Next time I would hire a tower scaffold before using extending ladders.
You can do so much, so quickly, so better, so safer, on a platform.
The cost is insignificant to the benefits.
Sunday 30th July. Another hot day, but with a bit of breeze, makes it nice.
Today we finished a job of treating the exterior wood with OSMO wood finish.
We started on the house on the 12th June. Finished the West face, and done much of others on the 25th july.
Got the tower scaffold and finished the North face on the 26th, South 29th, East and whole house on 30th.
Here are some pictures and words of advice if you have to do the same job.
This is Margie working on the South face on the fiddly bits of a window.
The tower scaffold has four bracing outriggers. They were not really necessary for us,
because we had such good hard standing. But use them anyway.
Several people told us to take great care with tower scaffolds.
Margie did more of the wood treatment than me, and probably better at it.
I tend to be quite wasteful, but she is really mean, and the treatment has to be applied really thinly.
Basically, you cover an area thinly, then using the brush repeatedly in the same direction,
spread what you have applied over twice the area. If you cannot do that because an area is not adjacent,
then use a cloth to remove the surplus. You should not see brush strokes.
I roughly calculated the area to be treated as 290 square meters and at 65 square meters per 2.5 litre can
means 4 1/2 cans.
We used 5 cans, but I did not factor in the end grains of the logs which need soaking, they absorb so much.
Here am I doing my bit on the East side.
We started by doing what we could reach from the ground,
then step ladders to do higher, then extending ladders to get higher still.
Although we could have done it all with extending ladders, reaching up to 7 meters,
bending back doing soffits, and leaning out doing eaves, really was difficult.
So we hired a tower scaffold to do the highest parts of the gable ends.
Next time I would hire a tower scaffold before using extending ladders.
You can do so much, so quickly, so better, so safer, on a platform.
The cost is insignificant to the benefits.
This is me covering the last bit of exterior wood at 12:02BST 30th July.
It has taken about 6 weeks of working on and off, the two of us, just one at a time
to treat the timber. It is something we could do, so did it. We enjoy doing things together.
Margie does so many things different to me. This house building is bonding.
Tomorrow, with luck, BT arrive to install a telephone line, and the decorators start
to emulsion all the new plaster work with two coats, one sealer, second a dense coat.
After that we can maybe get severals trades going at the same time.
This one step after another waiting for the other, in the meanwhile nothing getting done
is a bit wearysome. The house needs finishing!