Week Fifty-four

Week beginning 12th June 2023.

We had a long weekend in Edinburgh, extended mostly because we both had dental appointments.

We had a lovely time on Saturday with our good friends Nicky and Graham, we went for a nice walk around the new lagoons development beside Musselburgh race course then a couple of drinks and a delicious dinner. On Sunday we went for a family lovely brunch at Ross and Kathleen’s with Eddie, Mary, Niven, Caitlin and Ali. On Sunday night it was dinner at Pete’s mum’s with Mikey and Eddi H. It was so nice to see everyone.

We got back on Monday night on the Oban bus from Edinburgh and it’s back to work today.

It’s so hot outside that we are relieved to be working inside the mega-shed. Today’s task is to finish the wall behind the mitre saw bench but first we need to clear the space.

It’s taken us a good while to empty all the shelves under the bench and dismantle it enough to move it out of the way but now we can get started on fitting the insulation.

We have had a go at using the left-over Steico Dry boards from insulating the gable but the section we experimented on left too much of a gap – the timber frame is 145mm deep and the insulation is only 80mm deep, this might leave a gap for condensation to build up. So we are using up the left-over Steico Flex bales. It’s a messy business but we are wearing our paper cover-all suits and using hand tools to cut them to size.

We need to cut round the extra battens we had to attach where the tie-down straps down from the wall head and up from the concrete slab are fixed to the timber kit, it’s a bit tricky but we had worked out how to do it previously – a serated knife works a treat when making shallow cuts.

With all the insulation in the wall we can now measure up and cut the OSB to fit. To make the nailing easier we have marked on the floor where the extra battens are and where the metal tie-down straps are.

Molly’s cousin, Catriona, just popped by to see how we are getting on and offers us lots of encouragement which is always welcome

It hasn’t taken long to sheet the wall so we are now putting back the blocks to fix the bench to. We are taking care to get the bench level and fixed securely.

With the saw back on the bench we are carefully lining everything up, making sure the saw and the bench are level to each other and everything is at the right height. It’ll be worth the effort when we get back to cutting long lengths of timber.

It’s taken all day to empty the mega-shed, dismantle the bench, insulate and sheet the wall then put everything back in it’s place. It’s been worth it even though we have lost all the storage space we had between the timber frame studs. Having said that we have freed up space where the insulation was stored and the stack of OSB is smaller.

________________________________________________________

It’s Wednesday morning and we are expecting Andrew this afternoon to help us fit the ridge on the house. In the mean time we will get on with battening the inside of the house and we’ll start with the boot room.

It’s two o’clock and it’s baking hot, Andrew has just arrived to help us fit the ridge. It is going to be hot up there because it’s at least 25º C in the shade.

Pete is up on the roof ladder and Andrew is on the scaffolding, on a ladder. Molly is passing up the ridge to Andrew, who is passing it along to Pete. It is now immediately obvious to Andrew why we had bother fitting it first time around. The flashing is meant to go over the edge of the roof onto the facia at right angles but our angle wasn’t right. This meant that when we presented the ridge first time around there was a big gap betweeen the flashing and the ridge. When we forced it down and bolted it on it didn’t lie flat along the ridge and when we forced the other end down onto the ridge it buckled.

Andrew has loosened the bolts and allowed the flashing to sit correctly between the roof and the fascia and the problem is solved, the ridge is sitting nicely on the roof. We knew that we needed Andrew’s knowledge and experience to solve this one and now that it’s done we can get the rest of the ridge on.

It’s so hot up here that Pete’s leg is burning through his thick work trousers and Andrew is trying hard to avoid touching the tin with his bare skin.

Luckily everything is going smoothly and we are on the last piece of ridge. We will have to fit more fixings but for now the ridge is on and safe and we can get off this very hot roof. It has only taken an hour or so to fit the ridge and Pete thinks that we were highly motivated because of the heat and wanting to get off the roof.

Andrew has gone, he was only here for a couple of hours but look what we achieved. Now Pete is cutting the very tall grass to make some paths through our garden so it is more accessable and actually looks a bit like we care about it. We don’t have much time or energy for the garden but it will be quite wild even when we do put more effort into it.

________________________________________________________

Today we are going to tackle another task we have been putting off because it hasn’t been a priority. We are going to sheet the wall to the mezzanine on the east staircase. We need to do this to make that wall a racking wall, one that stops the south elevation pushing out under the weight of the roof. We also need to fill the gap between the wall and the staircase so it’ll need battening too.

But first, we need to reposition the wall on the mezzanine level because if we move it back and sheet it too it will be much stronger than the way we had originally planned to do it. We have moved it back in line with the floor rather than overlapping.

Because the bottom of the sheeting is at an angle we are taking our time measuring and planning how we are going to do it.

The first sheet has gone on a treat but we are taking the second one back to the mega-shed to recut the bottom edge to give us a bit of wriggle room when positioning it.

We’ve just finished sheeting the wall and were discussing what to do next and Robbie and Anne have arrived on their way back to Carnoustie from a wee break in Oban. They haven’t been here since last summer so they are seeing a lot of changes. It’s always different when you see the house in the flesh rather than on the blog. Robbie thinks the house is really big, which wasn’t our intention but he must be right because he’s not the first to say so.

It’s been lovely seeing Robbie and Anne and catching up but they have had to go because they still have a bit of journey home.

We are now tackling the wall opposite and it should be a bit easier than what we have just done as it doesn’t have a jaunty angle to take into account.

Hmmmmm! Pride comes before a fall.

We measured and cut the OSB and when we presented it the top bit was wrong so we’re back in the mega-shed re-cutting it. Turns out we put the straight edge on the wrong marks before cutting it, luckily we didn’t cut enough off. if we’d cut too much off it would have been a bit of a waste.

Second time lucky. To fix it in place first we need to clamp it because it is very high up. Now we need to adjust it and nail it in place.

Job done. Now we are calling it a day but first we need to tidy up and put away all our tools ready for a fresh start tomorrow.