Floor joists

We're working with timber at last. We have secured a wallplate to the top of the walls ready for securing joists and rafters. We are using joist hangers to lower the floor joists by 100 mm both for ease of securing and to allow more head room in the roof rooms. With all 60 hangers in place we have secured all thirty 225mm x 75mm joists. The size of the joists are to compensate for having no internal loadbearing walls. We cut each joist to allow 75mm of the depth to sit over the wall plate. This will have the rafter bolted to it.

We were able to continue further with the gable ends and, at last, have cast the final lintel for the first floor window.

Next stage is to sit the ridge board in place and start to cut and attach the pairs of rafters. Thankfully we have a good friend coming to help us get started next week!

Gable ends

Rain stopped play for a week...following a very dry summer we had our share of rain over just a few days which was great for the gardens but impossible to work in. So now the sun is back shining the building continues. The concrete ring beam has now had chance to completely harden off so the start of the gable end walls commence. Our house will have quite a steeply pitched roof at 51 degrees so we have started with the centre of the wall to enable us to secure a timber through the middle to "string out" our finished angle. The remaining angles of the wall will be built and finished with a further reinforced cement top.

We have now had all the wood for the roof delivered, it's quite scary how much it weighs and that our poor four walls will have to support that weight! The slates we have collected from a supllier about 15 kms from us. Five trips with the trailer and aching backs and arms and they are stacked ready to finish the roof. We chose slates from Spain as we had been warned to avoid the Chinese imports. You know you have been bitten by the building bug when you can spend 15 minutes admiring pieces of slate!