Leaderboard

Easy Barney, easy there lad! It's before 9:00 pm.

Having fitted sarking boards and roofing membrane, the next task for the joiners was to batten out the roof ready for tiling, and forming timber 'skews'. 'Skews' are a verge treatment seen widely throughout Orkney, be they lead covered, stone or formed from concrete. Nothing especially complicated in their construction, as can be seen in the 'technical diagram' used by the joiners: With no external block leaf, our options were a bit limited in terms of construction, but the cantilever design is strongly anchored, bolted as it is to the concrete core of the ICF block, and to a timber (also bolted into the concrete core) that runs under the cantilever. The overhang will be significantly reduced as and when the additional EWI is fitted and cladding / render has been applied. Lead work next. A lot of lead required, 13 rolls of 390mm, 10 rolls of 600mm for the skews and valleys combined. Those of you who know the price of lead will appreciate the costs involved! The lead valleys were done first, 3 rolls of 390mm used: followed by a couple of days folding lead for the 'skews'. Two pieces were used to form the finish, the first being the 'soaker', which formers the gutter between the edge of the tiles and the 'skew' itself. The soaker profile, formed from 390mm lead (7 rolls used for the house, 3 left for the garage): The skew profile, formed from 600mm lead (7 rolls used for the house skews, 3 rolls left for the garage) : and how the two profiles fit together: And finally, how they look when complete: As you can see, to facilitate expansion, the skew is made up of overlapping pieces of lead rather than a single strip. Having completed the lead work, 5 days of it - 1 for the valleys, 1 day each per gable skew and soaker, the plumber handed over to the tiler. Working alone, he covered the roof with a flat profile concrete tile in 2 weeks. Because of the wind up here, every tile is double nailed and clipped. Black Soudal roofing sealant was used at valley / soaker junctions to secure any tiles that had been cut. Where tile meets lead, the folded edge of the soaker / valley lead was pulled up to the underside of the tile to prevent water (and bird) ingress. We now have a finished roof, which I have to say looks great. We are really pleased with the skews and the huge difference they make to the overall finished roof appearance. Unfortunately, we are still waiting for our windows, so will not be fully water tight for another 3 - 4 weeks. Work will however continue on site, with a reasonable list of jobs that can be progressed while we wait - building the garage, fitting EWI, fitting fascia and soffit boards, dwanging and battening inside etc.

:-) I gave up on trying to find a plot (too pricey) and bought a Victorian town house in need of full renovation. Bit of me felt sad at that decision, however, this will give me plenty to do, think about, ask and share!

Ladder.

Load it to YouTube, keep it "private", email a link.

Perfectly safe, used it like this loads of times. Gets you around 8ft high and its very easy to put up and move around. 4 trestles and 6 8ft planks is all you need. Onlys dodgy when you start using milk crates and wheelie bins.

@NSS, that was an interesting set of photos. Interesting because I'm working hard at visualising our foundations. The mist is clearing only slowly, and photos help the most.

: bows his head : Are you serious? In fairness I've never asked for a design, as I'm usually the one making them. I only ever ask people for a price on the kit I want. It seems BD outsource this service, at their peril. . Got a funeral tomw morning then I'll get back on the phone.

Sorry I saw those and thought it was just a 600m reel they had sent you ..! Joins are not ideal unless you really have to - I've done a couple with LoopCAD and you can set maximum lengths so it sounds like user issues tbh...

You might find these a more detailed: https://www.homebuilding.co.uk/setting-out-and-digging-the-footings/ or http://www.houseselfbuild.com/category/block-house-paul/strip-foundation-setting-out/

Yes, to be avoided unless accessible for servicing.

No! I assuming coupling is frowned upon?

Depends on the tile. A normal drill bit won't even mark a porcelain tile. I had to buy a 6mm diamond tip bit for mine. For ceramic an ordinary masonry bit will be fine.

Are you sure? Honestly? If you want a bag full, Junction 33 on the M6 : we are 5 minutes (or less) away. You'd be welcome any way - we're perfectly placed for a stop-off just before (or after) the Lakes. We're really close to Forton Services

A welcome successor to ebuild. I feel whole again! Looking forward to learning from everyone's experiences and rants and raves. I am in awe of some of the projects. History: Wiffy & I self-built 12 years ago in SW Scotland. Have now moved south and east (it's sunnier) and have a 1977 bungalow renovation. Various things done but now into upgrading thermal elements. It's small fry compared to what most other people are attempting but here's a sample....

There are lots of things that are "right" that when you first see them you think someone made an "error" The first was when I first saw a bath panel removed, and I literally laughed out loud at the fact they had cut a hole in the floor boards for the bottom of the trap to stick through. Then my dad told me that was perfectly normal. Then I tried to fit a pair of bath taps for the first time. If someone had tried to design a fitting (tap connector) with the design brief to make it as awkward to fit as absolutely possible, given the restricted access, then they wold have come up with....... a tap connector. There are plenty of electrical items that fit this category as well..... If things were designed to be easy to fit, nothing would be flush, and the bath taps would be along the font side of the bath where it's easy to get at them.

I'm staggered at the incompetence of that design. I know nothing about UFH but frankly most of the errors are common sense. I've said it time and time again but quite how the "average man" is supposed to navigate the complexities of heating and DHW in a passive new build is beyond me.

Ok, I see. I'll await his response and see what, if any, influence I've had

@slidersx200 Micheal, I've just seen that plan and agree. I've just spoken to Byron at Boulder and asked him to personally review it urgently / at his next earliest convenience. He said he's not familiar with it off hand and asked that I email him the project details, which I did at 15:54 today. Ill come back to you ASAP and see if we can get something sorted. ?

so they used LoopCAD which you can download as a trial and do yourself ... There are are ways of sorting that although it took me a couple of hours to get my head around how it works - looks to have been done using the auto layout function. Seems to be a lot of zones though which does cause problems - was that your request..? I agree - it doesn't seem ideal and I would be really annoyed if I paid £210 for that..!

A busy couple of weeks for the joiners has seen us progress from poured walls to roof on. First order of business was removing some of the bracing used to secure the walls during the concrete pour; and bolting a wall plate on ready for the roof trusses. A laser level (you can just make it out on the earth mound in the background) was used to ensure the wall plate was level. Using a telehandler, engineered trusses are lifted into position and secured in place by the joiners. The trusses over the link section and in the main room are 'attic' trusses, which are being used to create an MVHR serrvice room over the link section, and a mezzanine study that will look over the main living area. Once the trusses were in, ridge beams for the areas where we have vaulted ceilings were lifted into place. Quite an interesting sight given the reasonably brisk wind we had that day! This beam forms the master bedroom roof: This monster, 9m x 450mm x 125mm forms the main living area roof (clear span). In the absence of gable walls (which get built to suit the roof), posts were bolted into the ICF walls, the ridge beams being rested on top of timbers fixed to these posts. To ensure the ridge beams were level, a laser level was used (you can see it lying on the scaffold tower). In both cases the other end of the ridge beam is carried off a double truss (in the case of the bedroom) or a triple truss (in the case of the living area). You can just make out the oversized joist hanger used to secure the main ridge beam to the triple truss. After positioning on the supporting posts, bracing timbers were screwed in to keep the ridge beams in place until the rafters were fitted. The smaller ridge beam you can see on the left hand side of the house spans 2 metres, and is there to create a vaulted ceiling over the utility room (to locate an pulley clothes airer) and on the other side the staircase up to the mezzanine and provide a bit of feature to the small relaxing space below. The rafters were fitted next, having been made on site. Sarking boards (OSB) were used to cover the roof, and the gable ends were built up ready for a final concrete pour. Rebar was used to tie the gable sections to the previously poured wall, and a thicker concrete mix specified to ensure the concrete didn't run out during the pour. The day after the final concrete pour, a ventilation strip and structural fascia timber (to be clad later on) were fitted, allowing the last of the OSB sarking to go on. The entire roof was then covered with a roofing membrane and is now ready for tile battens. We still have plenty to do on the roof, not least the construction of the timber formwork for the lead covered skews which will finish the gable ends, something that has to be completed before we can tile. To finish this entry, a quick glimpse inside to show the height of the vaulted ceiling in our living area.

Dave - I came to the conclusion ages ago that you're obsessed with caravans