The metalwork is in.

Question: How do you lift a quarter of a ton of steel seven feet up onto the wall?  What's more how do you get a 120kg steel beam twelve feet up and located in the hole in the house, bolted to a post at the other, and make sure it is both straight and level.

Answer:  You hire a Genie SL15 Super Lift with a boom.  it's a great piece of kit (about £3500 worth of great!) that makes the lifting part comparatively easy.  It is a hand-operated winch with extending rail that will take the load to 15 feet.  The hard part is manoeuvring it when it is hanging.  Quarter of a ton of steel, hung from some webbing, seven feet up, is not the easiest thing to place.  However, once the lintel was settled and the post was lightly attached - allowing plenty of adjustment - the ridge beam caused a few problems of its own.

I needed to be in three places at once: operating the lift, locating the bolts into the post, and pushing the end into the hole in the house wall - good job I have long arms and a scaffold tower.

I have to say that in all the moving and locating of the steel the most useful tool I have had has been my car trolley jack.  It will happily lift 2 tons and take the strain of the steelwork.  I used it on the ground to move it initially; then it was priceless up on the scaffold to lift the beam just a few mm to allow it to be slid into the wall.  I don't think I could have managed without it. 


The base of the lintel has had two coats of zinc oxide primer and will have a couple of coats of black gloss to protect it.  It is the only part of the steelwork that will see the light of day.  The ridge beam will be enclosed in the roof timbers, the top and sides of the lintel will be built on and the post will be enclosed in some way.

I'm not sure how to do the post yet.  It is on the inner leaf of the wall, so it would be perfectly possible to install a single window outside it, stretching from one side of the building to the other, however it may be better to build a 30cm wide pillar around the post to encase it and have two smaller, triangular windows instead.

Now the steel is in, the next job will be to attach the wall plates.  The one on the driveway side has been there for a while and is just awaiting the straps being drilled and screwed to the walls to hold it in place.


On the other side the 4" x 2" timber wall plate will be fixed by some 4" sleeve anchors drilled directly through the timber and tightened into the wall.  It is important that I get the wall plate absolutely level as the fall of the box gully depends on the roof being level.  Once this is on I can start cutting rafters and will have a fighting chance of having a roof on by Christmas.