valuable lesson about work. We were tiling in the snow, wrapped up against the elements, and I started to feel bad, so bad in fact I had to go home early and take the next day off (My first ever day off ill). I then felt slightly better and went back to work, I made myself so much worse because I wasn't ready to go back - in the end I nearly gave myself pneumonia and had to have x-rays with fluid on the lungs! Three weeks off in total, for a self employed man this is never good.
Still I bounced back and came back in time to do the larch cladding and the work on the inside with Andy.I loved doing this barn conversion (wish I had more pictures!).
Good times

Renovating a Roof

The last few days at work I've been renovating an old roof. In the end I think it would have been easier to have taken it completely off and start again but never mind. At least we didn't have to alter the purlins by doing it this way (although some of the rafters had to be packed to catch the purlins).
On one side of the roof I replaced every rafter due to rot and woodworm whereas on the second side I just extended each one down so it will cover the future external insulation as these were all sound. Where the rafters were replaced everyone had to be cut to a different length due to the building being out of square, this made it a bit of a slower job, but its only a small roof!
I decided that although the specifications said to insulate between the rafters and on top I made it a "warm roof" and insulated only on top, this keeps the air flow between the rafters but used a more expensive insulation to meet regulations - the building inspector was happy with this solution.

The roof insulated and counter battened, ready now for felt, batten and tiling.

I might give my tool box a wash...

The second half of this week I was back on the Gypsies site putting fascia and soffit on. This is a job that can take just as long as putting up the roof, all the rafters have to be cut and battens and noggins added to carry the UPVC.
On Thursday the sun was shinning (first day this year where I haven't worn a hat!) and things were looking good. That was until I got my toolbox out of the van, turned my back on it for a second, only to turn back round and see the bricklayer's dog piss on it!
I was unimpressed.
I was even more unimpressed when the Gypsies dog decided that he to needed to mark his territory as well and copied the first. The trouble was everyone else on site thought this was really rather funny, I told them I was laughing on the outside but crying inside! Never mind, I'll give it a scrub today and plot my revenge on the two devil dogs!

Back to the soffit - I'm not a fan of plastic, least of all when its trying to look like something else, but this oak effect UPVC looked quite like oak!
Fitting the soffit seemed like a never ending job, especially when we had to scribe it all round the corbeling above the windows, and each piece is only 300mm wide so the long sides of the house took a fair amount of time to nail up. By the end of Friday we had all the soffit complete and some of the longer lengths of fascia were up - John will have to finish on his own on Monday as I'm off working with my brother, felling trees, should be a bit different!

Up on the roof!

If I'm honest it's been a while since I've done any proper roofing (besides sheds and porches) so I was quite keen when I got offered a days work giving a mate a hand to finish putting a roof on. He'd put all of the large trusses on the previous two days, but due to there being a large open plan area in the middle of the house, the central section had to be "cut on" as the large attic trusses couldn't span across this as it would close it in. This would be really difficult on your own as holding and fixing these rafters is nearly impossible without a little help.
We also added a gable over the front door and used diminishing trusses to cut it back into the main roof, this goes on faster than you'd think. Lastly we added the gable ladders so the roof can stick out past the brick work. These were really awkward to fit as we had little to stand on and ended up like a couple of monkeys working across the roof. It was the first time I'd worked with this mate and I was quite impressed with him and the amount he'd managed to do on his own the days before (he's also working with a broken wrist!)
This weeks work has not been so glamours. doing some maintenance work on a school in Sutton Coldfield replacing two rotten "beams" for a company I've not worked for before (although one of my best mates now works there - hence getting the couple of days work). In the end the job wasn't as bad as we thought as the beams were just a 3x2 frame clad in ply, it was tricky not to do any more damage to the old perspex roof but we managed it in two days when the firm we were working for had allowed quite a bit more time than that.
I think the whole lean-to should come down as the rest of it wasn't in a much better state. I really felt for this school, all the buildings were wooden and everything was rotten, you could easily kick your was through a wall if you wanted to.