Tag Archives: fascia board

Wednesday 8th April 2015 – GUESS WHO HAS BEEN A BUSY BOY THEN?

Yes, I’ve accomplished a lot today. It’s really been keeping me out of mischief.

I was up early too for a change. When the alarm went off, I was eating my breakfast. I must have been keen.

varnishing landing floor les guis virlet puy de dome franceFirst job was to varnish the floor and the stairs with the third coat of varnish. I gave it a good wallop and it was all over by 10:30. All it needed to do was to dry and set thoroughly – that’s usually about 48 hours. And then I can fit the skirting.

While that was drying, I went outside and had a look around at what jobs that I can be doing. First job was to start on the compost bin. But I didn’t last long on that as I remembered something else quite important to do.

new wheels summer tyres ford transit caliburn les guis virlet puy de dome franceAnd doesn’t Caliburn look nice with his new clean wheels?

Yes, I needed to change his winter tyres and fit the summer tyres. Of course, I have two sets of wheels so I really just change the wheels. And because they have been outside for 4 months, they were pretty grubby and so I gave them a really good clean and polish.

One or two of them have come up really well too, but I’m thinking that I might give all of the wheels a good clean, scrub and coat of paint over the summer. I’ll add that to the thousand other jobs.

Another job that I wanted to do was to fix the guttering on the house. This involved assembling the ladder now that I’ve recovered both the parts, but on my way up to the scaffolding I noticed that I hadn’t painted part of the fascia board where I couldn’t reach off the scaffolding. This meant that I had to reposition the ladder, and then I could deal with that.

While I was waiting for that to dry, I started to cut the lengths of wood that I needed to start to make the compost bin (which was where I started) but in a search for something or other, I started to tidy up the downhill lean-to. And I made some progress too, much to my surprise.

fascia board guttering les guis virlet puy de dome france After lunch, I put the second coat on the fascia board and then started to reassemble the guttering.

I’ve repositioned it slightly because in the past, it drained down to the roof of the verandah and into the water tanks there. Now, I’m having drop onto the roof of the lean-to at the other side, because it’s there that i’ll be digging the hole for the subterranean water tank.

It took a while to do that because I had to work out the levels and cut a few lengths to size. I did as much as I could (I need to check it in the rain and make sure that it works like it should before I glue it together) but when I went to move the ladder round to the side of the house to fix the downpipe, I noticed that it was already 19:20

Doesn’t time fly quickly when you are enjoying yourelf? That was enough for me and I called it a day. I’d earned my rest.

-1

Thursday 30th August 2012 – I DIDN’T DO …

… anything like as much as I was going to do today.

I was up early and spent a few hours on the computer as usual, but it was after that that it all started to go wrong

Finding a fully-charged battery for the Hitachi SDS drill was the first issue that I had, and once I’d managed that, then drilling the brick pillars has caused some of the bricks to split. That’s annoying to say the least.

But anyway the window frames are fitted and that’s something. Next plan was to fit the fascia boards to the end of the chevrons on the lean-to,

However, in an astounding achievement the type of which surely only I can be capable, it seems that having cut the wood to the right length, I somehow have managed to discard the piece that I want and I’ve painted the off-cut instead.

As Kenneth Williams once famously said, “I’m often taken aback by my own brilliance”

I didn’t get much done after lunch as the phone rang. The handbrake on Marianne’s son’s car has ceased to function and so could I look at it.

He brought it round and I dismantled the rear end (brake drums held on by the wheel bearings, how I hate that!) to find that the auto adjusters aren’t working. So no surprise as the handbrake needs 12 clicks to work.

I reset the adjusters but that didn’t do much so crawling underneath the car, it turns out that the cable adjuster (there’s one of them too) has slipped out of position. I reset that and now the brakes will stop that little Twingo on a sixpence.

But that cable is totally weird. Most cars have one single cable and there’s a slider at the centre of tha cable that’s attached to the handbrake arm so that the brakes pull evenly, and when you work the manual adjuster, the adjuster works on both brakes.

But not the Twingo.

There’s no slider at all but just a single fitting on the end of the handbrake arm, and two cables, one for each rear brake on each side.

Consequently although moving the manual adjuster will tighten up the cable, it doesn’t equalise the brakes. If one side is lack, then tightening up the cable adjuster will over-tighten the good side.

It took us ages therefore to adjust the brakes correctly, setting up the automatic adjusters individually by trial and error until they were equal, and then tightening up the cable adjuster.

And then of course we had the issue of refitting the hubs and bearings, and torquing up the nuts. That’s something I really hate doing.

Back on the lean-to afterwards (just as well I finished the car as we had a torrential storm straight afterwards), I’ve fitted one window pane (one of them survived having a ladder thrown on it) and the second one is ready to cut.

But by this time, it was 19:00 and I was well fed up, so I called it a day.

And tea tonight? Courgette and lentil curry. You can see that things are going berserk in the garden right now.

-4

Friday 2nd July 2010 – Up until about 21:00 this evening …

… the weather was magnificent. In fact it was far too magnificent to work.

solar panel mounting kwikstage scaffolding barn les guis virlet puy de dome franceThis morning we put up a small scaffolding at the southern end of the barn and while Terry was drilling and screwing into the wall for the mounting brackets I was sawing and cutting scaffolding pipe to make a framework to mount the solar panels that are on the roof of the Luton Transit.

I’ll be fitting them permanently onto this end of the barn along with the wind turbine that we took down from the north end of the barn.

But we were defeated by that most unusual phenomenon – overheating batteries. When they went flat in the Hitachi SDS drill (and what a good purchase that was!) they were too hot to take a charge. Mind you, it was only 37°C today – the hottest of the year.

guttering barn roof kwikstage scaffolding les guis virlet puy de dome franceNot to be outdone however we started on the guttering of the barn as you can see. I told Terry that there are four classes of people in France

  1. the peasants – the ones with the leaky roofs
  2. the lower class – the ones with roofs that don’t leak
  3. the middle class – the ones with guttering on their barn …

    4. “What’s the fourth class?” asked Terry

  4. “The ones with drains to take away the water!”

But having seen how dry the house walls have become since I put guttering up, then my barn will have it too. I’m sick and tired of being up to my neck in mud. But I’ll have to wait a bit for the drains though.

The chevrons are much too short for the roofing (I went for a long overhang) and so a fascia board is out of the question but they did have at Brico Depot yesterday some galvanised straps with the facility for a sliding attachment. If you bend the straps so that the sliders are at about 60° there’s still a good 9 inches or so on the straps and they fit nicely onto the chevrons and you can bolt the gutter mounts to them and they are then perfectly vertical.

We did what we could bearing in mind that we had no joints (moving the scaffolding out to give us clearance was fun) but by 15:00 it was no longer possible to work up there. The combination of a searing hot metal roof, blinding sunlight and tools too hot to touch made us call it a day.

I did a little some while later and then history was made by my not only having a solar shower  (and this LIDL garden shower thing needs some attention) but a solar shave as well. And no surprise – the water temperature was a phenomenal 46°C

We had a barbecue round at Clare’s tonight. Esther hosted it and very kindly invited me, and of course Strawberry Moose met some of his admirers. James and Julianna drew some good pictures of him too.

But by 21:00 we were having thunder and lightning and we even had some rain. But nothing like as much as we need. And right now the sky is a clear cloudless starry night promising much more sun for tomorrow. I have to go to Commentry to look for joints and downpipe and then it’s a toss-up as to whether I come back to do the guttering or go for a swim.

We shall see.

-7

Saturday 15th August 2009 – I SAW THIS MOST MAGNIFICENT CLOUD …

anvil cloud thunderstorm clermont ferrand puy de dome france… on my way to Liz and Terry’s this evening. A finer example of an “anvil” cumulonimbus cloud you cannot hope to see.

It’s hovering just about over Clermont Ferrand so I reckon that the good citizens of that fair city are having a right pasting this evening, for “anvil” clouds are associated with heavy thunderstorms.

So what was I doing at Liz and Terry’s this evening? You may well ask.

In fact it all starts this morning at about 11.45. There I was casually nailing my fascia boards to the ends of the chevrons when suddenly Terry put in a dramatic appearance.

“There’s a damsel ( or was it a damson?) in distress at the Brico Depot in Montlucon” he announced

Of course, someone’s antlers pricked up at that. All his life he’s been in training for just this moment and despite one or two false starts
“Help help I’ve been tied to this tree and ravaged by the entire crew of the HMS Victory” cried a damsel in distress, tied to a tree in the forest.
“Well, it’s just not your lucky day, is it?” Strawberry Moose
, unbuckling his tunic.
he was well in form.

He leapt into Caliburn, his trusty steed (in the old days when I used to be a superhero all on my own and the job didn’t pay as well as it does now, some of the vehicles I owned were rather less than reputable and were more like rusty steeds, but certainly not Caliburn) and as his driver, I leapt in beside him and we chaud-pieded it to Montlucon.

This digital revolution and mobile communications has brought about some significant benefits and so on – but also a major disadvantage that as far as I know, everyone else has overlooked. In order to be a superhero you need to have your underpants on outside your trousers, and telephone boxes are the traditional places for superheroes to change their clothing.

But try finding a telephone box these days now that everyone has a mobile phone! Strawberry and I had to search for ages until we found a suitable telephone box to change in, and that’s in the Auvergne where mobile phone coverage is patchy at best. How is Superperson managing in the USA where telephone boxes are all but redundant?

Superheroes will have to find new venues in which to change.

Public toilets are likely to receive plenty of support, and I have indeed made use of just such a venue on a previous occasion. But these days you have to fight your way into a public toilet past the drug abusers, the cottagers, the cross-dressers (“Mabel, if you don’t let me wear your tights I’ll smash your ****ing face in!”) and the like.

Mind you, I did have a brother who almost always used to come out of a public toilet with his underpants on outside his trousers, but that was more to do with his status as being a couple of sandwiches short of a picnic rather than any superhero status he might (or might not) wish to claim.

So Strawberry Moose
, Caliburn and I duly arrived at Brico Depot and found Terry standing guard over a trolley with a pile of windows too large to go in the back of his car.
“Where’s Liz?” I asked
“Ohh, she’s going to take advantage of you while you’re here” he replied.
Now, I don’t know about you, but it’s a long time since anyone has ever said anything like that to me, and my surprise was quite clearly written all over my face.
“She wants to make use of Caliburn now you are all here by getting some more windows”
“Ahhhh” I replied, this time with disappointment all over my face.

Liz asked me if I could deliver the windows this evening.
“Might that involve some of your vegan chocolate cake?” I enquired.
“I’ll see what I can do” she replied.

And hence my visit to Liz and Terry’s this evening. And not only was there vegan chocolate cake, there was some vegetable curry with rice, and some vegan chocolate cake to bring home.

We have a system round here of chantiers communaux – where if anyone has a work project that needs many hands, we all do a blitz on their premises to get the job done. And whenever there’s a chantiers communaux at Liz and Terrys, you are usually trampled to death in the stampede, so well-known is Liz’s vegan chocolate cake.

And in other news, it was the hottest day of the year so far – almost 42 degrees – and I’ve fixed the fascia boards, tacked on the guttering (I can’t fix it on until the scaffolding is moved) and put on the first row of tiles.

-3

Friday 14th August 2009 – WE HAD A GOOD DAY TODAY.

kwikstage scaffolding damp proof membrane plywood les guis virlet puy de dome france Firstly we dismantled the scaffolding that was in the roof space.
Secondly we fitted the rafters.
Thirdly we took one of the rafters out and replaced it with another new one that we xylophened and painted
Fourthly we cemented the rafters in position
Fifthly we fitted some of the hardboard on the roof
Sixthly we went to Montlucon to get some more hardboard, the guttering (and why have they run out of guttering joints AGAIN? Tons of everything else but no blasted joints for the second time) and a few other bits and pieces
Seventhly we fitted the rest of the hardboard
Eighthly we fitted the damp-proof membrane (white this time as we’ve run out of black)

Terry piddled off after that (who can blame him? He’s worked hard) and I measured up, cut, xlophened and put the first coat of paint on the fascia boards.

Tomorrow I’ll be fitting the fascia boards, loosely attaching the guttering (in the absence of joints) and then starting the tiling. And in between all that I need to go to St Eloy for shopping.

And talking of Terry, I want you all to know how well I treat my workforce. Hottest day of the year so far (38.6 degrees and almost 84 amp-hours from the solar panels on the roof of the house). And so I treated him to a bottle of ice-cold coke. Yes, none of your 22 cents on a bottle of water – a whole 1 Euro 50 cents I spent today.

My generosity knows no bounds.

-5

Wednesday 5th August 2009 – TODAY, I CHANGED THE HABITS OF A LIFETIME

kwikstage scaffolding les guis virlet puy de dome france My usual working hours here are from 09:30 to 1400 and 15:00 to 18:00 or 18:30. So here I was today, 21:00 when I climbed down off the scaffolding.

But then again I was in full flight painting the front of the house and I totally lost track of time. Mind you, it was so hot at 14:00 when I stopped for lunch that I ate inside the house and stayed here until 16:00 when it cooled down. 35.5 degrees in the shade, and off the scale (more than 40 degrees) in the direct sunlight.

As well as having done more than half the painting, I fitted the fascia board and the guttering. Many people don’t agree with fascia boards when doing roofing (especially round here) on the grounds that they just collect the water, rot away and then drop off.

But that’s exactly the point. If it wasn’t for the fascia board then the exposed ends of the rafters would collect the water, rot away and drop off and if anyone thinks that in 10 years time I’m taking all the roof off to replace the rafters then they have another think coming.

We didn’t buy enough guttering – there’s about a metre short. And I also need two joining pieces. I won’t have time to go back to Montlucon to look for them on Saturday so I’ll have to see what St Eloy can offer.

And in other news, having gone to the bank yesterday to give them a copy of Caliburn’s log book, I had a letter from the bank today reminding me that Caliburn’s temporary certificate has expired and if I don’t give them a copy of Caliburn’s log book by 15th August they’ll cancel the insurance.

-5