Houston, we have a roof! We had no idea how we’d do it… but we got the job done. It’s taken us roughly a month of 4 day weekends. We averaged 2-3 panels per day (on good days) and 1 argument per panel J. Its probably pretty clear from my grimacing ramblings that I am not a huge fan of heights, having an irrational fear of tumbling (down hills, ladders… pretty much anything with a slope to it). Combine this fear with the act of roofing and you have yourself a fairly unwilling and often useless building companion whose fear quickly turns to angry outbursts. Poor Bernt, he did a lot more climbing of ladders than he would have had I not been such a big baby!
Here's how we managed the incredible feat of lifting 22, 7.4m long, 1.2m wide, 140kg panels up to 7m in the air;
Firstly, as always there was a bit of fiddly stuff to get done before we could start. Bernt cut an angle off the lowest purlin, which meant crawling along the beam while manoeuvring the circular saw. There were also a few places where the timber frame needed tweaking, either to get it flush or to secure joints.
With that done we proceeded with a brain wave of Bernt's; to glue strips of thin foam to the timber purlins. This levelled out any inconsistencies in the timber, protected the underside of the panels from scratching and gave a bit of resistance so the sheets wouldn’t slide off while we were working. This was the first of many height related tasks… I stuck to the lower purlins and passed Bernt things while he was up the ladder for the scarier bits.
Bernt gluing the blue foam to the top timbers.
Then came the moment… the moment where we stood in front of the first panel and decided how the hell to get it up there. We were equipped with all of the tools which Bernt thought we might need; suction pads (like they use to install glass), pulleys, a length of quality rope, a couple old blankets and a few ladders.
We started with the roofing to go above the mezzanine, thinking that the mezzanine floor would be a handy stepping stone in manoeuvring the panels up onto the purlins. Our first stack of roofing was already half way in the apartment so we attached the suckers straight to it and, with a pulley rigged to the timber beams above, started hoisting it. There was just enough room in the apartment to swing its length around to get it parallel. With a blanket protecting where it touched both the mezzanine and the middle purlin we hoisted it up and up until it was balancing on the middle purlin like a seesaw. At this point we flipped it over. We had decided initially to lift it wrong way up because the underside is flat and the top side has this slight profile to it. We were unsure if the suckers would attach well enough to the profiled side so thought it safer to flip it once it was up there. We soon realised that the suckers were fine on the profile and it was so much easier to flip the panels on the ground so we changed our game play.
The first stack of roofing stacked in the apartment, pulley attached, ready for lift off.
Roofing panel lifted onto the mezzanine.
Panel balancing on the middle purlin.
So, huge panel teetering like a seesaw and with suckers needing to be moved, Bernt asked me to stand on the wall plate (3.4m high) and hold the panel while he moved the suckers. Hold it!!! Damn straight I held it, I held on for dear life and ended up in a blubbering mess once the job was done… or actually I think the blubbering began while half way through… though it takes skill to blubber while standing on a narrow beam, frozen with fear, holding a 140kg seesaw. Despite my break down, the panel was in the air and needed to be secured so I temporarily sucked it up to get the job done.
To ‘get the job done’ we had to let the panel down slowly with Bernt supporting the lower end so we could weave it under the top purlin. Once the tip was past the top purlin we could pull it back up again into place. It was then a fairly simple matter of sliding it along the purlins to its correct position, though as the first one is cantilevered over the edge of the building it was tricky to get it in the right spot. When in place, Bernt got up there and screwed it down. Meanwhile I convinced myself with utter certainty that this was not a job that we could do ourselves. Too big, too heavy, too scary, too dangerous, too many risks…. Panic, panic, panic… time for a cuppa…
First panel in place, Bernt on top screwing it down.
After a breather and a calming cup of tea we went back to the build to have a look at our achievement. We had got a panel up!! By ourselves!! And… I relented, telling Bernt that if he could think of a different method to get the next one up, that I would give it another chance. It may have been the satisfaction of seeing a panel up, it may have been the knowledge that we couldn’t afford to have any outside assistance but it was probably my sheer stubbornness at wanting to be able to say that we did this by ourselves. Though I realised a week later that these things are only a benefit to your own self esteem, you can tell other people you’ve built a house with your own hands till your blue in the face but your still going to get some old fashioned fella from the local hardware store who’s not keen on a ‘lady’ carrying two pieces of pine at once.
So we tweaked our method slightly, making the whole thing safer and less scary. We bought Bernt a climbing harness so he could be attached to something while up in the air and we bought two extra suckers, which came in super handy. Attaching the panels to each other was challenging at times. They have a male/ female joint which first is filled with sikaflex (a kind of silicone product) then needs to be pulled in together. We used a combination of ratchet strap (while it was long enough) and a sucker system, in which we attached a sucker to the edge of each panel and used a clamp to pull the suckers, and therefore the edges together. The first time we did it we felt a real sense of urgency at getting the joint together before the sikaflex went off, but we soon realised that we had plenty of time.
Bernt trying out his new climbing harness.
Bernt running sikaflex ready to pull the join together.
Clamping the suckers to pull the panels together.
Bernt on the roof screwing a panel down.
So slowly, as always, the roof progressed panel by panel, argument by argument… all usually based on my perceived lack of communication and Bernts desire to lift first, think during. Personally I find it easier to yell than think when supporting 140kgs precariously. We had to change our tactics a little when we started working on the other side of the roof and in the workshop as the mezzanine was no longer there for support. But we pretty much used the same technique all the way through. It was such an awesome thing to see the space rooved. It still feels like you are outside, I think because of the height and that the north side is nearly completely windows (or gaps for windows) but it feels sheltered and much more like a building. It feels a little like an atrium. And the mezzanine is awesome, with the pitch sloping nearly to the floor, there is a little nook where the roof meats the wall. It’s very cosy and we can’t wait to use this space. The white underside of the panels look awesome as the ceiling. Very clean and contemporary against the chunky unfinished timber beams.
Sunset on the beautiful roofing.
First rain on the roof.
Some panels in place waiting to be hoisted up.
View from the street with roofing three quarters finished.
Nearly there.
The beautiful finished ceiling against the timber frame.
The interior of the apartment with the roof on.
The cosy mezzanine.
In between putting up the roofing we took delivery of the exterior wall cladding. More polystyrene. Its 7.5cm thick sheet, one side has a mesh and thin render coat which you render over again, once installed. It’s very light so really easy to install, just cut to size, carry up the scaffold and screw to the pine studwork, gluing the edges of each sheet together. We took a few days off the roof to get the front and northern walls done, first finishing the pine studwork then attaching the cladding. This makes the apartment nearly completely sheltered from rain, as the rain doesn’t generally come from the north, where the gaps for windows are. The only downside of the putting up the cladding is that we have temporarily covered up the window holes on the front wall, which were looking really cool. This means that the build looks like a big concrete windowless monstrosity from the road. Wonder what the neighbours are thinking! But it’s just a matter of time before the window openings we spent so much time designing are there in all their glory.
Stacey fixing sisalation to the stud work in preparation for the cladding, it’s basically a moisture barrier.
Bernt cutting a cladding panel to shape.
Bernt screwing on the first cladding panel.
Cladding partway finished, you can still see the window openings.
The window openings looking over the river (the upper most white rectangle is also a window). They step down from mezzanine to ground level creating different ‘snap shots’ of the view. People think we are crazy for having so few windows on this wall overlooking the river but its essential for passive solar design to have few windows on the west face. We will, however have a veranda on this side and a landscaped area beside the house which will take full advantage of the view.
The front looking rather depressing with cladding covering the window openings. With Bernt in the foreground the scale of the build becomes really apparent.
Cladding finished and roofing looking rather sexy!
The apartment is clad.
When the guys from the roofing company came to cut the angles on our panels we were left with piles of polystyrene off cuts. It was way too much to dispose of so I rang around to find where I could take it all for recycling (one of the few environmental benefits of the product). There is only one place, over an hour away but he was reluctant to take the waste unless I had bought it from him. So I put my thinking cap on and decided to use the off cuts to infill the stud frame as an extra layer of insulation. The exterior cladding already takes us way over the minimum r rating requirement but you can never have too much insulation, plus it will save us a few dollars as we had planned to add some insulation to the cavities anyway. Also importantly it makes me feel a little greener, I get a real kick out of reusing our building waste and which so far we have managed to keep to a minimum
Using the polystyrene off cuts to insulate the wall cavities.
As an end note, it is apparent from some of the photos that we aren’t currently working on the whole build. We are getting close to the deadline for the first home buyers grant (the extended one, which was part of Kevin’s stimulus package, gives 18 months to complete the build) so we have decided to put our energy into finishing the apartment, and leaving the workshop for now, in order to achieve certificate of occupancy by the deadline. This means we have only got half of the total roof up and are only focussing on cladding the apartment for now.
