Handily, Craig was between flats this week, so he came back down here to hang out. We made very good use of him getting from half-raftered to fully raftered.
Sarah-May also came for a bit and helped out with roofing, though it was not her favourite thing, working at height. Especially when the building swayed a bit.
The team got all the main rafters up and got a good way towards finishing the dormer as well. Craig had the joy of climbing out onto the dormer ridge, as you can see below if you look closely.
Meanwhile, after the usual delivery fiasco* the quicklime was delivered successfully to the top of the drive.
(* I do always tell them access is awkward, and I always tell them in what way it’s awkward, and what sort of vehicle can get up here, but do they listen? No, they do not.)
After a few small batches to get the hang of it, we were cruising along. I will video the bits of the process at some point because I wish I’d been able to find a good start to finish tutorial. Nora was very helpful, having done this before, so she could tell us when it was the right sort of consistency. I’d read online several references to yogurt, but it’s always nice to have an experienced opinion to back up one’s judgement about when one’s lime putty does indeed look like yogurt.
We finished up having done 8 of the big buckets (about 50 litre capacity) and 6 of them between 2pm and 4:15 or so, so I reckon we can do 15 in a day. If we ever get a dry day again. At that rate, we’ll need 5 decent rain-free days to get it done, and they’re few and far between here in Todmorden. But at least the first batch is slaking away in its buckets and will be ready to mix into render around the middle of May.
And finally, sunset as seen from the top floor of my house through the rafters.
Subscribe using RSS