After six months of hard work - that sometimes felt would never end - this is the last day we'll be up on the roof. As mentioned in the
previous post, this is bittersweet moment - but we're ready to move on.
This is also the last day what of we're calling the
marathon - our mad dash to get the roof finished so we can take the scaffold down before I fly back to New York. With my flight rescheduled for the end of this afternoon, there's a hard deadline with much to do by then.
The day started with completing the
dormer's lead flashing, so once that was done, one of the last tasks involved installing the exterior vents for our boiler, bathroom and kitchen. These needed to be done before the scaffolding came down because otherwise there would be no way to access the portion of the rear brick wall where the penetrations needed to occur. Fortunately these large 4" holes were already done - when the plumbers were doing their
initial installation they had drilled the holes at that point. Installing these vents required clearing out the rough holes, removing and repairing any loose bricks, fitting the pipes & vents, and then packing mortar around the opening so they would be fixed in place.
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| One of the holes drilled through the bricks by our plumbers |
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| Making sure it fits - Testing one of the pipes and vent plates in the hole |
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| An overall view - had to remove the end planks to get to the work area. |
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Starting to fill around the pipe with mortar. You can see the completed boiler flue/vent in the background
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| The vents completed |
The next task involved installing the railing for our new Juliet
balcony. The support posts had been aligned and set when the concrete was poured,
so this was relatively fast and easy - fortunately as there were only two
hours remaining before heading to the airport! The railings were ordered
and delivered as a kit-of-parts, so each railing piece was fastened
into place with four steel brackets that bolted into the posts -
relatively easy.
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| Before setting the railings |
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| The first railing piece in place |
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| The railing installed - can also see the completed dormer |
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With the railings completed, the final task for finishing the roof involved cleaning the scoffolding of all the debris, unused pieces of wood, and the stacks of old, original slates that we'll sell to the roofing company (apparently they can be re-used on historic preservation/conservation projects). With only an hour to clear all the debris, this was truly a mad dash, but was able to get it done. Before leaving the scaffold for the last time, I took a number of final pictures and soaked in the view for the last time...
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| The completed roof - view from the front |
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| The completed roof - view from front corner |
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| The completed roof - view from the rear |
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