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23rd to 29th August 2004

Sorry no new pictures - the camera broke and am awaiting a new one.

This week started off with a case of deja vu - no scaffolders despite a promise.  This was rapidly resolved by them actually turing up and doing the work the next day. Whilst this happened wall plate went on and then on Wednesday all of the TJI (wooden I beams) arrived to construct the attic floor, roof and the external box structure to insulate the walls.  Of course Wednesday was also a rather wet day - ie threw it down.  Still with a lot of help we got them under cover - despite the bearing on the rear axle of the forks giving up part way through and only having 2 wheel drive and not being able to get up some of the hills.

Having got the beams the reality of cutting them dawned on me - rapidly hired and returned a saw bench and made do with a mitre saw that almost cut through with finishing by hand.  As per normal discovered the first set of cuts were out 47.5 rather than 42.5 - depends on how you read the scale!!  Anyway the cut was on the too big side rather than the too small so no harm done.

The end of the week saw half the floor joists up and a load of cut rafters ready.  I was now very aware I hadn't got on top of the practicalities of the roof earlier enough and there will be some jigging about to get walls in place for purlins etc.  Talking of purlins - are trees not growing so big these days?  I had real trouble finding some of the size and grade of timber I needed.....

One downside we've been knocked back by the planners on using a tile made from old car tyres (E-B-C-uk - Ardesia tiles) - they look like slate but are lighter and easier to use but being in an AONB the planners didn't feel comfortable taking a 'risk' as they see it.  If you are not in an AONB I can totally recommend Ardesia.