What a week! Typically, this was the week that the steel roof was due to be fitted so we were gifted with not one but 2 named storms: Storm Dudley (yellow warning) on Wednesday, which did not cause much of a problem; and Storm Eunice (red warning) on Friday which was accompanied by winds of over 60 knots/70 mph!! Needless to say, the latter caused all work on site to stop. Further yellow warnings are forecast over the weekend.
On Monday, we had 3 teams on site!
The “home team” from Insul Hub (Sam, Lewis and Aidan) was on hand to continue their framing and insulation around the roof structure and to create some temporary stairs.
Mark and Chris from Phillips Traditional Metal Roofing were back to start manufacturing the roof “trays”. In short order, they pressed the new panels from the rolls of SSAB Greencoat Pural BT steel and positioned them on the top floor.
The weather put a stop to placing anything on the roof other than a few trims and gutter panels but all the roof panels have now been positioned ready for placing when conditions allow.
The pressing machine is in action on this video: IMG_0576
Gary, Nathan and Luke from G Q & Sons Roofing were also on site to install the Polyroof Protec single ply roof to the valley gulley. The torrential rain over the weekend did not make this easy but the team soon had the surfaces clean and dry with the first layer quickly applied.
This work was completed on Thursday in the lull between the 2 storms.
The impending storm on Friday called for several hours to clear the site of loose objects or anything which could be picked up by the wind. This also meant applying a considerable number of battens to the roof to secure the ISO-Mat Metal Underlay membrane to ensure that it could not be lifted off the roof. In the event, the time spent in preparation paid off: despite the extreme wind speeds, there was no damage. Three PIR boards stored on the top floor escaped but were recaptured before they left the building and the Heras fencing across the front of the site was taken down as a precaution (our fencing has signage attached to it which makes means it perform like a sail rather than a fence!). Clearly, the structure has been well built despite the conditions that it had to contend with.
Let’s hope that the weather next week is a bit calmer so that we can complete the steel roof!