Rooflessly Efficient

As we have posted about repeatedly, the central column of the roof had had a good innings, but was ready to be replaced.

After a lot of thought and planning, proposing different approaches, screwing up pieces of paper and starting again, etc etc, we came up with a workable plan that would make a good and watertight central peak for the roof, allow us to walk up and down the roof easily, and fit with our fibreglassing plans for the rest of the roof.

We worked out the angle that the supporting beams would have to be planed at to fit the pitch of the roof

cleared all the existing stuff away and swept the roof

laid out the planed wood we had bought from the fantastic Whitten Timber down the road

cut it to size

and began to screw it to the plywood boards we’d had cut, to make sure that all the beams were straight before we glued them down to the roof.

It all began to take shape

and we made sure that the walkway was straight (as the various sections of the rof certainly aren’t) by using lorna’s stretchy climbing roap pulled taught down the full length of the roof.

By the end of day one the whole walkway was in place and screwed together, but not attached to the roof or painted.

So the next morning we lifted the sections up and put super polyurethane wood glue down on the roof (so that we wouldn’t be piercing the roof by driving screws through it),

and then weighted it down until the glue set. Lorna did some stirling work sitting, adding to the weight of the anthracite bags.


We then unscrewed the plywood again,

before painting all the beams with cuprinol

and the boards with bitumen

and finally laying the boards down again, ready to screw back together.

With everything tidied away and the walkway put back together it all looks very neat, and it’s much better to walk on. It should help to keep the rain out too, fingers crossed.