… that I haven’t posted a pic of the interior of the attic. so here’s one to put the record straight. It’s as well that I post one now as this afternoon I started work up there.
You remember that I mentioned the other day that I had to face the walls under the eaves at the front, to keep the bugs and the weather out. At the rear though it’s not possible to do it like that so I’ve been facing the walls under the eaves from the inside. And they needed it too – you can actually see daylight in a couple of places.
So what I’ve been doing is ramming stones up underneath the insulation on top of the house walls to block up any holes and then infilling with mortar. Some rain and some animals might get under then eaves at the back but at least they won’t get into the house.
This morning I attached the downpipe for the guttering to the side of the house. I tried the new Hitachi battery-powered SDS drill and it went into the wall like a hot knife into butter. This is going to be some purchase.
And you might be wondering why that was all I did this morning. But most of the morning was spent turning the inside of Caliburn upside down looking for the downpipe fasteners.
Tomorrow, Terry’s coming round and we are going to take down most of the scaffolding and fit the plywood sheets onto the roof here. And that will be Terry finished round here (until we start on the barn roof, but I haven’t mentioned that to him). All that will then remain will be to fit the membrane, the slates, the fascia panels and the guttering, and we’ll be done!
Then I can get cracking on the inside of the house. I want to be settled in before October.
In the US we have foam spray that we can use to seal such gaps. It expands and is waterproof.
But here it would all expand out of the gaps in the back of the house and I can’t get round there to cut the excess off.
Is there no way you could create a suspended walkway around the end from scaffolding at either side?
Why not sneak around the back with a ladder when nobody’s looking?
Yes, that’s called a “flying scaffolding” and I had great plans for one of those. But after much debate we decided that the time it would take to build it would be much more than we would save by leaning over the end of the roof on a ladder with a safetly harness.
But that is something that there needs to be two of you and I was on my own at this point.
Because the house is built on a slope the rear ground level is much lower than the front ground level – it’s probably another couple of metres difference and I dunno if my ladder would stretch.
In any case, handling a bucket of mortar, a trowel, a plasterer’s hawk, a bucket of water and a brush with just two hands while I’m on top of a ladder – no thanks. It’s a scaffolding or nothing.
Ah, I knew I couldn’t have invented something new! Well any how, I guess it’s a job you can always come back to another time now you’ve got the inside done.
Yes, nothing is wasted by doing it.
But I’m hoping to get cracking on the inside on Monday if I’ve finished the tiling.