The roof on the outbuilding was completed on Saturday. At about 7:30pm – well after the sun went down. The verges (where the sloping edge of the roof meets the wall) were mortared in after dark. That is my excuse and I am sticking to it. Fortunately, it was only the rough coat and the final finish was put on my Paddy the following day.
I guess we just push our luck too far today and we ran out of time. It takes a good hour or so to clean up and pack everything away. Getting out the cement mixer means another 30 minutes at the end of the day cleaning it out!
Anyway today, we altered the top two rows of slates so that they were closer to the top wall. A bit of miscommunication between the guy putting on the slates and the folks building the top wall meant that we ended up with a 4” gap between the top of the wall and the top row of slates. A couple of minor adjustments and we were done. But it did take a couple of hours.
Next job was to put the stone slabs (called Water tables) back on the top of the wall. These are large enough to bridge the gap between the wall and the top row of slates. They are mortared into place and set so that they tilt slightly backwards (in line with the slop of the roof) to prevent water running down the front wall.
The main issue with the water tables is their weight. They are roughly 1m long and 750cms wide and about 75cm thick. Solid stone weighing it at around 60-80kgs each. These had to be man handled 12ft into the air and placed on top of the wall. Fortunately, we had some small scaffolding towers, but even then it was a struggle. We repurposed a large flagstone from the top of the side wall to make up for the gap where the chimney had been.
But by 6pm, we were pretty much all done. The light was starting to fade and then it started raining. But we had had a good day and achieved what we had set out to.