All of the spars and purlins were removed and replaced. The existing purlins were nowhere near as big as they needed to be and at some point the original purlin had been supplemented by an additional piece of wood. All very poorly done and still nowhere need adequate. Two of the spars in the middle bay had snapped under the sheer weight of the stone slates on the roof. So we have increased the total number of spars as well as increasing the size of the timber. We have installed two purlins right across the outbuilding, rather than the one that was there previously. And again we have increased the size of the timber used to 6×4 (although they are really two 6×2’s bolted together – 6×2 are held in stock as standard treated timber – we would have had to order treated 6×4).
The two end walls had to have new holes cut for the purlins and this has meant that they have needed to be repaired to a certain extent. It is a single skin building and large parts of the upper courses were fairly loose. Paddy and John have done an excellent job at cutting the stones to fit around the purlins – it puts the rest of the wall to shame, although I suspect that a little bit of pointing will help both improve the stability of the wall as well as it’s appearance.
Paddy and Jon repairing the end walls, Richard fitting the new sofit. The big stone slabs are the “water tables” that fit on the very top of the wall on the front of the building.
You can see the top of the end wall where it has been made good and now lines up perfectly with the slope of the spars. If you look along the line of the roof it is perfectly flat. The woodwork was put in so accurately that one spar was cut as a template and then all the other spars cut from it. They all fitted perfectly.
Looking along the line of the roof, you can see how flat it is. You can also see the two holes that have been cut for the new purlins and the stones that have been cut to fit. The larger hole to the left is an original hole that was for ventilation – this end of the building was used as an outside toilet. This is a standard design for this part of Yorkshire and we decided to leave it as it was.
The other end wall showing the two holes where the new purlins have been installed.
