Awning Roof Goes On

Just over a year ago the roofing went on the main sections of the house and now the awnings have received their roof and guttering. We needed scaffolding again for this work to be done. It was an annoying expense, but as I was keen to have the professional roofers do the work so that I do not get any leaks, I had to provide them with scaffolding. I contacted Andrew again from Access Scaffolding at Wollongong and he sent his crew down to put up the scaffolding on afternoon before the roofers arrived.

Scaffolding goes up for the front awning

And the back awnings

The roofing (and scaffolding) had been put off for two weeks due to delays caused by a week of heavy rain in the Shoalhaven, so I was keen for it to all go smoothly. The day the scaffolding went up I phoned the roofing company, Kiteley’s, to confirm they were all lined up for the following day, only to discover at this late stage that they had booked the fascia and gutter to be done Friday and the roofing on the Monday. I wanted to be on site to discuss with the roofers the flashing of the awning roof into the hemp walls and quickly had to rearrange work and family to be on site on the Monday.

I had originally not wanted to have guttering on the awnings, in an effort to make them visually and actually lighter and because we have no storm water and any excess water, not diverted to the water tank, had to be dealt with on site. I also did not want the heavy look of downpipes coming off the awnings. But my concerns about the decks under the awnings rotting from the constant dripping from dew and rain caused me to change my mind and get gutters. I have also decided to use rain chains from the awning gutters and make a feature of and incorporate the use of the water in the landscaping.

The metal fascia and gutter, in Windspray colour to match the other gutters and window frames, started to go up quickly Friday morning, but rain threatened. It sprinkled with rain, stopped and sprinkled again, then a brief shower made the materials too slippery to put up and the roofers put off the job until Saturday, when fine weather was predicted.

The roofers were back Saturday and the remainder of the fascia and guttering were attached, save for the awkward join over the entry area that was not a standard angle and required a different piece to the one that had been provided.

Metal fascia and half round gutters go on the front awnings

And the back awnings

 Monday a different crew of roofers arrived and shortly thereafter so did the roofing. Discussions were had about how to install the flashing where the awnings abutted the hemp walls. I thought it would be easy to chase the overflashing into the hemp as I had had no trouble cutting the hemp with an angle grinder. What I did not know is that on a brick wall they normally chase in a thin groove and slide the overflashing into this and this holds it in place. The groove cut in the hemp walls was not such a tight fit and after discussion of possible alternatives it was decided to try to use silicon to try to keep the overflashing attached to the hemp wall and to have that flashing set in from the finished face of the render so if any water ran down the walls it would drip off the bottom of the render rather than running along the flashing and into the wall.

Some last minute work was needed adjusting the ridge over the entry section. In order to get the minimum 5 degree fall in the roof over the entry and bathroom the framing company had come up with a solution to push the ridge back slightly from the junction with the wall of the main pavilion. This however caused problems for the roofing because a valley commenced at this junction and it commenced any higher there would be water running toward the hemp wall above that junction. The solution was to put the ridge in line with this junction and have a stepped ridge. I originally thought this would look awkward but quickly realised that because of the angles of the roof you will not be able to see it. To then do this all I needed was to add some extra timber for the moved ridge capping to attach to. 

The next problem was that, while I had carefully put in my valley boards and cut off my battens 20mm from the valley boards, I had forgotten to put in the valley battens. So I commenced trimming all the battens and putting in the valley battens parallel to and 20mm out from the valley boards. Being an unusual angle I had to measure all the angles for the valley batten. There are three valleys in the awnings, one over the entry and two either side of the hallway. The valleys over the hallway had the added difficulty of water pipes running through the ceiling that needed channels cut away in the rafters to allow them to fit underneath the valley battens. The temporary roofing over the back valleys were all taken off to put the battens in and then put back on again as the roofers had to come back the next day to finish the back section and the flashing.

Finally a covering over the entryway

The two different height awnings in Shale Grey colourbond

Looking down the awning over the main room

I am keen to see what the house looks like with the awning completed, without the scaffolding in the way, and to see how the flashing to the hemp wall has turned out.

Facias and Fixing

Tuesday Access Scaffolding put up the the scaffolding for the facia, gutters and roof to go on. There was a lot of scaffolding as due to the skillion roofs, on three sides each roof was over the Workcover limit of 3.2 m above ground, over which scaffolding was required.

With all that scaffolding in place heavy rain Tuesday night did not deter the boys from Kiteleys getting straight into work 7am on the dot Wednesday morning. The fascia and gutter installation went smoothly even on the tricky bits - one of which was where the roof it split into two different pitches - the other were the roof abuts a vertical hemp wall. Here enough room had to be left for the 55mm of hemp on the outside of the frame and for the formwork. So that there is no gap between the fascia and the wall when it is all finished the thickness of the formwork will almost completely be taken up by the render. The gutters and fascia are both on Colorbond Windspray colour, the roof and over flashings will be a lighter grey colour called Shale Grey. 

Facia and gutter go on the low side of the roof.

Scaffold in place with fascia waiting to go up

While the boys from Kiteleys were working on the fascia I tidied up all the timber that had been left in the house from the cutting of the rafters. This was to make the interior of the house ready to store the hemp and binder when it arrives late next week. I had also planned to continue working on installing the damp proof course that also acted as a flashing. The best way I worked out to do the damp proof course was in two parts - I used an embossed polyethelyne damp proof course for both parts. The first went under the frame extending 10mm past the frame on the outside and 55mm (the width of the hemp walling ) on the inside of the frame. Obviously this was installed at the same time as the frame. It was a bit fiddly to get the damp proof course to stay in the right place. Although the builders said it was redundant since the slab had a layer of plastic under it, I took the more cautious approach and insisted on the damp proof.

The second part of thedamp proof course ran down outside bottom of the timber frame, to which it was attached with clouts, down and across the step down alonge the outer edge of the concrete slab. It overlapped the 10mm of damp proof course that was sticking out from the first part of the dame proof course, and then stuck out 10mm past where the hemp walls will finish.

Damp proof course under the frame and where the hemp walling will go

Sticking out a little from the frame to overlap with the damp proof course that runs down the outside of the frame

Damp proof course running down outide of frame and step down in concrete to stick out 10mm from the finished wall

From the inside of the house

But I only put a small section of damp proof course in place as much of my time was spent checking the window openings before I put my final window order in with Rylock. Angelique from Rylock has been very patient with me providing several revisions to my window quote each time changes were made to the windows. Angelique even phoned to remind me to get my order in before the end of the financial year to avoid any price increases. I chose to get my aluminium windows from Rylock as they custom make all their windows (meaning size changes were not an issue), are accoustomed to providing double glazing, have a more solid architectural look and have an integral timber reveal on the inside that will act as a sort of permanat shuttering and a render stop for the internal render. However the windows will not go in until after the walls are made, to allow temporary shuttering to be used around the window openings, but will go in before the rendering is done to allow a neat finish around the windows.

The scaffolding made it much easier to access and measure the highlight windows above the sliding doors, and to check and recheck that three of the highlight windows that were supposed to be the same size were all substantially different heights. Two had double sills and one had a single sill. The right information had been given to the framing company and after a phone call was made to the framing company it appears they drew up the right sizes for their workers, but a double sill was put on the wrong window. This was easily fixed by the removal of a sill with a pinch bar, then it was close enough to thwe correct size. The other window that only had one sill needed an extra one. This was a bit more difficult as the window was wide than the one that had the sill removed and I did not have any timber the right thickness, width and length. The frame company will drop a piece down on Monday, so I can put it in while I still have easy acces from the scaffolding. When discussing these problems with the frame company they alerted me to the fact that two of the three openings for the cascading windows in the hallway were the wrong size too. Two of the window openings were too big and easily fixed by adding an extra sill of the right thickness, after measuring and checking three times that I was adding timber timber in the right place. So with all this measuring, checking and fixing I did not get much of the damp proof course done.

Front view. Facia and gutter all done

Facia and Gutter from the scaffolding

View of the river and mountain from the sccaffolding

The main roof

I also learnt the benefit of taking the time to sort and compact the building waste, of which I have a small pile. All the small offcuts of timber were collected and taken home for a friend to use as kindling for her fireplace. The metal strapping, of which I had a large and unweildy pile, was sorted from the plastic and other scraps and tamed by bending and folding it and squashing it into a box. This was then dropped off at the Nowra metal recyclers, in doing so I got rid of a waste product that was always springing out everywhere creating trip hazards and taking up room, it did not cost me anything and it will now have a new life as something else. 

Rafters go on

In the week after the frame went up the builders spent a couple of days putting the rafters and battens on the back and main pavilion, for the roof. The skillion roofs were quite straightforward, but some details needed to be attended to such as cutting down the thickness of the rafters where they formed the eaves, so that they were the right thickness for the metal fascia I would be using.

Back pavilion rafters done

Main pavilion rafters done

 I was back on site on Tuesday and the builders were up to putting the rafters on the front pavilion. This all went smoothly, as did the change of pitch section which intersects with the side wall of the main pavilion. After a little thought was put into the positioning of the large ridge beam for the hall, even that section went well. By the end of the day all the roof timbers were in place - aside from the awnings that will have to be done at a later date.

Front pavilion rafters going up

Threatened rain did not eventuate

The builders were busy at work so I busied myself making a new site toilet. An old toilet pan that had been sitting behind my shed for some years was cleaned up, had a new seat added and hooked up over the sewer pipe in what will be the bathroom. As Len, my plumber, had connected all the waste pipes to the sewer I could now have a flush toilet, albeit a bucket flush. Some of the damaged sheets of OSB that I would not use as formwork, were nailed to the frame and an off cut of plastic for a door were added to provide some privacy.

New temporary toilet

With the roof timbers going smoothly my next problem was scaffolding. All my quotes for the metal roof had not included scaffolding. I did not quite realise what this meant - it meant I had to organise and pay for scaffolding, an extra item I had not budgeted for. Bruce from Kiteleys Roofing World met me on site and advised that I needed scaffolding everywhere where it was over 3.2m from the ground to the top plate. This is a Workcover requirement so there was no getting around it. As the house has three skillion roofs this has meant a lot of scaffolding, since each roof is over 3.2m on three sides. I set to work straight away phoning for quotes, with the roofers booked for Wednesday next week I did not have much time. By the end of the week Access Scaffolding from Wollongong had been booked to erect the scaffolding Tuesday, in time for the roofing. I am now hoping for fine weather for next week to get the roof on.