The roof, the roof, the roof is on fire!! looking good just in time as the clouds gather
The much anticipated roof… is on! and the kliplok colour steel looks amazing.
At the start of the roof install, and again at the end, my cousin James came out to capture the roofing activity with his DJI spark drone. James has a business capturing life events called EcoEye NZ and we were amazed with his skilled piloting of the drone, while also directing and then editing his own shoot… It’s captured here in a short video along with time-lapse footage shot by Alessandra. The video was produced by Michael on his phone - amazing what you can create directly on your phone these days in a free app. Thanks to all of you for our first professional Nga Kereru video!
Stratco started folding our roof flashings for us on their first day back at work for the New Year on Monday 7th January. We had installed and then measured the Clearvue rear deck roof and needed the flashings turned around quickly, so we could install them ahead of putting on the main roof. We picked them up same day with our trusty ford courier ute and had them back on-site and being installed that afternoon.
We started putting on the main roof sheets on Tuesday 8th January and finished at 7pm on Thursday 10th January. The next morning, we worked on installing flashings and then drew a line under it all at lunch time on Friday, stopped for drinks and a BBQ lunch and then down to Maraetotara falls for a swim before dropping Michael to the airport for his return flight to Sydney at 4pm.
Stopping for a drink and a feed at the end of a hot week..
Michael bomb at the falls
Now a few details of what happened in between….
Pat brought in Jake and Piers as helpers for the roof and they worked seamlessly with Michael as a great roofing team. At the same time Alessandra and I worked with Pat to get the rough sawn macrocarpa barge boards/fascia’s sanded, oiled and installed. It was a great team effort, a lot of fun and hard work in the hot January sun!
Alessandra planing our barge boards
Anita, James and the Nga Kereru Roofing team, Michael, Pat, Jake and Piers
Mac family
On Thursday 10th January we had a big family lunch planned at Black Barn as my auntie Wendy, uncle Tim and cousin Harry were visiting Hawkes Bay from Manchester UK. Relatives travelled in from all over Hawkes Bay, New Zealand and Australia to join in the fun. So, we worked the morning, made it to the Mac family lunch and then carried on into town on a mission to pick up more supplies for the roof including the main roof flashings.
Stratco had folded the flashings for the main roof for us in a day as well.. a huge help that made the timelines possible and minimised risk as we could measure after we installed each part of the roof. But….. these were bigger/longer flashings and we needed to get them from Napier to Maraetotara in one piece, a big challenge. Big thank you to Steve from Stratco Napier team, who helped us jury-rig an H frame from 4x2 that we fixed to the front bull bar on the ute, and then strapped down all of the flashings… It was a slow, nerve wracking drive back, so Michael, Alessandra and I grabbed an ice-cream each to keep cool on the way and it was a very successful mission as everything arrived onsite in one piece.
Bob and Geoff also joined us for a day each week, working on wiring the house before the straw for the walls is delivered and work on the ceiling starts. They are a great team and Alessandra is enjoying the learnings of being a sparkies assistant. Thanks for all your work on-site and off-site preparing the design, building the switchboard and pulling together the rest of the electrical supplies needed.
The roof was on just in time… the wet weather of December, that had dried up with the dawning of the New Year, returned… and we have had several wet days, some torrential rain with strong winds and the roof has stayed on. This meant a change in plans as we shifted attention back onto framing work that we could do under the new roof.
As this week comes to a close, the sun is back out and we will have all the barge boards and flashing finished by Friday night ready for Pat to take his summer break with his family. Huge thanks to Pat for his commitment to making it all come together for the start of the New Year and to Michael for joining us for a 10 day working holiday - he was on the tools for 9 of the 10 days he had with us in really hot weather!
