The rood is on!

4th Major Milestone. 1/9/2016

We planned to use roof sheeting for the roof for speed and ease on my back. The panels are very large, insulated structural panels (SIP). This means you don't need insulation or internal ceilings - and they span up to 9 meters without any supports.

The down side is cost and especially for us - transport. It took literally months to be able to settle with the cost and then months to arrange transport. Original transport cost was $20,000! There was detail after drama after decision and it seemed that we would never see the roof. Personally, I had never thought we would get to this stage, let alone be able to purchase the roof.

It seemed unattainable and a nearly final stage of the project. Then, after Naveens death, we have struggled to simply cope / survive and only been able to tackle building in fits & starts with all the extra travel and emotional stress. Sickness has been a factor and the emotion of simply thinking about the house without Naveen to enjoy it was too much.

Things got quite sad and overwhelming, but a couple of Bible verses challenged me to keep going. I told the family that we needed to build a wall, just to force ourselves to keep going. We knew it would be hard - and the boys wanted to wear work boots in honour of their beloved uncle. This, as sad in itself as it was, was also a safety issue (!!) as none of us were used to boots. Climbing on scaffolds, walls and bobcats is dangerous when you are not used to the weight and size of a large boot. Anyway - something extra for me to think / pray about and for them to be careful of - it was the right thing so we prepared and got stuck in.

My boots lasted about ½ an hour and literally fell to pieces, but the boys have worn boots semi regularly since that day. The day was not as hard as I expected, we got lost in the work and pressure of the day. Sure we had the regular thoughts about Naveen - where he was, what he would do, what he would say etc but it was ok. The next day, not so much.

Unveiling was normally the exciting bit, we would do about 2 hours of hard work and then start to see the wall we built the day before. Today it was not exciting. It felt dull, heavy, sad and useless. Our usual enthusiasm and care of how the wall looked and the extra effort to make it look better, (wire brushing and 'prettying’) seemed absolutely futile. Without going into details, it has been incredibly hard and we have only made it with God's help and the support of so many. Again we thank you for your prayers, text messages, food, offers of help, picking things up - it has really helped.

Back to the roof - the day arrives and I wake up extremely emotional - hard to bare the thought of the roof being here without Naveen. Thankfully the busyness of the day would likely help. After processing and talking over breakfast we had a fair amount of work clearing to make space for the huge panels and the truck that was to deliver them. We had to unload with our bobcat (which also needed attention) so had to sort that. By lunch time we had finished and sat to have lunch, only to be disturbed by the sound of the truck arriving - he was early!

The roof sheeting arrives!

I mistakenly thought that it would only take ½ hour to unload with the bobcat - not knowing the forks would not be high enough to get to the top 4 pallets. So climbing & lifting pallets by hand, hanging off the forks at full height and getting drenched in the wind & the rain was most of the afternoon…but we got them off without issue.

The next day was filled with drilling and finishing one section of the roof bond beam (the beams that bolt on to the pins in the wall, then the roof sheeting screws down on to them) to get ready for putting the sheeting up. We also prepared one sheet for installation, by glueing foam to the exact place it would lay on the bond beam. A real family effort trying to move one of those sheets off - 2 pallets high! But we were ready.

We arranged for a good friend to come and help the next day and managed to get 12 panels up in one day…equal to 84m2! After sliding off the roof a few times on our new 'slide' we packed up - the next day was a birthday (the Mig M is 7!!) so a late night decorating and preparing.


The first 12 panels!

Thursday we managed to put up another 8 panels - finishing that section of the house. Over ⅓ of the house done in 2 days! We will have to move one panel due to damage from transport, but we are stoked with how well it has gone.

Next we have had to design a receiving channel to be dyna-bolted to the wall on the other side of the house and we will be getting some flashings and aprons made up to suit. that will enable us to do the another ⅓ of the house. After that we need to source the jarrah log for the truss and weld that up before we can do the last ⅓. Having so much undercover though, we will have a lot of jobs we can work on even when raining.

1/3rd Done!

2/3rds done

Unfortunately, after months of searching, the only Jarrah log we could find (and had paid to be delivered) was damaged. We contemplated changing the truss to a steel design, however didn't want the engineering or design detail to hold things up. I made a phone call, and within 24 hours had the engineering detail for the steel. Within a week, the I beam and RHS steel was delivered. We slung the I beam, put ramps up into the house and lifted it into place - it was wrong!

The steel yard had simply cut the beam incorrectly. The next day, the correct length was delivered and within hours we had it installed.

Acrow prop ready - wall cut for the I-beam (UB)



In we go!



I Beam and top chord (RHS) installed with two uprights...




Truss finished!!




Roof ¾ finished



Oh what a feeling!

Absolutely amazing!

We are so thankful to have reached this point - and very, very thankful and amazed at how God has protected us. So many things could go wrong, so many potential hazards, however we have managed with limited funds and tools to get the roof on!

Thank you to all those who have helped, prayed or supported us. We are blessed.