When I woke up this morning, it was quite cold, but sunny and clear, and most importantly, there was no wind.  I immediately took the opportunity to reach out to our friend Graham, who was more than happy to drive down from Ottawa on short notice.

By the time he arrived, the sun had pretty much melted off the layer of frost on the roof (wet roof = terrifying roof), so we got to work installing more of the steel roofing panels.

The plumber was also here doing all the drain work; he had to vent a 4″ pipe out through the roof, so we had the unenviable task of measuring, marking, and cutting a hole in the steel panel down on the ground, and crossing our fingers and hoping that we got it in the right spot.  Thankfully, we did a passable job there, and we continued to work hard all day with only a brief break for lunch.

By the time we were on the last two panels, it had gotten quite cloudy and a few degrees colder – I noticed a gradual decline in the ability of my shoes to grip the roof as the temperature dropped off, and we were barely able to get the job done, but somehow we pulled it off.  The last panel was especially difficult due to poor traction, but we cracked out the parachute cord (capable of holding 550lbs) and Graham basically pulled me up the roof, as I was pulling the steel panel up the roof…quite an endeavour and not something that I’d care to repeat!

Here’s a couple photos of the results:

All in all, an amazing day of progress as we managed to get all the steel roofing panels installed.  There is still a bit of trim work to do at the gable ends, and I still have to drive in a few more rows of screws to finish fastening them down, but still, gotta feel good about that – one of the trickier jobs in the whole building process crossed off the list!

We are forecast to get some snow tomorrow, but if we don’t, you can be sure I’ll be up there trying to get the last of it finished!

Other stuff that happened this week, we got our bathtub and shower delivered, as well as two pre-hung interior doors, and also received eight 1350lb concrete blocks which will become the base of our grount mounted solar array.  At some point I will need to rent a machine to move these into the correct positions in the meadow – that should be fun!

Thanks for reading and hope you enjoyed the pictures!