The Roof Structure Develops Further

Over the last week the Builders have been busy continuing to build the roof structure. 

The main bedroom has taken shape.

and they have now built up the side walls to form the window opening.

The loose fill wood work has been created in the front of the roof to form the landing window opening.

We now need to decide on the size of the window and its exact position. Our original idea was to have a full height window leading up from the top of the front porch for 2400mm. However the builder has asked us to think if this size is too big. So I climbed up on the scaffold and onto the loosely covered first floor trusses. I had hoped Claire would do the same, but.... I forgot she has a fear of heights. To help her the builders have put a rail on the edge of the landing, in the same place the fully formed rail will be, and also added a handrail to the top of the ladder.

So now Claire can actually go upstairs for once!

The three dormers have now been fully formed on the back of the house.

and the 'ladders' over each gable end have been attached and the brickwork built up to match.

These ladders provide a great way for the girls to climb up to the apex of the roof (but don't tell Claire!)

And Finally this week we had a visit from Uncle Stu. Yet again Claire chose not to look as he took the girls on a chimpanzee training classes...

Stu hanging from the top of the scaffold...

and doing what he does best...

Return from Holiday

Sunday 31st August - The roof is in place already!

We arrived back from holiday last Sunday and were amazed. Justin and the building team had done a sterling job - the roof structure was in place already!

Justin told me that they worked late on the night the trusses were delivered to get as many in place with the crane before the bank holiday weekend. They solved the issues of how to slide each truss, weighing around 150kg and 9 metres wide by 5 metres high, along the wall plate.

The dormers have also been constructed using loose timber (not pre-formed trusses.

The Main Bedroom, in the gable end is looking good... 

Here's a view from the roof top (I am stood on the top of the end gable wall)

It looks like we've got 53 trusses in place, each with a top hat. This was needed because the truss height was too high for the telephone wires in the road so each truss was made in two pieces - the main bottom piece and then a pointed top hat.

The girls think it is looking good and are already planning their bedrooms.

Here's a view through the inside of the house to the end wall.

We are really pleased with the progress so far. It's all taking shape really quickly. Well done team!

The Day of the Trusses

It's the 21st and at 8am this morning the trusses arrived on the low loader...

in fact they came on two trucks....

and blocked part of the road for a couple of hours. 

The builders relied on George the crane driver again to lift the trusses from the big low loader truck and take them up the driveway.

The trusses were moved to the top of the driveway temporarily. It took about 3 hours of hard work for all the sections to be lifted off the truck and placed on the driveway. 

The next step is to crane them over the scaffolding and onto the wall plate. Each one will then be dragged along to its final position.... and that's when the builders will have some issues to solve...

The Building Work Starts

The Building Work Starts

we've been away for the last week and in this time the project has moved from demolition to building work.

The front wall of the house has been rebuild with new window and door openings.

The steel beam has also been put in place on two newly created pillars for the bi-fold doors in the back of the house.

It's a little bit bigger than the builder expected - better to be over engineered than under...

that's Phil's shoe to show the scale of the beam.

The new window has also been formed in the games room.

And the new lintels put in place above the existing windows.

So now the house is ready for the trusses to arrive. The delivery is scheduled for Thursday 21st.

and the walls came tumbling down...

and the walls came tumbling down...

another day brings more walls down... not that i was really expecting these ones to come down completely!

the builders decided that it was simpler to knock the walls down at the front of the house and then rebuild them. here they are starting on the kitchen end of the house.

the end result was a hole in the front of the house.

they also removed the back wall and the bi-fold doors

so now we have a house of two halves - literally! there is now nothing in the middle!

after the builders had gone today the crane driver, George, came round. He wanted to check on the access to the house for the crane and the lorry carrying the trusses.

As the large articulated lorry cannot get up the drive it was decided to load the trusses onto a normal rigid bed truck. Normally this wouldn't have been an issue... until today that is. It turns out that the rigid bed truck is higher than the low loader arctic lorry... this combined with the height of the trusses means they are now going to be higher than the max height permitted on UK roads!

So, (he says with a smile), the upshot is the trusses will have to be transported once again on the low loader. This will have to park somewhere outside the house on the road and the crane driver and builders are now going to have to man handle, with the aid of a small, mobile crane, the trusses up the drive an onto the front grass. From there the crane driver, using a bigger crane...

will then lift each truss into place. Sounds simple...?!

What a difference a day makes...

What a difference a day makes...

Day 19...

So this time yesterday we were looking through websites and files to try and resolve the issues that had cropped up, the main one being the size of the steel beam and the amount of deflection and it's impact not he bi-fold doors. 

We were also slightly concerned that the lead times for the roof trusses had gone out to 6-7 weeks. The impact of this was that the builders might well run out of things to do int he house before the trusses arrived on site.

A day later and things have improved - Hooray!

I talked to the surveyor Matt this morning and he talked me through his rationale for the bi-fold doors and the steel beam. The technical bit comes next, so if you don't want to read this then you best jump down the page now.

The load on the beam is made up of two parts - the Dead Load and the Live Load. The Dead Load is the weight of the roof structure with everything in it. The engineer had specified the beam and calculated that the Dead Load deflection for the beam, based on it spanning a 6.5 metre gap, would be 3mm in the centre.

The Live load is the loading that could occur if extra weight was added. Like snow on the roof or people. The calculation for this suggests a deflection of around 5mm. So in total we could theoretically see a deflection of around 8mm.

BUT... he told me that the door manufacturer would only measure the window size once the roof was loaded and so would accommodate the 3mm Dead Load deflection in the door height. So we would then only have to content with the 5mm deflection - which the doors should be able to handle. the upshot of this is that we can safely fit the bi-fold doors without having to install a central support.

You can read on from here if you didn't want the tech bit...

At the same time i was talking with the surveyor Claire talked to the builder. He told her that he had to order the beam today. She questioned him about his timing. He told here that, having now spoken again to the truss manufacturer, they have said the trusses could be here in... 2 weeks! A big change from the original 5-7 weeks. So that's a big hooray!

He also told her about the doors. When he rang the steel company to order the beam and gave the measurements the guy on the end of the phone laughed. The beam that has been spec'd is 356X171x67 (roughly 363.4mm deep x 173.2 wide and weighing around 67KG per metre.) The overall beam will be about 7.5 metre long.

He laughed because he said 'what are you trying to prop up - the whole village'. Typically it seems the surveyor and structural engineer had 'over-spec'd' the beam - probably just to be safe.

I think Claire wanted to hug the builder when he told her this as she was really concerned we'd have a pillar in the middle.

the other work completed today was the removal of the pitch brick work above the old patio door.

And the removal of the bi-fold doors. If anyone wants these they better let me know ASAP - otherwise they'll go on eBay...

So that's the good news today.