Windows going in

A productive week this week with the west wing roof going on and the windows arriving on site and the first ones were installed.

West wing roof

Windows in Fraser's bedroom

Entrance hall windows

Utility room window

More of the same next week. I'll be back in Aberdeen again, this time with the boys only while Heidi stays at home and looks after Hunny. It will be good to see the rest of the windows installed and as usual I have a long list of things to get done.

Roof is taking shape

A short but productive week with some very obvious progress to the roof.

The joiners have made good progress with the larch cladding and have starting to clad the dormers.

West end is starting to take shape and is looking good

The larch cladding looks great

On the south roof we now have the solar collectors installed and slated in place

Solar collectors being installed

Solar panel and solar tube slated in

South roof almost slated

We now have a two week break for the trades fortnight so a bit of time to take it a bit easier and prepare for the next significant stage of the build - installation of the windows and doors.....oh and the rest of the roof installation

South roof slating progressing well

A couple weeks of work to catch up on. Things are now noticeably moving forward again after what felt like a period of stagnation for a while. Heidi and I were back on site for a couple of days last week as well. Its always good to see how things are progressing in person and it was also the first time Heidi had seen the  whole structure up.

Structure up and over in membrane

We had a bunch of work that we planned to get done but as usual the best laid plans didn't progress as expected and we got a little over half of what we hoped to acheive done. As usual when we visit the build I seem to come away with more problems to be solved than problems actually solved. Good news is that the problems have now been resolved.

Getting the roof installed involves three different trades, joiners to install the counter batons, barge boards and fascia boards, plumbers to install the lead work, and a slater installing the slate batons and slates.

The larch cladding that is being used for the barge boards, fascias, sofits and on the house itself in several places looks great. After a couple of days expose to the weather it goes a beautiful red shade

West end gable end

East end gables

West dormer and gable barge boards

The plumbers have plenty of work to do on the house with all the valleys, dormer flashings and entrance flat roof requiring lead work

The first valley going in on the bathroom dormer

The finshed first valley after application of patination oil

Lead flashing around a dormer

Details of a dormer valley

Slates are graded into 3 different thickness before laying with the thickest being laid from the eaves and the thinest towards the ridge

Dressing the slates before laying

With small 12" x 8" slates the distance between slate batons is only about 116mm.

Slate baton on south roof

  

The very first slates being laid by Quentin

Quentin working below the bathroom dormer

There are approximately 80 courses of slates on the longest section of the south roof. They may take a lot of work but they do look good!

Slates on the south roof

A great looking valley

The south roof in process of being slated

East side of south roof slated

West side of bathroom dormer slated clearly showing pitch change in roof

The small details involved with the slates and lead work is amazing. They all have a part to play and are usually not that obvious to the layman. Particular thanks to Quentin the slater for spending time to explain many of the small details to us.

The larch barge boards and slates look great together

That trimmed corner is important

Welded lead work around a dormer

A short work week coming up followed by a couple of week off for the trades with the trades fortnight. Solar water heater panels are scheduled to go in next week and hopefully the south roof will be finished before the break.