Yoga studio Part 3: roof and lock up

By Saturday we had the frame up and in place. We took the rest of the day off- so Deirdre could take Mary to the airport- and sat back ready to get back into things on Sunday. Sunday saw a change of work crew too as I had a job to apply for so Deirdre took over my spot and started on working on the rafters with her Dad.

1. The rafters 

From the vantage point of the bus this looked to be a harder task then the frame. Whereas the frame was nailed into each here the rafters were sitting on the top plate of the frame. The first task was to cut to the treated pine boards into the desired length of our roofing tin. Our boards were 3000, our roofing tin was 2700. Hugh and Deirdre chopped off the excess length and then got out to stage 2: working out the angle for the rafters sit flush.

To do this a board was lifted into place and then marked out where a indent needed to be created for the rafter to sit flush. From this a template was created and then each board was cut to this template. As it was discovered though the template was difficult to transfer across from and Deirdre and Hugh spent a lot of time fine tuning the boards in order to get them into place.

Deirdre and Hugh working on the rafters.

2. Adding sarking and battens

The rafters on it was then time to begin waterproofing the studio. To do this we used roof sarking, stretching it across the length of the studio. The three of us- Hugh, Deirdre and myself- worked together rolling it out, attaching it to a rafter and then holding it down with some 70mm lengths of pine so they wouldn’t blow away overnight.

The end of a days work. Rafters on and first bit of sarking up.

Once the sarking and battens had been roughly put in place it was then time for someone to get on the roof and hammer the battens to the rafters. I volunteered thinking I would be comfortable up there. I wasn’t (it felt like I was going to fall through the sarking into the studio) but I managed to get the battens up and in place.

Hugh making sure the sarking-sinsulation- is right.

3. Windows in

Once the roof sarking was on and the structure water tight it was time to put in the windows. This was a little awkward due to the narrow walkways around the sides of the yoga studio but with some extra fiddling around- taking off some of the support beams- we were able to squeeze the windows in place with relative ease.

4.  Roof on

The windows in it was time to get the ladder back out and begin putting the sheets of zinc on the roof. I again volunteered to get up on the roof. One by one Hugh and Deirdre passed the roofing sheets up to me. Making sure to line them up evenly at the guttering ends we held the sheets in place with some timber and then I set to screwing the roof in place.

Sunny work. Laying out the roof ready

5. Final lock up: Water proofing and door

Once the roof was up it was time to water proof the yoga studio and add the door. This task was left to Deirdre and Hugh as I had work. From all accounts it went quite smoothly with the door fitting perfectly into the frame and the parking holding. coming home from work it was great to see a finished lock up stage of the build. In a week we had gone from footings and floor to a fully framed water tight yoga studio.

Tired and happy studio crew