The Roof – Part 1

After the lightning fast construction of the walls, we were expecting the roof to be up in hours. It hasn’t worked out quite like that …

The roof trusses were due for delivery at 9am on the Monday. True to form, despite the inch of fresh snow, the truck turned up at half past seven.

Now prefabricated roof trusses are not exactly small nor light so we waited for George the fork lift driver to arrive and went to examine how a 45 foot articulated wagon could get  up the drive.

In due course, we unloaded the truck and Pete and Ali turned up to start on the roof.

It transpires there are two types of roof in our house. The big trusses were destined for the long roof and had to cater for the rooms in the roof. The smaller roof over the living room is a more traditional ridge beam and rafter arrangement. This is where Pete and Ali started. Up went the ridge beam (heavy!) followed by the notched rafters.

Now for the big roof. Once we had asked the truss makers for the dimensions we needed to position the trusses properly, we could get going. The first thing to do was to sort the trusses into order. They may look all the same in the pictures here but there are in fact half a dozen different sorts doing different jobs in the roof. Some are installed single, some are doubled or even tripled.

Having sorted them into order, George got going with the forklift crane and hoisted them onto the top of the wall plates ready for them to be levered upwards into position.

So far so good.

Some of the single trusses are to be installed then an opening cut into them to allow the roof lights to be inserted. The first set of three went in without a hitch, standing on the walls at either end of the truss and braced back to a neighbouring truss.

The next set of three seemed to be causing much head scratching. We looked at the plans, the truss layout diagram, the truss delivery note. And we even got the tape measure out. The problem was the trusses appeared too long for the job. Rather than sitting on both walls, these trusses sit on one wall but sit in shoes attached to the edge of the walls at the other end.

What had happened was the truss manufacturer had supplied 6 trusses exactly the same, so one set was never going to fit.

After much toing and froing, we were sent a diagram showing how to modify the offending trusses on site. This involved hacking 4 inches off one end so it would fit.

But all this took time. Pete and Ali were left trying to make sense of trusses and diagrams that didn’t match up. Still, while waiting for the word from the factory, they cracked on with erecting the first floor walls panels.

And that was that for one week. Walls, trusses and some excitement with plans. Next week we will see some windows.