Tractor-Envy
Tractor-Envy
The next day Donald arrives and has arranged for a local lad Reece to come along with his tractor to help lift some of the slate up and onto the scaffolding. Tom, Donald’s son sticks around for a while to help get it lifted and sorted. With the heaviest slates now up either on the roof or up on the scaffolding, we have to be that little bit more careful on the scaffolding but it feels really solid.
Walking these slates up the roof is hard going especially in the sunshine but it seems like my ankles are getting used to spending the whole day at 45 degrees! We start to take turns measuring and ferrying tiles up onto the roof and before long we’ve got a bit of a system going on. Looking at the roof from the ground, it seems like we’re building a fluffy stone quilt and I’m really glad we opted to reuse everything we can. As good as reproduction slate looks, this roof is going to be completely unique.
It seems like the higher we go the slower the progress but this is another learning curve for putting in a diminishing course slate roof. As you go higher, the slates are smaller so there are more to fit on each row. Even when you factor this in though, it seems like we’re rattling along at quite a pace.
Most importantly of all, Rachel pops up to check on progress and is made-up with how things are looking.
Towards the end of the week, we’ve got to the ridge line but we don’t put the ridge tiles back on until the rear roof has also been repaired and put on, so these get stored inside for safe-keeping, beneath the newly repaired front roof. If we have to start replacing these, I imagine things are going to get expensive. From there, we need to arrange to get the scaffolding lowered from the front and moved around the back ready for phase two.