Un-roofing Completed!

Finishing removing slates! To recap, we had removed all the slates on the inner roof sections overlooking the courtyard. Ric had removed slates from the outer section against the demolished gable-end wall, indeed he had removed the roof timbers there as well.

We got back into the familiar routine of putting up scaffolding, pulling slates off the roof, stacking them and moving on. I had a moment of anguish when I couldn’t find my old-but-indispensable-and-trusty pliers from earlier in the year. Co-incidentally I was in Ellon Timber shortly afterwards and found quite a nice Bahco pair that had the serrations right down to the tips – meaning I could grab the head of the galvanised clout nails that would not come out easily, in preference to  using the small gorilla bar – they got me out of un-necessarily breaking quite a lot of slates over the coming days.

We worked our way from the bit Ric had sorted out, round the ‘outside’ sections of the wall, racing to keep ahead – Ric was pulling the sarking board and roof timbers down behind us and it turned into a bit of a race. We continued to speed up our technique and were really helped when our elder daughter, Catie, arrived for a visit and put in a solid session on the roof.

Before we knew it, there was just the one slate left, on the east-facing roof of the east leg, which I photographed and ceremonially pulled off. In fact there was a half slate under it that I could not remove ahead of time, but it did not show.

I was not unhappy to finish that particular job, spending hours a day perched awkwardly on the roof ladders with aching wrists. And of course, in due course they will all need lifting back up and fitting onto the new roof.

If the slates are really worth £2-3 each, we are sitting on a small goldmine.

Removing the floor and roof timbers: Ric removed the floor timbers of the hay/feed loft in the west section by sawing through either end, with the boards in place, then hacking them down. The replacement floor will probably be suspended on steels bolted to the wall, so we can remove the stubs of timber and fill the cavities when we make good the walls.

I had fretted for a long time about how to get the roof timbers down safely. Ric showed me how. He left the sarking boards on the roof we had just cleared, to support the timbers. He sawed down the sarking at a convenient distance along, between a pair of rafters. He used his jigsaw and some handy rather-long blades to cut through each timber along the other side from the sarking, a foot or two up from the wall plate. He tied a rope to the timber he had just cut and used brute force to swing the timber, until it either detached from the other timbers on that rafter or, more commonly the whole rafter came away from the sarking and fell between the walls. As some of the timber was shockingly rotted at the ends, he was able to get whole sections of timbers down in one go.

Then we moved in to lever the timbers apart and lug them round the back of the bothy, to a wood pile. As I expected there was a LOT of wood and most of it was in was heavy and in good enough condition to save for our stove. The sarking that was too rotten we put to one side to burn. As it happened, our pile of firewood became too high to stack on and was some 4-5m wide and 3m deep. We started a second one – should be a couple of years of fuel altogether.

Removing the concrete parapet wall on the north side: Although not really part of the roof, we needed to get rid of the two-foot high concrete parapet that had been built over the north wall of the north leg. This was built as part of the silage pit, to bring it up to the height of the facing concrete block wall, now mercifully no more. We discovered early on that whoever built it knew a thing or two about concrete – the mortar was just about exactly as hard as the concrete blocks and it was not going to be easy to take the wall apart.

Enter the trusty Hilti concrete breaker we hired from Ellon Timber. I firstly broke through the blocked-up doorway – several hours of holding the breaker horizontally, a thankless task. I then broke the parapet, over the best part of a day, one small section at a time. If I was lucky the breaker split right down to the granite wall in one go, more typically it went down one or two courses of blocks, so I was breaking it in two or three layers. I just dropped the rubble onto the ground. The most nervous moments were where I had broken out the doorway, leaving no real support for the blockwork. I worked from the scaffolding and it did come away in  a small number of large blocks!

As with all the concrete on site, it put up a good fight.

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September visit

We got to Aberdeen at the start of the first weekend in September, courtesy of EasyJet and without any hassle – we left plenty of time to get lost on strange new roads, after our last experience.  The weather eased up and, although generally not warm, was pretty good working conditions for the whole fortnight, with very little unplanned loss of working time.

We hired a mini digger, dumper and concrete breaker from Ellon Timber and ‘cracked’ on with demolition. Rather to my surprise, we made excellent progress and had the roof and walls done with three days to spare.

Ric headed off early to Orkney for a look-round, we tidied up after ourselves and helped out Jill’s parents for a bit.

We had managed to squeeze in laying weed membrane along the northern boundary (ready for planting a hedge in November), strimming large areas of the property, spraying the knotweed and patching the roof and windows in the bothy. We also got Ric to dig us a shallow trench along the west boundary across the old access track – we will plant screening into mulch in due course, to eventually hide the next-door shed.

A flying visit

We were back in Aberdeen over the second weekend in June, but only for a few days. Mairi, one of our daughters, was back from several months in South Africa, was at a conference in Glasgow on the Friday, and took the opportunity to go across to Aberdeen to meet family and to celebrate her birthday.

On the Friday evening travel up we avoided most of the travel pitfalls from May: We went straight to Luton without unnecessary detours; we had a full tank of diesel; we parked at the airport mid-term parking which is only minutes from the terminal. So we got there with 2 hours to spare, to find that the flight was delayed from 7pm to around 9.30pm. We did get £3 each from the airline for refreshments, but this did mean queuing to get the token, then get food. It turned out not quite as bad – we were on our way by 9pm and everything else went well – Bryan met us in Aberdeen and whisked us back to Bucksburn. Jill’s parents happen to be in Aberystwyth, but we have leave to stay in their house and use Lesley’s car.

The forecast for Saturday (steading day) was grim – chilly and wet – and good for Sunday (Birthday day). Jill and Mairi did a rather miserable Parkrun at Hazelhead park on the Saturday morning, where it was indeed cold and did drizzle. In reality though the weather cheered up, with only one or two light showers through the rest of the day.

The three of us headed out at about 11am. We put scaffolding boards back on the three bays that we left against the east leg of the steading. I started removing the sarking, whilst Mairi used the strimmer and Jill collected the wood and started a bonfire. As predicted, the boarding was generally better preserved than the rest of the roof and by lunch time I really thought we would not get done in the day. We cracked on though and cleared & burnt it, then dismantled the scaffolding and put it back in the bothy. Quite a bit of graft for a few hours productive work, but it had to be done.

Un-roofing II

Getting more efficient: We used a 10-day slot to crack on with rescuing slates from the steading roof and removing the sarking boards. We had thought over how to speed it all up:

• Lay spare scaffold planks along the lower edge of the roof and let the slates slide down, rather than lowering them down 8 or so at a time
• Set up intermediate platforms in the scaffolding to lower slates onto, rather than using the chain hoist

In practice this made a huge difference – we cleared more in a full day that we had got done over three days over Easter. We followed the roof around the courtyard, finishing the east side of the west leg, working along the south side of the north leg, then the west side of the east leg. We had the benefit of pressed labour i.e. family. Our son Alec was there most of the time. Our friend Lynn came over for most of a day. So we had usually had someone on the roof, someone collecting the slates and passing them down and a third person sorting and stacking them. My youngest brother, Geoff, came up to the area for a long weekend and lent his professional expertise for a good half-day. For a while we were struggling to keep the scaffolding ahead of him. We had all five bays out along the north leg.

We just got the three spans of roof facing the courtyard cleared of slates before we had to head back down south, but did not get the sarking off the east leg – almost halfway through, but not quite.

Why the roof has to be removed: Many people have wondered why we need to take the entire roof off. The answer starts to become clear once the slates are removed – the sarking boards underneath are in a very variable state, some are in reasonable condition but most are badly worm-eaten. Some are so bad that they crumble. Parts of the east & west legs had a thin and fragile membrane between slates and board and although even this was worm-eaten, it had helped preserve the boarding.

As the boarding was removed, it also became clear that, whilst most of the rafters are in quite good condition, they are in a poor state anywhere water has been able to get under the slates. This is the case around most of the roof lights and, on the north leg, where the roof had been butchered to put block & brick supports for the now-removed roof over the courtyard. In a number of places the wall plate had rotted out and it was obvious that the rafter was being held in place, with an air-gap at the bottom, by the rest of the roof.

I have some concerns about removing the other side of the roof – in some places it is not clear what will be holding me up.

Unroofing – the start

I had worried that removing the roof would seem like a huge step back, leaving us with just the rubble walls and a load of stuff to dispose of. On the other hand, I  expected the roof timbers and sarking board to supply us with firewood for a year or two.

When it came to it, it is stopping us working on the stonework, so it has to go. Before Easter we bought our scaffolding and, the day we got on site, set up two bays of it against the inside wall of the west leg i.e. against the gable-end that must be demolished and re-built.

We had discussed about saving the slates and re-using them. The architect was very discouraging, saying they would be poor quality and that we would probably only save a low proportion, possibly enough to re-roof the bothy.

I armed myself with a slaters rip, claw hammer and roof ladder, then got going.

Ridge Tiles: Firstly the clay ridge tiles. From the ground they looked pretty bad and I expected that hacking them out would probably destroy them. Not so, they were in excellent condition, the lime mortar had crumbled and they slid off with little effort on my part. They were all marked with ‘Hurlford by Kilmarnock’. This probably means they were made by J & R Howie of Hurlford, Kilmarnock. I have no idea how old they are, we supposed they must date from the fire that damaged the steading either before or after WWII (depending on whose version you believe). It looks as though the same tiles were used along the entire roofline. http://www.scottishbrickhistory.co.uk/j-r-howie-scotland-kilmarnock/

Clout nails:I discovered very early on that the slates were nailed with standard galvanised clout nails. It was obvious that the rip would not work as advertised – if I hit it hard enough to draw the nail it would a) destroy the rip and b) destroy the slate.

Removing the slates: The course of half-size slates at the top of the roof were single-nailed in the top-centre. Most pulled out easily, indeed several on the other side of the roof fell as I moved the roof ladder about. From then on, it became harder work.

Most of the full-size slates were nailed both sides, a few cm down from the top. The nails were generally knocked flush with the top surface of the slate, but were enough proud in many cases to use a pair of pliers to grab the head, right at the very end of the pliers, then twist and pull the nail to remove it. Those that this did not work with, I used the rip to push under the slate as near the nail as possible, then used the claw of the hammer under that to lever the slate up. In most cases the slate pushed the nail up enough to then pull it with the pliers, without cracking the slate. It looked as though about 4 out of 5 slates survived my treatment AND were in good enough condition to re-use.

The half-length slates at the bottom of the roof were, on the whole, pretty rubbish and just used to cover the edges of the slates above.

We used our chain hoist to get crates of 15 or so slates down at a time, Jill sorted and stacked them.

The slates: The slates were generally smooth underneath, pretty flat and with no signs of imperfections such as pyrite (which oxidises, expands and breaks up the slate). They had a reasonably good ‘ring’ to them and were rather rustic. Comparing them to the ones off the old East Byreleask farmhouse (dumped out of the way on Aitken’s land) they are 1) larger, 2) thicker, with quite a bit of variation and 3) with a coarser upper surface finish. I actually prefer our slates. We left three slates, in varying degrees of preservation, with Jill’s parents. They should have a slater around to work on their roof and they will ask him whether they are fit to use again. I think the slates at the top of the roof were, on average, thinner than the ones at the gutter.

[Updated 17/04/2015: The slater said they were good quality Welsh slate and were good to re-use. If we wanted, say, Spanish slate, he would buy the old slates and we would probably profit from it. This brings to mind what may be an Urban (Rural) Myth that I heard twice in quick succession – that a slater would persuade the owner of a roof to remove them, saying they were not fit to re-use. They would offer to dispose of the old slate, which they indeed sold on, making a double profit over just fitting new slates.]

It is slow!: It is unbelievably slow – after four part-days we had cleared some 4% or the total roof area. I got a bit quicker, but not much.

The Skylights: There are a couple of dozen of these monsters dotted around the roof. They are made of cast iron, with the opening part hinged at the top and with a glazing bar down the middle. They are chunky, with little room for glass. They came away much more easily that I had feared. I used a prybar to lever the nails out – one each side halfway up and two at the top, just about on the corners. There was a strip of galvanised mild steel under the lower edge, but no additional strengthening in the timberwork. Each one weighed a good 30 kg.

The Roof Timbers: It was obvious the sarking board was in a bad state. They were worm-eaten and often the nails would pull out easily. Once I had cleared the slates above the scaffolding, I removed the boards and was horrified at what had been holding me up (on the roofing ladder). Most broke apart in clouds of dust, only a small number of boards still had any flex in them. It was a quick job to remove them, but they are not really usable as firewood – we will have a bonfire at some point.

By removing the boarding, I came to realise that there was no beam along the top of the roof – once the boarding on the other side of the roof is removed, there is nothing to stop each pair of rafters simply falling sideways – I will take advice on this.

Meanwhile we need to think out how to speed up the un-roofing – we are even thinking about unpaid leave from work.