I was out on site at 6.30 am and finished work at 18:00.

I had hoped to replace the temporary roof in just a couple of hours and then install the hand rail on the access stairs.

However, unbelievably, cleaning up from installing the stud frame took me all day.

First of all I removed as much of the roll insulation as possible.

This is no longer needed as the ceiling space underneath is now insulated, plus it is getting rather messy and soiled.

After sweeping up I reinstated 3 rows of small roof members.

Then I started working through the pile of roof sheeting working out their original positions.

This took a while as during the rush of installing the stud frame the sheeting was thrown every where as it was removed.

As I worked my way from the middle of the roof to the edge with the frame I had to cut out reliefs to allow the sheeting to fit around the stud.

This was a fiddly and time consuming process even though I did use a nibbling tool attached to my drill.

At this point my neighbours from 2 houses up came to visit and I was proud to show them what I had achieved.

I also made them coffee and tea in the kitchen - I'm starting to entertain guests in the house.

After an hour of chatting I was back to work.

At this point I painted the raw noggings and repainted any marked or scratched portions of the studs.

Next I worked my way around the reinstalled sheeting and pushed in all the roofing screws as well as edge piece.

I then ran around all holes and sealed them with silastic as well as where the edge of the sheeting fits around the studs.

Finally there was a lot of cleaning up to do - tools and materials as well as taking down the tarpaulins.

In the end the site looked nice and tidy.

Saturday

Yesterday there was one little section of the temporary roof that I could not finish.

I needed to attach flashing of some sort where I had to cut around the studs.

There is a risk of water running back across the top of the bottom plate.

This morning I headed back with some gaffa tape and black builders' plastic.

I don't know how successful this will be. I notice that gaffa tape distresses very quickly in sunlight - so we will just have to see.

Because I was heading out to site for just one little job I thought I would finally tackle the handrail on the temporary access stairs.

Every other weekend when I had intended to do this - it was too late in the day and too hot out in the baking quarry dust to make a start.

Even today I almost managed to run too late to make a start.

First of all I needed to rake up and remove the recent accumulation of leaves.

This means that I needed to use the wheelbarrow.

The wheelbarrow unfortunately was filled with a vast mixed up array of tools - almost a tools porridge !.

It took me almost an hour to sort and pack up all the tools in to my utility.

After this I spent another hour and a half raking up 10 barrow loads of leaves and moving them to the compost heap.

Finally it was safe to grind and weld.

I spent about an hour preparing the surfaces (grinding away remnants of previous attachments) and two hours welding.

This involved reconfiguring the original hand rail that went up, across and down.

I had to cut it in to two pieces and the lower part will need to be welded on another weekend.

I was contemplating ringing Linda to say I would be home in another two hours and would she like to meet me for coffee somewhere.

Just then she turned up with some take away coffee and naughty pastries - so we must have tuned in to each other's telepathic messages.

After chatting for a while and then loading some materials on to the utility we headed home.

After unloading we headed to Bunnings where we bought some stakes for the garden and also some more structural pine 90 x 45 H2 and H3 at 3 metres.

Before when I calculated the length of the top and bottom plates for the next stud frame I came up with a figure of 2.2 8 metres.

After measuring the as built dimensions I realised that I had a mistake in my calculations and that I needed 2.48 metres so unfortunately a 2.4 metre length just won't do it and I had to buy the longer lengths.

I also bought a very cheap roller support to help me when I am trenching the plates on the dado saw.

I seems to have a very good build quality for the price.

I will test it out soon and if it stacks up I might buy a couple more so that I am not constantly adjusting the height of the single roller support that I have been using up until now.

I am hoping to install my next stud frame next Saturday but I will really have my work cut out to dress enough stud and trench the top and bottom plates in time.

Easter Monday

I have found an area where I can leave the thicknesser and radial arm saw set up permanently out of the rain.

This means that whenever I have a break I can process a length of timber.

I spent all day moving equipment around, setting up lighting and running extension leads.