Crofter

Thanks for all the input everyone! All points in one direction. Will be ordering a bunch of 25x50 first thing in the morning...

Brilliant, thanks. Is your cladding 19mm sarking boards? I've got 20mm larch, it seems fairly stiff. I was advised to go for 50mm by a joiner mate who said he had done lots of cladding and always used that. TRADA say a minimum of 38x38 (been googling since I started this thread). I'm leaning towards 25mm battens and perhaps beefing them up with some intermediate verticals, which would have to be fixed by screwing through the sheathing from the inside. That'll mean pulling out some of the rockwool insulation but I've only done about a quarter of the area in question (I knew there was a reason I never finished that job!) Edit: @Tennentslager have you got everything on 600 centres?

Today was one of those 'b*gger b*gger b*gger' days. Offered up the various bits of wood, sill, etc, to the window to work out how I was going to do the reveal detailing, and it turns out my sills are not deep enough. Nobody's fault but mine- at some point in the build I had switched from using 25mm cladding battens to 50mm, and this has eaten up the overhang. If I press ahead, the sills will just, barely, clear the edge of the cladding, with around 10mm overhang. I think I have three options: 1- Buy new, deeper, sills- obviously the most expensive option. They are Aluron profiles, roughly how much would these be per metre? 2- Re-install the windows (must be a computer joke in there somewhere). I am quite reluctant to do that knowing how long it took me to put them first time around. I could probably do the job in two or three days but it's a psychology thing- would feel like I was taking backwards steps. Moving them 25mm towards the outside of the wall would be enough to restore the overhang and would make the faces match the counterbattens, which could simplify some of the detailing. 3- Alter my cladding design. I have vertical board-on-board 20mm larch planks, nailed to horizontal 50x50 battens which in turn are screwed to vertical 25x50 counter battens. If I change the horizontal battens to 25x50 that solves the problem (it was the original design) but will it make the cladding too prone to flexing? I don't really want the wall to bend when you lean on it! How much would it help if I doubled the number of battens (easy) or halved the centres by installing more counterbattens (less easy, and these would not be nailed onto studs, just the 11mm sheathing). Any other options? I'll just have to console myself that this is probably the silliest mistake I have made so far, which is not bad going given I have designed, drawn, and built this house completely singlehanded so far...

What about some sort of v lining or shiplap? Should gain strength through the interlocking.

That sounds a good offer! PM incoming...

I have a mate who builds Linux and dual OS machines. He offered to do me a recon Toughbook set up for boaty stuff (charting software etc already installed). Because one day I will have finished the house and get to go sailing again! Somewhat tempting, would certainly be good to try it out first.

Thanks for that. I'm on the lookout for a basic laptop- current one dates from 2009 and despite doing a complete system reinstall last year it still runs like a lame donkey. About the only mildy taxing thing I do with it is Sketchup, everything else is internet, word docs, excel, and similar boring stuff. I'll keep an eye on these Dell deals, if anybody spots anything similar give me a shout

And 'move in in time for Christmas'

My best quote so far has been from Excel, who @Rattyjohn used, but I haven't asked them about delivery yet. @ProDave Did you bother with the anti condensation lining at all?

Looking at different options for making good the hole that I am going to have to cut in my roof for the stainless flue from the woodburner. Basic plan is to have a single wall black stove pipe exiting the stove and going up to the vaulted ceiling (this will throw more heat out into the room, look neater, and save a fair bit of money). Just before reaching the ceiling I will switch to insulated twin wall stainless pipe, which will continue up to above ridge height. I will need to seal around the flue at three points: the airtightness layer, the roof membrane, and the corrugated steel roof covering. There appear to be several options for the final flashing. I'm leaning towards the 'Dektite' silicone flashing as a cheap and easy to use design. Perhaps I could just use more of the same for the other two flashings? There isn't much space to play with of course, especially for the seal to the membrane and to the corrugated roofing, which are only about three inches apart.

Erm, yep, only a numpty like me would build a 42 degree roof. It allowed me to clad the building in available lengths of timber without joins. I suppose it has made things a little more difficult but it just requires a little bit of head scratching at times.

Ah. Speights... have had my fair share of that when I spent a year doing farm work in NZ. High time I went back...

That sounds like far from ideal conditions for drying out Hope you get some good advice from the manufacturer.

Thanks for that- it's quite a different application though; my roofing is above a ventilated and drained cavity.

It's quite vapour permeable stuff so I would expect that once it stops getting wet, it will dry out given a clear pathway for the water, and sufficient time. In other words, it depends on where the rockwool is, i.e. is it enclosed between fairly impermeable materials?

+1 to the Makita 18v range. When you buy a new bare tool (I have a bit of an addiction) they send you a pamphlet with all the different tools that the 18v batteries work with. It's mind boggling. I don't know whether to go for the bicycle or the coffee maker next.

Does anybody know anything about using sealant on a metal roof? On the Accord website there is an an option to have them supply butyl tape but there wan't any advice on why it might be necessary. They don't suggest where to use it but from the suggested quantity it appears to be enough to seal all the overlap joints. I wouldn't have thought that this was necessary, but wondering if anybody else could comment? It'd be just one more fiddly job to do and I'm tempted to dispense with it, especially given my relatively steep roof pitch which should help runoff.

Another happy user of the Lidl corded one here, cannot compare to any other makes. In my experience it's the sort of tool that's invaluable for the occasional odd job but not one that I find myself using all day long, so I'm perfectly happy with a cheap and cheerful one.

I went with tilt/slide which is really a giant window rather than a door, in some ways. It gives a good positive engagement and appears to be very airtight. I haven't done my test yet but when it's blowing 50mph outside I cannot detect any air getting through, which is a heck of a lot more than I can say for the uPVC rubbish in my current house! My location is very exposed and I felt that a slider would be much safer than anything on hinges.

My Lidl SDS wore through a set of brushes, had to open it up completely to change them, worth doing though cos it got me a good as new drill for £7! Seriously, you should consider medical intervention, don't pull the plug...

Just off the phone to the people at www.steelroofsheets.co.uk and they were very helpful indeed. Battens should be 50-100mm from edge of sheet, the greater the unsupported overhang the more at risk it is from wind lift. I said that at the eaves due to how the detailing works I cannot get a battens closer than about 150mm, he said that would probably not be a problem so long as it's not too exposed. I think that whilst my site obviously is very exposed, the steep pitch of the roof and the close presence of the guttering, with just a narrow 25mm gap from the fascia to the sheeting, will all greatly reduce the force of wind getting into that gap. Also, usually people fix the ridge cap with stitch screws (i.e. metal to metal, so need for a batten to line up).

Another question: How high up the roof should I put the first battens? My guess is that they should be around the edge of the ridge cap?

Looking good. Hope the frost didn't get at it.

I suppose in my case I could make up a little diamond shaped piece from larch,matching the cladding, might look quite nice. If I get time today I will have a look at some steel roofs near me and post a few pics.

I've been wondering about this too. I think I have seen various pieces of metal for this, that match whatever profile ridge you have (e.g. If you have a rolltop one). I think they look a bit 'sheddy' myself and so I am planning on just leaving one barge board intact, and the overlapping one cut plumb, and fixed over the top. Of course that means making good the cut metal using a reasonably well matched paint.