Week Forty – Part Two

It’s dry so we are going to get on with the soffits and fascias on the mega shed. Having a look at the truss ends we realise that we will need to attach some battens to the attic trusses to fix the soffits. This means six of the trusses on the east and west elevations will need these additions. We also have to add a triangular piece of timber to the end of the gable ladder on each corner. This is going to take a while.

That was much quicker and easier than expected so we can now get on with fixing the first soffits to the east elevation.

The first board has to start flush to the end of the gable ladder and end on a truss so careful measuring is required. We have to drill pilot holes for the screws on each end of the board to avoid splitting and the whole thing has to run along the line of the truss ends. With a nice straight board this is easy enough but larch is notoriously unruly.

It has taken us ages to persuade our first board to run true to the line of the trusses and it has caused quite a bit of friction between us but we’ve done it and can move on to the next board.

It’s the end of the day and we have fitted the soffits on the east and west elevations. It has been a very challenging day and we have not achieved as much as we would have liked but tomorrow is another day.

Another cold and sunny morning and we are ready for action. Last night we talked through yesterday’s challenges and frictions and have a strategy to minimise it happening again. Communication is everything!

We are going to fit the fascias to the soffits we fitted yesterday before Andrew gets here. We are choosing nice straight(ish) boards to make it as straightforward as possible. It’s gone well and we are fitting the last board as Andrew arrives.

Today we are going to fit one of the Velux roof windows. Just as with all the other tasks we have had to do the approach is, Andrew shows us how to do it and then leaves us to it.

The firat step is to measure up the four corners of the opening from the inside, then drill a hole through the insulation. We’ve moved outside to cut the insulation from one hole to another. Now we can knock through.

The hole needs tidied up from the inside and out. On the outside we need to fix battens at the top and bottom of the hole to attach the window fixings to.

With the whole prepared we are screwing the fixings onto the window frame ready to feed out onto the scaffolding and lifted into place. Now we have to make sure the window is centred and level before we can screw it down.

With the window fixed in place we can now start taping waterproof membrane to the window frame to make it watertight and finally we’ll cover it to protect it from the rain ready for fitting the corrugated metal roof.

The next time we get some dry weather we can cut out the holes for the other two windows and on another day we can fit the windows. According to the forecast the weather is about to change so we might have to wait a few days but we’ve had an amazing run of good weather and managed to get lots done.