After such a rapid increase in the visible work load now come the stage where everything seems to be moving slowly as it’s quite fiddly.
The fascia board needs to be fitted at the right height so as to allow for the over hang of the slates. As the board is only 30cm from the ground eventually guttering will be installed to avoid water penetration into the foundations. This will be aided by underground drainage which will be connected via a pipe to the village drains. When it rains hard on a roof so steep and large this is a wise option.
After working out the correct height of the fascia board it is time to fabricate them. We choose two pieces of Vac Vac treated wood 140mm x 45mm. In these we routed out a 15mm wide and 20mm deep groove on one side of the boards. This aids gluing them together using a biscuit joint made out of 15mm OSB board. A water proof bonding agent was used to stick them together. Once dried we transferred these to the laminated trusses. To mark out the height we fixed a short length of batten to the rear-side of the fascia board. At the edge of the truss we clamped a piece of timber vertically.
This was then raised and held in position with clamps this was aided by a small length of wood fixed to the fascia board and truss.
Once everything was plumb and in line we pre-drilled the fascia board with a 10mm drill bit to take the screw head that will eventually be filled with a wooden dowel. The bottom of the 3 vertical screws per truss was fixed. The 4 meter lengths of fascia board were joined with a 45º scarf joint where they coinciding in the middle of a truss for extra support.
Once the entire length of the structure was fitted with the fascia board we move onto the next stage. The installation of the soffit boarding. This was 19mm thick pine tongue and groove.
The T&G was chamfered so as to sit well in the joint and provide an extra support for the fascia board. Once a few rows of T&G are fitted by screwing them down through pre-drilled holes to avoid the wood splitting we fixed the counter-batten. This is also chamfered to assist in strengthening the fascia board. The counter-batten is also pre-drilled again to avoid splitting the wood. All this drilling is time consuming but is important to avoid future problems not just under the slates but also inside the house. Nobody wants to look at split wood when settling down for an evening in.
kk
