Finished

The studio is now finished and has been in use for a while. On the whole it has worked well and the roof has remained very luxuriant mainly because it is under the tree so doesn't get full sun. 2 Small problems the water doesn't flow off the roof fast enough sometimes and as the rooflight is not very high sometimes the water comes over the top of the membrane. the other problem is squirrels who have eaten through the plastic guard and got into the insulation and having removed some of the rockwool they now have moved in and bred.
The cladding is discolouring nicly.

A bit of adjustment to the roof

Since putting the roof membrane and turf on it has rained almost continually so when Irene phoned to say the roof was full of water I was a bit worried. The weight of 3 inches of water plus all the turfs etc would be massive. So I went in today to have a look. The water was not running away as the temporary drain off was blocked. It was a good test of the roof structure which had not moved at all despite the huge weight.
I decided that I would change the roof design so I lifted the roof beams along the front of the building a couple of mms at a time and removed the rear facia so the pond liner can lap into a traditional gutter this should prevent all possible blockages and is easy to install.
Lifting the beams was a slow project but it worked a treat so the roof now has an 18mm slope over it's length. And is draining away slowly as you would expect.

Day 11 More turfing

Got a load more carpet and underlay last night so we spent a few happy hours lifting turfs onto the roof. As we had a lot of underlay we put it double as this hopefully will store water. We have been taking Sedum cuttings for a while now so when all the turfs are down we put the Sedums in and hope they spread. It is starting to look good already but I am sure the turfs will soon start dying through lack of water but gradually the Sedums will take over.

Day 11 Insulating the walls

The walls are being lined with 18mm OSB this is for strength as the studio will need a lot of shelving and work benches. So spent half the day sawing insulating and fitting wall boards. I think the walls will have to be painted as you can have too much OSB so we are looking at testing emulsion against some kind of external render paint to see what covers best.

Day 10 Grassing up the roof

The structure of the roof now complete we fitted the roof light and facias. Then after sweeping the roof clean we covered it with old carpets from skips outside carpet stores (they are really happy to give it away). We then carefully laid out the Butyl Pond Liner and covered it with more carpet and underlay (to protect the liner and act as sponge to hold water).
We then had to start lugging up the turfs dug from the front garden and laying them out. hard work but fun. They do seem very heavy so I was interested to see how the beams were coping but so far they have not moved at all which was a relief.
Still a few more carpets to get so that we can complete the whole roof.

Day 9 Putting on the roof

The roof beams only go from fron wall to back wall so we have to screw on 3 x 2 exetension to provide the overhang this will also allow the roof space to be ventillated. Having put on the extensions it was time to deck out the roof with 18mm OSB this will take the membrane and turf. It ws a bit tricky getting them on the roof but with 2 of us pushing them up 2 ladders it was not so bad.

The roof turned out tp be very square (only 7mm overall) so putting the bords on was a simple and the with almost no waste as the roof was designed to be 2.5 boards long by 4 boards wide. With a hole for the roof light. The boards were screwed in all corners and the nailed at 150mm centres all over. This made the whole structure as solid as a rock. Good day.

Day 8 Putting on the roof beams

After making the front wall, which turns out to be mostly windows and doors, we erected it and then spent some time checking measurements and that the building was square. Then we fitted the roof beams allowing space for the roof light.They all fitted a treat and look huge. But they should be very strong and will allow for a reasonable amount of insulation.