North Kent Roll Off Roof Build

[Graeme]

I made a start on the external cladding yesterday but I'm not happy with it! There were some rolls of roof insulation left over in my loft (the stuff that goes over the rafters) and I stapled sheets of it to the out side of the timber frame and then fixed the feather edge boards over it. The plan was to fix the feather edge with my nail gun but it didn't hold too well so I screwed them in, but I don't like to see the screw heads and they split the board at the ends, even when drilled first. So I'm contemplating taking them off again, taking off the insulation and using Correx boards instead. I can use the insulation to in fill the void behind the Correx. Then I can seal round the boards and I'll have a nice flat surface to fix the feather edge boards to. It's raining today so I have some time to think about it!

 

 

 

Edited April 10, 2023 by Graeme
Typos

[Graeme]

Today was the first dry day for almost a week. I took the external cladding and the insulation off and tried plan B. I decided to cut the insulation into rectangles and fill each of the wall cavities with a double layer. It's a slow solution but the Correx boards I got will lay nice and flat, seal the walls and allow a much better feather board cladding install.

 

[Ags]

Beautiful photography work - so clear. Please keep up the posts!

[Graeme]

1 hour ago, Ags said:

Beautiful photography work - so clear. Please keep up the posts!

 

Cheers Ags.

I did like the shadow of the Silver Birch that blocks my Western view on the black sheet!  Not too much of a problem, there's just London light pollution in that direction.

Graeme

Edited April 16, 2023 by Graeme
Typo

[Graeme]

Finished the insulation and boarding today. Much happier with the finish and I think the feather board cladding will go on a lot more securely now.

 

Edited April 17, 2023 by Graeme

[Graeme]

Feather board cladding 50% done. The wood stain looked too red when it was wet but it's dried to a nice shade of oak. With the insulation done more carefully and the Correx board holding it in place, the cladding is going on ok. There's a narrow 12" gap to the rear but the fence panels come out ok. Looks like I'm going to have to put a 2" trim around the top!

 

 

[Graeme]

External cladding continues. It rained yesterday afternoon so the tarpaulin roof went back on. In the morning it was important to do some stuff in the garden, apparently!  So cladding was 3/4 finished today. The missus added her contribution. I used a 4ft spirit level with a piece of roof batten tapped to the bottom edge to space and level the feather board planks and copied my son's girlfriend's fence fixing method with a hidden nail under the overlap and another single nail on the bottom edge. Except that I used a nail gun loaded with staples, banged in across the wood grain on each upright under the overlap and a single nail on the bottom edge. 

Looks like I'm going to have to paint the fence!

 

[Ags]

I see you bought your shed some flowers 💐 

[Graeme]

1 hour ago, Ags said:

I see you bought your shed some flowers 💐 

The Missus went to the garden centre. She thought it would brighten things up!

 

[Graeme]

Well the walls are done and I've got a door. The hinges were a pain in the rear! They're extra wide to allow for the cladding and they don't close flat. I'm taking Rivaroxaban for a DVT I had at the end of last year so there's more blood in the build now because every nick and scratch keeps bleeding! Still need the 2" trim around the top. The roof section is made up, the trusses have been cut and the steel angle iron for the runners was delivered this week. Tomorrow the roof!

 

[Mr H in Yorkshire]

22 hours ago, Graeme said:

every nick and scratch keeps bleeding!

I wear work gloves regularly these days, even two pairs on occasions. I used to tough it out, you know using my hands to remove rough wood edges! Not any more.

[Graeme]

2 minutes ago, Mr H in Yorkshire said:

I wear work gloves regularly these days, even two pairs on occasions. I used to tough it out, you know using my hands to remove rough wood edges! Not any more.

That's sound advice Mr H. I had nitrile gloves on today for painting and for handling 8 x 4 OSB sheets and to stop getting blood stains all over my woodwork!

[Mr H in Yorkshire]

22 minutes ago, Graeme said:

That's sound advice Mr H

I meant something tougher than nitrile actually, mine are cotton with a rubber? palm/fingers. They are surprisingly sensitive so you can pick up really small items but they have saved me from several nasty cuts/abrasions

[Graeme]

10 hours ago, Mr H in Yorkshire said:

I meant something tougher than nitrile actually, 

Yes, the "rubber" is a nitrile coating. Part of my role at work is to compile the Method Statements and Risk Assessments for HV electrical installation works. Gloves have been mandatory PPE for a number of years now. The standard used to be nitrile but now we use Cut 5 safety gloves. So it's a bit remiss of me to go home and not wear any, even more so while I'm taking an anticoagulant!

 

Edited May 1, 2023 by Graeme

[Mr H in Yorkshire]

9 hours ago, Graeme said:

Gloves have been mandatory PPE for a number of years now.

The other benefit I find is that so often I'm using glues of one kind or another, or liquids with dark coloration. I used to happily bath in white spirit afterwards but now I let the gloves take the hit.

[Graeme]

There's a good possibility I was overly pedantic today! I cut the roof trusses to give a slope of 25°. When I put them up the overall look was too high. So I took it all down again and recut the trusses to give a 20° slope. I think it was the right call! As a result I didn't have time to put the felt on the OSB. Let's hope it doesn't rain!

 

 

[bwj]

Graeme, 

Sorry if I missed it in the posts, but would you mind posting the dimensions of this build? Looks like a nice job!

Edited May 4, 2023 by bwj

[Graeme]

3 hours ago, bwj said:

Graeme, 

Sorry if I missed it in the posts, but would you mind posting the dimensions of this build? Looks like a nice job!

Hello bwj

Yes it's 3m x 2.1m x 1.7m high. With an extra 0.5m for the roof. It's based on a 700mm radius for the telescope plus an extra 200mm for clearance with 900mm on the end for the door, desk and a set of drawers and 300mm clearance on the side where I plan on putting a flat frame light box panel. Some might say it's the width of the gap between the fence and the path less 300mm to get behind the shed and it's the length the 4 x 2 timber comes in!

I'm glad you like it, I'm enjoying the build but it's going a little slowly!

Graeme

 

[Graeme]

Does anyone else think that the markings on a chop saw are confusing? If you need a simple 90° cut across a timber you have to set the cutting angle to 0°. Then if you want a 60° angle you set it to 30°. 45° is ok because it's half of 90° and the same either way. To cut the 20° angle for my roof timbers I had to wedge in an off cut that had already been cut at 45° and then set the blade angle to 25° because 20 = 90-(45+25)!

 

[Graeme]

Got the felt on the roof, there was a sale on for the nice green one! Not decided yet how to finish off the gable ends. I've run out of feather edge cladding, I might use the rest of the roofing felt that I have left over. And the palm tree has 14 flowers coming on it this year!

 

Edited May 9, 2023 by Graeme

[carastro]

Looking good Graeme.  Presume you are planning some sort of roll off roof and that it is going towards the palm tree.  

Carole   

[ollypenrice]

On 11/02/2023 at 21:05, Graeme said:

 

 

This is definitely the most accurate spirit level I have ever used!

 

 

 

And this is wrong on so many levels...

Olly

 

[Graeme]

4 hours ago, carastro said:

Looking good Graeme.  Presume you are planning some sort of roll off roof and that it is going towards the palm tree.  

Carole   

Thanks Carole. Yes, that's the plan. The palm tree and the neighbour's silver birch are my biggest horizon blockers but the dome of London light pollution is in that direction so they form a natural shield. I dug one of the post holes today and got stung by a bee, so that was fun! Hoping to get both posts in tomorrow.

Graeme

[Graeme]

The roof open support posts are in. My good friend Andrew tells me that the uplift on the roof is around 75 kg/sqm for a site near the Thames Estuary, 3km from the shore. So if the roof is  supported on the 4 corners that would equal 75kg x 2m x 3m / 4 = 112.5 kg per leg uplift minus quarter of the weight of the roof. Which almost exactly equates to two bags of postcrete and 8 house bricks per post.

 

Edited May 9, 2023 by Graeme

[Graeme]

We have lift off! I got the wheels on and the cross members up then I put the steel angle iron up in the centre of the 4 x 2 but that was a bit of an error because it followed the slight curve of the wood. The first roof roll off was not as smooth as I hoped. So I had to re-fix the steels to lay them parallel. It's still a bit stiff so I'll have to put some thought into that. But otherwise smoothish and to be fair the roof does weigh about 130kg! It's a pleasing milestone, I might get the telescope in this week and start setting it up, The finishing touches, the gable ends, the air bricks and the floor can wait till next weekend!