Fibre Cement Garage Roof Replacement - Part 2 (Fixing New Sheets)

The garage roof has been replaced - yaya! Watertight at long last!  You can read Part 1 all about how we removed the old roof and purchased the new roof here.

To secure the roof sheets we needed something to screw them into.  The existing purlins were L shaped, but the wrong way round, so the sheets would only rest on the top of the L if that makes any sense.  After getting some advice from the roofing sheet company, we decided to fix some timbers to the purlins, to give something more supportive for the sheets to be screwed into.  That probably didn't make any sense, but hopefully these photos will!

We used coach screws (screws with a hexagonal head) which meant that it was impossible to strip the heads of the screws.  You do need a special drill adapter for these though, although this was only £5.

Hubby went along ahead of me drilling holes through the existing steel purlins at roughly 40cm spacings.  Note - don't use the hammer function on the drill for drilling through steel!

I then followed up behind attaching timber tile battens  (approx 50x25mm) that had been tanalised (pressure treated to help resist rotting) by screwing from the underside.

To attach the roof sheets, we rigged up some string to run over the top of battens so that we would be able to tell from the top where to screw into.

We put 3 or 4 sheets on loosely first to make sure they were heading in the right direction.  It's really important to get the first one on right as you can't really make a big angle change halfway down the roof as the sheets lap squarely.  You could line it up with the edge of the garage, but there is a good chance this isn't perfectly square.

We attached the sheets with self tapping roofing screws into battens in every trough of the sheet.  We also used self tapping stitching screws to join two sheets together where they lapped.  All the screws have washers on them, which need to be compressed just the right amount. It was easy enough to do though.

One side done!

All the necessary tools and fixings.  We borrowed our friends cordless drill for the job - it was amazing!

We attached all the sheets, and then did the apex pieces last.  Hubby was brave and climbed on top of the roof - eek!

And it's finished!

Tools:

• Power drill - borrowed
• Ladders - already owned
• Hex drill attachment - £5
• Nibbler drill attachment to cut the sheets - £40

Materials:

• Metal sheeting, apex, roofing screws, foam fillers £628.89 incl. delivery
• Timber tile battens 8No. 50 x 25 x 2400mm £16.54
• Coach screws £5
• String - already owned

TOTAL £695.43

This was money soooooo well spent. It makes me happy every time I go in the garage and it's dry.  This was top spec sheeting (0.7mm thick with plastisol PVC coating), and came in way cheaper than the original quote we had for someone to do all the work (£2000! :-o ) Obviously, it required some leg work from us(!), and took two whole weekends, but my gosh I love it.  Who knew it was possible to love a garage so much! Haha!

Motivational Monday - Make today awesome

Argh, it's been a terrible weekend!  I took a few days off work with intentions of making huge inroads into the box room/office, and the living room, as well as taking some much needed me time by booking in a pilates one-to-one to get me back into it after such a long break.  But on the first day I was struck down with an infection, on the second day I spent the whole morning at the walk in centre, and I spent the third day covered in a rash from having an allergic reaction to the antibiotics I was given - joy!

Here's hoping this week gets better!  I hope your weekend was better than mine!

Motivational Monday - Demolish Goals

Let's get back to our motivational Monday shall we?

Fibre Cement Garage Roof Replacement - Part 1 (Removal and Procurement)

You might remember No. 4 of my 2016 House Goals was to make the garage watertight.  Given the timely arrival of Storm Katie, I can now confirm that it is - yay!

Before

Daylight...

This is what happens when it rains...

I also explained on my house goals post that the quote that we received was £2000 to remove the 'asbestos' sheeting and replace with a fairly low spec metal sheeting.  Way too pricey to fit into our home reno budget. So DIY job it was.

You'll notice I referred to asbestos in inverted commas above.  That's because I went and got it tested just to understand the nature of the beast (I was convinced it was asbestos but curiosity got the better of me) to find out that it wasn't actually asbestos! Mega good news!  At only £10 per sample [in fact I got three samples tested from a combination of two different labs just to be sure] it seemed worth it.  That's when I started my victory dance...

I was halfway through my victory dance when I was rudely interrupted.  It turns out no-one will take fibre cement sheets, even if it has a UKAS accredited lab test certificate, because, and I quote: "because it looks like it might be asbestos, we have to treat it like it is asbestos".  I can see both sides of the argument, as I can imagine there are some unscrupulous people out there that will try and pass off fibre cement as asbestos, but I'm not one of them!  Our local county council does an asbestos disposal service for £80 (you have to take it to them in one trip), so we begrudgingly had to settle for that as it was cheaper than all other options.  But I was disappointed that my dreams of just taking it down to the local tip and disposing of it for free were quickly dashed.

So one weekend we devised our plan of attack and started disassembling the garage.  But first, we emptied it.  We saw this as a great opportunity to have a real clean and declutter of the garage, and to dispose of some items in the garage that had gotten rather soggy and mouldy as a result.  It meant that our living room looked like the garage for about two weeks, but it was worth the short term pain.

We then purchased a cheapo angle grinder (Homebase clearance thank you very much) to cut through the old bolts in order to release the roof sheets.  This was a fab investment at only £13, as hacksawing all the bolts would have taken us an absolute age (we tried!).

The angle grinder in action

We then double bagged the sheets (treating it like asbestos) and piled it up under the car port for later disposal.

At this point we gave the garage a really good scrub and pressure wash - don't forget to turn off the electrics and cover up the sockets first!

Now our garage wasn't a normal garage with a normal roof truss - obviously.  That would be way too easy if it was! Ha!  We have an old Compton garage in which the purlins are L shaped, but the roof sheets rest on the very top of the L, rather than the bottom of an upside down L.  This doesn't make it very easy to screw into as it's easy to locally overcompress the sheet.

The existing fixings

At this point, this is when the lovely Tony from Accord Steel Fixings came to the rescue.  I must admit I only went to them to get a free colour sample of the roof sheets as they were more expensive than one of their competitors, but when I experienced the quality of their customer service I was quickly swayed.  Their competitor's customer service by comparison was shocking, which helped justify my decision to pay more for a better service.

Anyway, Tony was fab.  He talked me through my options, based on the photos I sent through to him, and recommended that I fixed treated timber battens to 'fill in' the L so that I had a flat surface I could drill into, as the alternative was the eye wateringly expensive Compton bolts and hooks which were a less than ideal solution for several reasons (did I also mention they are uber expensive?!).  He also talked me through the installation, which gauge thickness of steel sheet to go for (0.5 or 0.7mm thick), special ordered in some fixings for me, and the necessary requirements for ventilation when using anti-condensation sheets.  I never felt a hard sell, I never felt patronised, and I felt comfortable asking little questions which might seem insignificant, but for me helped me better understand the process.    To top it off, just before I pressed the go button on the quote, I cheekily asked if he would think about matching the quote of their competitor (on a like for like basis) - not a problem he said. Tony, you're a star!

Delivery of the sheets took approx. 10 working days (they are manufactured and cut to your exact requirements), and they were flexible with a few days that we said in advance that we would not be able to be in for.

This has turned into a much longer post than envisioned so this shall now be Part 1 of 2!  Watch this space for Part 2 where I will show you the installation of the new sheets.

[p.s. again this is not a sponsored post, I just think good customer service should be rewarded! If you would like to know the name of the not-so-hot competitor please send me an e-mail]

Plastering Course at Trade Ability

At the end of Feb I went on a two-weekend plastering course at Trade Ability near Newark.  I booked it before Christmas so I got a cheeky discount on the course, so for the weekend option it was only £200.  What did I have to lose?  Nothing it seems!

I had an absolutely fab time, met lots of lovely people, and bagged myself some new skills.  You can't say fairer than that.

Our instructor, Lee, was a lovely chap - and completely down to earth.  He completely accepted that it's not always possible get it perfect, so provided us with some handy tips on what to do if it all does go pete-tong.  As he put it "s**t happens".

We spent much of the time skimming, with a few tutorials and exercises on how to do a few other skills, such as plasterboarding, attaching beading, rendering, plasterboard repairs, making joins etc.  I lost count of how many skims we did but we did quite a few walls and two goes of a ceiling.  It was really flexible though and as a group we were able to choose what we wanted to do more of.

My first small wall - note the lack of detail at the top of the wall!

My attempt at a large wall a bit later in the weekend

Close up - trust me, this one was really smooth!

Some plasterboard repair work

What I really took away from the course, is that the staging of your work is really important.  Getting all your prep done, having all your equipment in the right place, ready to go when you are, so that once your plaster is mixed it's all systems go.  You haven't got time to mess about once the plaster is mixed.

Staging your work - everything set up ready to go

I also learnt when to have patience and when to walk away - when to go and have a cup of tea to leave the plaster to firm up a bit, instead of keep fiddling with it.

The thing I most struggled with was the ceiling skimming.  On my first go, I shall quote what Lee said to me when I declared I was finished "After your second coat that looked like a rat's arse, so I'm really surprised that you managed to bring it back".  I took it as a complement...  My second go was better, although certainly not perfect.

Me in action!

I was dead chuffed with my walls though, and I'm really excited to give it a go in my own home now.  My only regret is that I didn't strip all the wallpaper in our house before I went on the course so that I could have come straight home and cracked on while the skills were still fresh in my mind!

I would certainly recommend the course to anyone, and at that price it would be rude not to.  I'll be the first person to suggest that you learn things about DIY on YouTube, but I think plastering is one of those skills where you need hands on, practical, in real life, experience.

The only improvement that I think could be made to the course is to have an opportunity to plaster a wall with obstructions in the way, such as a door frame, window or for me, an electrical socket (slightly regretting all those sockets I had put in now...).  The walls we did we just rectangular walls with no obstructions, so they weren't quite realistic.  However I can understand why it would be hard to add to the course as you spend the course plastering the same few walls, so if the walls had sockets on them you would probably have to try a wall with a socket on it fairly early on while you are still trying to get to grips with the whole darn thing, which would probably put even the calmest of people into a bit of a flap!

I plan to start with the box room (OH's office) to further refine my skills as if I make a hash of it, guests rarely see it.  Then after a bit more prep, I'll be onto the living room - yay!

Are there any courses you have been on that you would highly recommend for your house renovations?

[p.s. this is not a sponsored post - I just had a fab time and wanted to share my experience]