New Block Shed - Self Build Part 4 - Roof, Cladding & finishing off

This stage of my self build is about getting read for the roof. First, I needed to put in a lintel for over the door & then put one extra course of blocks over the top. After this the wall plates could go on. The wall plates are what the roof rafters fasten to. Once these were bedded on concrete & screwed down the length of the shed on it was time to fit the rafters.

Rafters

I ordered ones long enough to give a large canopy over the front of the shed to give a nice shelter for whenever you need to take quick cover from rain. Let's face it, it won't be from the sun as we can't get enough of it when it's here! Thanks to Dad (again!) for helping with lifting these onto the roof. 2x8" x 3.6m are fairly heavy so it's much easier with two of you.

As the pitch was very shallow (more or less flat), once the rafters were fastened down we put sheets of 12mm OSB boarding on top. Raph pretty much screwed every screw down, so thanks little man. At this point the building became very dark inside, but more importantly, nearly water tight!

I was going to then put mineral shed felt on the roof & tile it, but instead I found something called EPDM. This is rubber sheeting used on flat roofs. It is really great & just glues with a water based glue to wood & supposedly lasts about 50 years. After seeing it in the roof, we're not bothering to tile it which means I've got 400 (free & reclaimed) tiles left & 150 metres of batten I don't need. These things always come in for something though!

Then all that was left was the finish on the outside, guttering, painting, electrics & finishing inside.

The fascia & guttering was really easy to do but you need two of you for lifting the fascia as it was 5m long. I'm using cladding for the soffit so it flows all the way down the wall & I can put lights in it.

After this I put in the cables for the sockets & lighting, all installed around the outside so there are no cables inside & they will be hidden by the cladding. The power is fed by the socket on the pizza oven which is fed by an SWA cable from the house. I installed that when I put in the pizza oven years ago.

For the outside, it had to be cladding. I love cladding & it hides a number of sins in block work, not that mine is too bad. I bought new cladding for the front & right side, but for our neighbours' side I used the wooden cladding from the shed we took down. I managed to take it apart carefully enough that I could just fix whole panels to the wall & it really does look good. On the back, a friend of mine gave me some fibreglass sheets which were great where not really visible for water protecting the single skin blockwork. Gabe & Dad helped again with the cladding so thanks again to them. Then just some help painting from Raph & it's looking great.

All that was left was to hang a door donated by a friend, paint inside with white emulsion, make some shelving out of some donated doors & hang all the gardening stuff.

Post by Rob

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