So the next problem to face was the corrugated iron roof. I had planned to replace a couple of sheets where I knew the join had a fair bit of rust on it, but on the whole I thought the roof was in OK condition. Of course though, once I started banging around, large flakes of rusty metal started raining down on me. Instant skylights?
So now I knew around 80% of the roof needed to be replaced…awesome. Oh well, at least I did get lucky with the replacement iron sheets. I found sheets from a second hand supplier just 5 minutes drive from me, nice and cheap. Obviously being second hand they have old nail holes in them that I need to patch. No real rust on them though, they’ll last 20 years easily which is longer than I expect to have this garage for.
Before I can reach the sheets, I need to prune the trees, sigh.
Time to replace the sheets. Now if there is one tool I don’t like using, it’s the angle grinder. It seems to me that there is just too much violent power, in too small a package in those things. I’m always worried I’m going to let it slip out of my hand and drop onto my foot; I have visions of the cutter biting into my leg and then running up my body…ouch.
But I had no choice here, I had to cut straight across some sheets that were staying to remove the rusty ends. As carefully as I could, I cut across the top of the ridges. I could have cut right through but that would have required me to use the grinder on an awkward angle for a lot longer, I just didn’t want to risk it. Instead I cut the high points and whacked the low spots with a hammer, instant separation.
Installing the sheets was more heavy lifting than finesse. 4.4m sheets are heavy and awkward, but eventually I got them all back up on the roof. If anyone asks, installing 4 metre long sheets of corrugated iron on your own is tricky. Not impossible, but tricky. Wear gloves. I fixed the sheets with the proper capped screws and re-installed all of the guttering I had dislodged.
I took the time to fix the guttering properly as well, it seems like it was a rush job by the original builder. Full lengths of it were held in by small nails that had long ago disintegrated, two sheets were actually installed upside down as well! Now there are no leaks at all.
A) A no roofed garage!
(Apologies for the awful ‘dad’ joke)
So that’s basically where the garage stands at the moment. The nail holes need to be patched up which is probably what I will attempt on this weekend, not sure how I will go about it as yet. I’ll also head back to the salvage yard that I bought the iron sheets from; they had a mountain of long fluorescent lights & fixings for sale. Looks like they have just stripped a factory, so I’ll go grab a bunch of them too.
You know what the most frustrating thing was about all of this?
At the end of two hard days work, the garage looks exactly as it did when I started!