Roof – Building a House in Germany Blog

The Roof is Finished, Structural Build is Complete

Not only was our roof-tiling finished yesterday, but the solar panels have been installed as well! According to the plan, they were going to be installed around the middle of January, so it’s a new record for something happening early!

Unfortunately they are not connected to anything yet, so we still only have electricity coming from the orange box outside.

So now we will have to wait a really long time before anything else will happen. Maybe we’ll use the time in between to start thinking about the driveway and garden…

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Roof Tiles – Part 2

This morning we had our weekly meeting with our Construction Manager. We didn’t really have much to discuss with him, but we clarified a few details for the first weeks in the new year.

Work was well underway on the roof- the tiles were already off their pallet and laid out in small stacks ready for installation, and our Velux window had been fitted (it’s on the other side, so you can’t see it in the photo!)

We also noticed while taking this photo, that we can now see the south side of the house better. The skips are gone and the silo is gone. Only a few leftover bricks and the Viebrockhaus ashtray are still there (and, of course, the scaffolding!)

We’re not sure if the roof will be completely finished today, but if not, it will be tomorrow. Hopefully, another photo will follow tomorrow evening.

After that, it is the Christmas holidays, so no further work is planned until Tuesday 10th January 2017.

Roof Tiles – Part 1

Early this morning, we had a delivery – six pallets of roof tiles. They were more or less lifted directly from the lorry trailer onto to the roof by what might be our last big drive-in crane.

Our neighbours also had their roof-tiles delivered at the same time, and by early afternoon, one side of their roof had been tiled, but ours haven’t been started yet.

Tomorrow we have our weekly meeting with our construction manager, so we might be able to get some more photos. Hopefully by then it will be started.

Another Brick in the Wall

Since I was out early for a 7am haircut, I dropped by the site at around 7.30am.

It was still dark, and the builders were still sitting outside in their vans. It was the first time I have arrived before they had started work! They had however switched on the lights and radio, so I was able to go in and have a look upstairs.

There is not much place to walk about, as they have stocked up with building supplies before they put the roof on (while they could still use a crane to do save all the lifting and carrying!)

Finally today it was a little warmer, and they have been able to continue with the bricklaying.

One of the long sides of the house is now bricked up to the top of the ground floor level, the other long side is about half-way up, and the ends are not started. Hopefully, it will stay warmer for a few days to let them get that finished by the middle of next week. After that, the weather will be a much less important factor.

We’ve got a Roof

Due to needing to be at the office early, we were not able to visit the site this morning, but our new neighbours were there and were very kind and sent some photos to us 🙂

The roof had already been unloaded from the truck and was being lifted into place.

By lunch time, almost all of the rafters were in place and covered, so the house is now waterproof from above. Yesterday the stairs led to nowhere, but today we can say that we (almost) have a first floor!

Later in the afternoon, the builders had already made a lot of progress with the blocks for the gable ends.
p1040544 Today, we also received an e-mail with a detailed plan of what will be done each week until the house is finished.

The next major milestone should be reached next week – when the doors and windows are scheduled to arrive.