Our first job of the week was to remove the garage door and tooth out the brick work ready for Richard the brickie on Tuesday.  In the afternoon we took down the double plaster boarded garage ceiling so Dean the electrician could access his cabling later in the week.  Never a pretty site taking down a ceiling, so a good tidy up was required before we departed site.  On Tuesday Richard the brickie was on site to do the brick and block work in the garage opening we had created.  While that was being done, Dane and I marked out for a new opening to be created from the hallway to the garage room.  We hired in a special masonry chainsaw that would cut through the double skin block wall, or that was the plan.  Unfortunately the chainsaw had other ideas. The first problem was getting the thing to fire up.  Dane got a bit carried away and ended up pulling the start chord off in his hands, so I had to rush back to Huntingdon to get a new start chord fitted.  When I got back, things didn’t improve.  After about what seemed like about 50 attempts to get it started, we gave up and called somebody out to take a look at it.  It was then taken away and at around 4pm we were told it was ‘knakcered’, or not working to me and you. This wasn’t a great help as we had to have the opening done by lunch time on Wednesday so John the plasterer could run the new screed in.  We made some calls and Travis Perkins in Peterborough had a similar machine that was available to us on the Wednesday.  Wednesday morning was a bit of a rush as we did the new opening, we put down the DPM and the cellotex insulation and we got finished just in time for John’s arrival.  In the afternoon I was mixing the sand and cement, Dane was on the wheelbarrow and John was doing his stuff laying the screed.  By mid afternoon we were all done.

 On Thursday we had a breakfast meeting with a former client who wants us to undertake some more work for him on a new project, and on the Friday I finished off the lead work on the roof and pointed it up, and we then set about getting the last of the glass panels in the doors and windows making the extension water tight.

After our first week off in the year it was back to continue with our latest extension in Alconbury near Huntingdon.  That was after I had to sit through Danes holiday photos, which weren’t too bad, but the ‘budgie smuggling look’ is not a good one!  But getting back to more serious things, our first job was to finish off the roof tiling and point up the two gable ends which Dane attended to while I had to go and deal with an emergency bathroom leak.  On Tuesday Dane made a start on the guttering and down pipes while I chased out the brick work ready to run in the lead work and the abutment ventilation system.  I had to go back to finish off my work in repairing the bathroom leak the following day, while Dane had a meeting with our client to bring them up to speed as to where we were, and what are plans were for the coming weeks.
Thursday was finishing off the gutter, down pipes and getting the lead run in, and then picking up our door and window order in the afternoon.  On Friday we spent the day getting all the door and window frames fixed and fitted, ready for the glass to go in early next week.

It was a nice easy three day week for us this week as we finally got round to taking some well deserved holiday time off.  On Monday while I and Dane ran in all the roof trusses and the strapping, one of Richard’s brickies was on site to build up and finish off the two gable ends.
Tuesday was fun and games with the weather going into rain mode to make amends for all the sunny days we have had of late.  We managed to get the facia and soffit on and the roof felted, and then from around 10.30 onwards it was on/off with heavy showers.  We managed to get some of the roof batons fixed on, but as the rain shower kept coming it was getting more and more of a risk to be on a roof.  So at around 14.00 we decided to call it a day.
For our final day of the week Dane set about laying the slate roof tiles while I gave the site a good tidy up to get everything back ship shape.  Dane virtually got all the tiles run in apart from a few cuts that were needed, and then we took down our trestles and scaffold boards so the site was clear in our absence.  Dane was off to cook himself in Egypt for a week while I was moving house and having a staycation, all the rage apparently! As long as I am not working, I don’t mind where I am.