Timber Trail Center : Ongarue : Fire in the schoolhouse

My latest adventure has been up in the roof of this old school house.

Steve, a cranky old curmudgeon of a builder has been hired to do the refurbishment work on the property. There is a photo of him here.

He is patent, and happy to teach so I have a great time working for him.

There is now a new fireplace installed in the building to heat the two rooms with high ceilings. Our mission was to install the flue to carry the smoke away.

Punching a hole in the ceiling for the flues metal tube should have been easy. But after breaking a couple of drill bits without leaving much of a mark, we decided that the white painted surface was made of some 'crazy' durable material.

It turned out to be some sort of sheet concrete, and the only thing that got through it was a grinder.

A brush like disc was fused to the spindle of the grinder we pulled out of the tool box, so a half day was wasted driving into town to score a replacement tool.

I start making jokes about asbestos so we put on goggles and mouth filters.


Once we a through the ceiling we had to get our selves up into the roof cavity.

Steve swore he couldn't see any man hole access in ether room. So we started by pulling the covering off what turned out to be the chimney hole for the old school house heating. Must have been a single stove set in the middle of each room?

The other two holes were small, and rough edged, and filled with glass fiber insulation batts.

Cutting our way through wasn't really an option so we we propped a ladder up against a wall, pulled the insulation out, and I heaved myself up into a dusty cob web strung black cave.

Besides what was leaking up through the hole I was standing in, only light up there came from a square hole next to me. I had found the man hole. It was in the adjacent room, cut into the roof right above the door, which is way Steve didn't see it when he stood in the doorway earlier looking for it.


Blundering about in the gloom of the torch light, sweeping up spider webs in my hair, and trying to not step off the joists and through the ceiling

My first job was to nail in a couple of supporting 'nogs' between two ceiling joist. The hole we cut for the flue was right next to one of the joists so we scored some good luck there.

Less fortunate was the purlin (notice how I'm now learning construction terms) above, which ran across the exact place where the next hole needed to be cut in the corrugated iron roofing.

Steve had joined me by that point and sizing up the situation, he decided that the 'multi tool' was our best option.

So I went and got the chainsaw.

The saw fires up, and the enclosed space is instantly filled with noise and clouds of exhaust.

I decide to get out of the way, and stood about three meters away, holding the beam of a torch on to the length of purlin to be cut.

The saw chewed through the wooden beam and in the gloom sparks occasionally fly when the steel roof is nudged by the saw.

The section of purlin drops to our feet, and we clear the area. Next step demands that we climb up the outside of the roof.

Scaling the steep old fashioned schoolhouse roof is simplified with the use of a ladder which hangs down the incline

Clambering about on the roof you are suddenly presented with a fantastic view. The small elevation in height allows me to look much further along the valley. Steve whips out the metal shears and attacks the wavy iron skin, peeling back jagged teeth the shears leave as bit by bit he works them through the material.

Back down into the interior we go and it's my job to return to the dark and guide the metal flue through the holes we've made. Thanks to the hole in the roof, there is a lot more light up there.

I thread the metal tubes through the holes, then it's back onto up in the air outside to finish off the flashing and water proofing.

Fire works like a charm.