Blog 19: Roof Flashings and Gutters

We completed installing the roof flashings after Michael had returned to Sydney in mid-January.

We learned that there is a lot of work in fitting the flashings; getting everything level, forming box ends and mitre corners, water proofing with silicone as you go, riveting and screwing, touch-up painting the steel for any scratches and last but not least cleaning the swarf and rivet debris off the roof.

As always Pat did a great job and Alessandra and I supported him as tasked - the roof looks fantastic.

With straw expected to arrive at the end of January (earlier than originally planned) we needed to stack the bales under the house roof until we start putting it into the walls in late February.  Keeping the straw dry is very important, so having gutters and downpipes fitted to the roof became a very high priority task. 

We are going with ironsand coloursteel ½ round gutters and ironsand coloursteel downpipes. Old school.. because we like the look with external bracket’s and they work well.

Stratco again won our business with a great price, meeting our short supply lead-time and this time we asked them to deliver. Supply was on-time as usual, but delivery proved to be a bit of a challenge, for various reasons.. the final one being the driver looking for us in Waimarama road not Maraetotara road, once it was sorted out he got here to unload on Friday afternoon and we are very happy with the goods and the service provided by Stratco.

Pat and I completed the gutter install today and then fitted temporary downpipes, using some leftover mains cable conduit, to hook it all up to our rainwater tank.  After we have filled in the exterior walls with straw and plastered it all we will fit the colour steel downpipes with elbows etc.. as the final step.  With the temporary downpipes fitted now we are rain safe for our straw - much relief after having had all fingers and toes crossed over the weekend with the straw under the roof (more about that in our next blog) but gutters not on yet! 

We will spill the first thousand litres or so into our overflow system to get rid of any crud from manufacturing or installing the roof and gutters and then we will fill the thirty thousand litre rainwater tank ready for us to move into the house mid-year.

I should note that a lot of other work has been happening, in parallel to putting on the roof, so we are ready for the upcoming pre-wrap building inspection; hold downs, more framing to prepare for the exterior joinery, electrical wiring, building out the soffits, never ending nogs.. waterproofing our foundation perimeter ready for later plastering etc.. etc.. 

It’s been a very productive New Year so far and we have also had some New Zealand summer fun as well.. some work, some play, happy days :-)