3 March 2013

Back to the roof........

I reinforced the mounting of the curved beam that forms the corner of the roof. I have also screwed the  roofing sheets down properly.  That was the easy part.

I moved the scaffold to the eastern side and removed three old roofing sheets. Next I fitted one new sheet to match the grooves of the old roof. I also put the second one up towards the corner, and marked where it had to be cut. I removed the sheet and cut it, and screwed it down on the outside. Next, I removed the first sheet to be able to reach far enough to screw the second sheet down on the curved beam.

Now I have a problem. Once these sheets are fitted, I can never reach the wall or the joint again, the iron is too thin, it just bends away when you look at it. I still had to fit a flashing or ridge over the joint, where the two roofs meet. A normal ridge plate won't work, because of the curvature if the roof. I have some lead sheets  I removed from our Cambridge house. So I cut these to 200 mm wide and fitted it over the joint. Now how do you secure this to the roof? In the end pop rivets did the trick. After several false starts, I managed to get the lead fitted, and managed to install the first sheet again. The third sheet I could reach from the scaffold, so no big deal. You know how it goes: Up the ladder, do a little, down the ladder, move inside, up the other ladder, mark, down the ladder, etc, etc. Then they want me to get more exercise!!!!!!!! Well, honestly, it took me four days of work, but our little corner room /shed has got a proper roof now. Some time in future we might fit a wall and door to it.

We are trying to sell the second hand sheets we have bought now.

Remember the claw foot bath we have bought and want to fit in the bathroom? It has been re enameled at some stage, and that is coming off and has discolored over time. I have tried sanding it off with a small sander I have got, but it didn't work. So it went into the "too hard" basket. The bathroom will be our next project, and I had to do something. Paint stripper does nothing. Saturday afternoon, (while I was resting ) I had another look and decided to try the orbital sander. It seems to work well. So the project for the next week is to sand the bath, smooth it with a finer paper, and put it into position in the new bathroom. That is to say if my priorities doesn't change in the meantime.