South side gutter brackets

In the last post we described the method we've adopted to allow us to have the gutter brackets on the underside of the bell sarking board, so the same thing was repeated again. Jaimin headed out after work on Monday to get on with the North side given that the pointing should all be dry.

Learning as we go, as always, it's definitely easier to fit the black plastic fascia brackets (gutter supports) while they are not installed on the roof...

Most of the gutter brackets were fitted, with just the last 2 plus the downpipe connector to come.

The sheep came down to say hello, so we had some good baaaaanter. 

North "bell-sarking" & gutters

Saturday was a washout!
Sunday proved more pleasant so Jaimin started by trying to work out how best to fit the gutter brackets to the north side roof. The have to be in place and underneath timber if possible, so that the first course of slates can be done more smoothly.

The cottage walls have a build up on their outside extremity which is higher than the level of the joist. This means that the rafters & normal sarking boards do not project to the edge of the top of the wall-head as you would normally have them do. The consequence is that another piece of sarking is required to "kick out" over the wall edge, but at a lower angle, to enable slate coverage. This low angle board, I am told, is a bell board and I am using that term.  However the gutter brackets have to be underneath this board, and so it needed a bit of tinkering and working out...

The brackets are at their own angle again, and although moderately malleable are not very bendy, so the first idea of "making them fit" wasn't working. The next idea was to nail the brackets to the underside of the bell-board and then fit the board in place. The bracket to wall distance dictated that the bell board could accommodate 2 out of 3 of the bracket's holes, which was ok until the 3rd hole (which extended out the top of the bell-board) was fixed to the normal sarking, and then it pulled the other 2  nails, on the opposite side of the board, out. A quandary.

First attempt - no luck, as the nails pulled out

Solution: Use square twist nails which grip well.
Problem: 18mm board and 30mm nails.

Solution: install a slice of 8mm C16 between the board and bracket
Problem: need to mitre (cut) with the wood grain, not across it
Solution (sort of): make a spacer jig to keep hands and wood safe. Then cut spacers.

Slicing up the spacers

Result:

Better. Spaced and fixed with square twisters.

Once all the joins and downpipe brackets were measured to be in place, finally the board was installed and although not ideal, should be functionally ok. You can hardly see the "kick" in this photo but it is there!

The after-lunch job was to cement up the south facing wall head which went fine after the 204v live cable was tenderly re-located,  and means that the south facing bell-sarking is next before we can finally approach the membrane!

Grinding a dust bath

The collection of new inserts from Aberdeen meant that Jaimin could return to site on Monday evening and continue the grinding. This went well and he managed lots of grinding, but the dust extractor was a total waste of time and had no suction, resulting in one big bad dust bath and a lot of unnecessary, time consuming sweep ups between grinding runs.

After the final grinding run the dust was left in place and the electrics made safe before leaving to take the (insert term of some disappointment) kit back to HSS...

Floor grinding

Having managed to tidy up the sarking offcuts and sawdust, Jaimin trimmed down the upstanding slab insulation using his new Bosch GOP multicutter (thanks Mum) in preparation for the concrete grinder and dust extractor which were being hired from HSS in Aberdeen.

Quite a cool bit of kit, so we were very disappointed that most of Saturday was wasted when James arrived at 12 only to find they had not included the extension leads from the 110v transformers to the machines. HSS brought them out at 3 pm which was a bit late in the day. While we were waiting James finished off the north wall head and Jaimin installed the 120mm hammer fixings in to the Velux noggins, which was pending a 120mm long 8mm bit, which had arrived during the week.

The grinder/dust extractor setup require 110v transformers. The debacle began with tripped fuses in our 13A sockets/extension leads, and nothing was going to be achieved till Sunday. After a trip to B&Q to procure some high current wire and a 45A socket (cooker switch), James and Jaimin did some electrical wizadry and got things back on track. The home electrics worked all day...

Soon after, one of the transformers tripped so the job was continued with just the grinder. This went ok but required the addition of water to the slab to avoid a dust bath, but resulted in a thick creamy concrete goo-sludge that was very hard to get up and off. Some brushing, scooping and wheel-barrowing was required.

James, when not helping with this, was starting on the south side wall head cement job.

When the 2nd transformer tripped, some troubleshooting pointed to the plug fuse which we then replaced. The other transformer was also brought back on line by resetting a relay,  albeit a bit late. The job re-started for a short time, then Jaimin decided to check the "long lasting diamond insert" grinder bits. It was pretty disappointing to see that they had worn out after 3 hours... So the job stopped and James helped pack up until some more inserts could be brought in on Monday.

Jaimin made up some Roundup weed killer to get out and spray the huge and over powering nettles... A slow and frustrating (and expensive) weekend.... Hope to have some better news soon.

Sarked

The weather has been a tedious bore, not often mentioned but ever present. It's supposed to be summer so the blog has a new background. Hope it brings you some sunshine.

Monday saw Jaimin making the most of the Paslode and the summer daylight hours, getting 90% of the sarking completed.

Tuesday he was joined (again) by the up beat James, who finished off the sarking (he just wanted to play with the nail gun) while Jaimin chatted a few things over with a local joiner. This was the first joiner to visit site and he seemed suitably accepting of the work... he is going to price for the staircase.

Once said joiner had been mined of knowledge, James & Jaimin had to build up the wall head on the north side with some mortar, to enable a straight line along which a "bell-effect" sarking board can be applied by nailing it to the lowest currently installed board, which will help to kick the slates slightly horizontal. To enable this, the next step will be finishing off the wall head, installing the gutter brackets, then the strip of "bell" sarking and finally the membrane.

Jaimin also installed the lean to gutter brackets and then thought to nail in some nail plates with twist nails to join the lowest 3 boards together. The weight of snow could rip off the gutters, with their brackets and the lowest board, since the lowest board's nails didn't have much rafter to bite in to. With 3 strips of board together this should be much stronger.

There is still a small piece of frame building/sarking to be done on the lean-to / main roof join, where we think we will create a valley to the gutter.

The inside now looks more like something you can imagine being a dwelling.

Old School Slates

Saturday involved Jaimin doing a bit of housekeeping in the barn "store room", then doing some patching up / cementing on the loose stone on the wall head of the lean-to and the east gable.  The existing lime based mortar is highly friable and the more you remove the more comes off, so it's a gently gently approach to get to a point where you can add some cement based mortar. This went relatively well,  although perhaps it's not pretty.

Next Jaimin had to think about the join where the west side of the lean-to roof meets the main wall (1st photo) because previously we had a chimney there (the liner is visible in the photo) but since removing it on safety grounds we will have to build up some kind of timber frame to make up for missing wall so we can slate and water-tight it. Hopefully.

A few bits of C16 were subjected to the mitre saw with a 20 degree cut, and hey presto a half lap joint was screwed in to the trusses with a few of the Simpson structural screws. A rafter extension was then cut and added on. The bathroom sarking was then completed.

Otis's birthday party at the McMillan's was a welcome lunch break, and a minor miracle occurred when Sasha's brother in law, a tattie farmer in Forfar :-) offered us his Paslode IM350.... There's enough behind  the detail in this story to fill another post so believe us when we say it was good timing.

Sunday provided the blog title. It turns out that our cottage was slated with 7 x 11 inch slates. These are rare, because people now discard them due to their low coverage and thus their high cost of installation. Thankfully, "Brian in Carnoustie", a lifelong slater,  had a bunch which he recovered off his old school which is being torn down! They have probably been in use for over 50 years, given that Brian retires this year. Jaimin headed down with Neil's trailer and loaded them up. They look like they're a bit thicker than our ones, and mostly in decent shape... Probably a ton or so in weight, and hopefully we can renew their life....

After loading them up it was off to get the Paslode from the Forfar farm, back home (slowly) for lunch and then to the plot to unload the slates. Finally it was time to play with the very cool nail gun, which enabled some quick sarking progress on the North side.

Half sarked

On Tuesday evening James and Jaimin put in a shift and managed to cut the out the remaining 2 roof light holes, make up the noggins and install them, then sarked a bit before dark. Jaimin also installed another couple of galvanised straps.

On Wednesday, Lucy and Jaimin met up with Peter (the architect) who paid his first visit to site. After measuring up the main house we all discussed the way forward and it began to dawn that we will have some serious decisions to make for the Building Warrant package.
James came by again and the sarking got going and he and Jaimin completed the south facing roof.