Doors, Roofing and Insulation

I've had the replacement chippie (who did the rafters last week) back to fix our new FLB (***see below) external back door, complete with a rim lock and brass knobs, into the frame.  Of course, I forgot to buy a weatherboard so I'll do that myself later this week.  He also did a new frame for the old door from the kitchen into the extension, which was hanging
from one hinge as the frame around the bottom hinge had rotted away!  We asked him to turn the door round so that it hinged on the opposite side, and this then meant that the lock was wrong as they are handed, so I took the one off the other kitchen door.  That one will have to be replaced with a non-locking latch from the reclaimers somewhen.  I could have had the old lock fitted upside down but I already have two such locks (all the same hand, of course) in the house - you can take "character" and "quirkiness" a bit too far sometimes!

I then attached a bolt to the kitchen door so that now, for the first time, we have a secure kitchen door which is not very draughty, and opens into a space which isn't crowded, damp and dirty.  We also have a lockable back door, but that doesn't really help security when you are missing three windows, which I can't fit until the scaffolding comes down.

The roofing of the new extension has been causing me some worries.  When you are doing the project management yourself, one of the biggest problems seems to be how to join the various bits of work together.  Thus, the brickie does the brickwork (obviously), the chippie does the rafters and fascias, the roofer does the slate and leadwork, and the plasterer does the plasterboard and skim.  OK so far, but then there's the making good around the windows where the cavity is exposed.  Answer: you buy "cavity fillers" and do it yourself.  Then precisely who makes sure that the roof doesn't let cold air in where it shouldn't be, like, under the edge of the fascia?  Answer: (I think) I buy more insulation and do it myself!

However, I'm now literally taking "do-it-myself" to new heights: Chris the roofer came on Saturday and we together did the insulation, counter battening, membrane and normal battening in preparation for slating.  Then Chris said that he intended to lay the slates on Sunday, and I decided that, with two churches very close, I really couldn't allow him to make such a noise on Remembrance Sunday, but he can't come back until Wednesday.  I could see my timetable slipping so I am going to do as much slating as I can before then, with the hope that the rest of the job can be finished on Wednesday.  In fact, I have done a few slate repairs before; these were to a church roof in London, when we couldn't find any roofer who would just do lots of minor repairs to a 20 year old roof.  So we bought the two essential tools which are not in the normal DIY toolset (### see below) and experienced that very satisfying feeling of doing a job and realizing that it will probably be there for 50 or 100 years.

Sorry there are no photos yet as my camera batteries expired a week ago and I keep forgetting to buy some new ones.  In fact, my watch is now losing time and I think the battery on that has gone as well; I'll probably find that the car's battery is flat next.

*** Framed, Ledged and Braced.  In other words, it's the sort of door that has vertical planks when seen from outside plus a frame around the whole thing, and inside the door there are three horizontal ledges and two diagonal braces (Z style) for strength.  You can also get just a "ledged and braced" door without the frame, which I think is referred to as "farmhouse style".

### The two essential tools for slating repairs are a slate ripper and a slate cutter.  The ripper allows you to extract the broken slate from under the one above, and the cutter cuts slate (obviously!) and also incorporates a hole punch to allow you to make nail holes. We were missing a functional hole punch on Saturday and found that Chris's normal trick of hammering a nail to make the hole just didn't work.  He thought it was just me, but then he bent the nail as well... Obviously I've bought some good quality slate!