14 Jul 11

The final stages

How long have we waited for this day? It must be about a year or more. So we started out bright and early collecting Clive at 7.30am.

As soon as we arrived, well, after I showed Clive around as it's his first time on site, I cut the EPDM into strips ready for placing on the perimeter. It needs to go half on the roof and half on the berm to make the joint between the two stronger. No sooner was it cut than it was in place (bottom left) and being covered by the first roll of bitumen (bottom right).

Then the second roll was positioned and Dave and Clive started joining the two together.

This started to get a bit tricky, and very sticky, as the sun became hotter. We ended up having to stand on boards because the bitumen was so soft it was sticking to our feet.

And then it turned white As soon as there was enough bitumen joined I started to paint the first coat of the acrylic terrace paint that will make the water from this roof drinkable. We'd originally planned to do it a sand colour to match the surrounding landscape, but after doing some trials were amazed at how much cooler, and therefore more protective against the sun, the white was. Below shows the test sheets. The blue is a swimming pool paint which we're relieved we don't have to use - lairy or what?!! The sand is a tint added to the paint we're using and the white was a different make of a similar paint.

After leaving these in the sun for a few hours we could hardly touch the blue, the sand was too hot to leave our hand there for more than a second or two and the white was warm and ok to touch. The bits without paint were melting. We were amazed at the difference between the white and sand, we hadn't expected it to be as much as it was.

As the day got hotter and hotter, the bitumen became stickier and harder to handle. Also Dave had a call to do some urgent 'proper' work. So we decided to have lunch and come home.

Below shows the first coat of white just before lunch.