I Know My Place!

Construction is a funny business because at each stage of the build different trades come and go but I have noticed a bit of friction between the various trades - a bit of class war you might say.  Reminds me of the infamous John Cleese sketch with Ronnie Corbett and Ronnie Barker "I know my place".

In fact this photo also reminded of the sketch too....alas it's all in the mind.

Still good to see that Derek and Pauls crew work really well together and the banter is...well...unprintable when I've got kids tuning into this blog too!  Anyway it's a good laugh listening to it and certainly brightens up an otherwise dull day.

Work is now pressing ahead to get the entire roof structure covered with breathable roofing felt to provide a degree of weather-proofing.  The membrane allows the internal roof structure to breath yet does not allow water molecules to pass through it - thereby keeping the roof timbers dry but allowing air to circulate preventing them from rotting - very clever stuff.

You can see from the shot above how complex the roof structure design really is as this aspect of the structure is hidden from view by the roof tiles and internal plaster boarding.  This design is called trussed rafters and basically is built around triangles given this shape offers the greatest load-bearing capacity.  It is the cheapest design but precludes me from converting the loft into an attic room at a later date.  This option would require an alternative attic rafter design that creates an internal boxed shape within the roof void enabling the installation of a relatively regular shaped room within the roof space.  Naturally this design costs the most.  Having designed a four-bedroomed house with Study I firstly couldn't afford the extra cost on budget and wanted to stick to my philosophy of "keep it simple stupid".

The above pictures show the internal view of one of the back bedrooms and the smaller front guest bedroom. You can just about make out that the roof slopes down to floor level at the rear of the rooms so headroom is limited but that end of the room is ideal for the beds - it adds a quirky element to the overall design and besides the kids love irregular and different rooms - provides novelty - at least whilst they aren't fully grown!

Now that we've got the roof felt and battens on we have to wait for delivery of the roof tiles - I'm surprised at the poor delivery track record of most suppliers in the building game - wouldn't tolerate that in IT - we just wouldn't turn up - period!