Well, it's almost complete. The roofing team came in this week and put the under felt? (I don't think it's called that anymore) on and added the batons to most of the roof. So now is all green inside when the sun shines through.
The only remaining piece of the old roofing material was removed. The felt had rotted away in some places to it was a good job we decided to replace it.
Removing this roof covering enabled the builders to assess how much they needed to build up the roof timbers to match the height of the new roof. They ended up adding about 50mm of new wood across the existing joists.
So now we have another pile of wood - I think this lot will be burned as we have stored as much as i think we can manage for now. (anyone want some?). In hindsight (what a wonderful thing that is) I feel we would have been better off replacing all the trusses across the whole roof. That would have saved us and the builders time and probably money in the long run. However, just for the record, we decided not to do that because of a number of factors: we thought it would be cheaper as the roof was not going to need updating; we wanted to keep that section of the house covered to protect (initially) some of the parts of the old house for future use; and finally because we had not plans for that section of roof it seemed senseless to remove it and replace it just for the sake of it. (that's me justifying it to myself by the way!)
With that rood underway the builders also planned out the hall way window. This was originally planned to be one big pane of glass. However, in discussions with the glazing man, Damien, (that worries me!) he suggested that a standard sized Velux may be a better option because they are a known great product that (normally) doesn't have any issues. He was concerned that a 'normal' pane of glass could leak around the flashings.
So, after some discussions we have decided to change the original design and go for two Velux windows - one will be a large, opening window and the other will be a smaller fixed Velux. Both will be joined together to form one large glass window.
Another discussion we have had is regards the guest ensuite upstairs. The surveyor had specified a particular type of roof light that would fit into the truss space of 395mm. however the builder has warned us against using those windows because in his experience whenever he sees one a few months or years after it is fitted they are generally always leaking. Now, that could be just his team not knowing how to fix them but i tend to go with his judgement. The only issue this threw up though was the fact that the minimum size for the alternative Velux window is bigger than the space we have between trusses. we asked the truss company and they have said we cannot cut of put holes in any of the trusses (I think this is more of a liability issue just in case it falls down but never the less I don't want to chance it).
The alternative we have chosen is to go for a Velux Sun Tunnel (
http://www.velux.co.uk/products/sun-tunnels). It is a compromise but we have already specified one for the downstairs toilet and we have seen them in action and they look good and work well.
The roofers have done a great job so far.
It is now feeling like a real house again after 9 weeks - albeit a green one! We have been told the scaffold roof is coming off soon after which the 'slaters' will be back to finish off.
