The day after the roof sheets arrive face down, the team of roofers turn up and begin installing.

It’s Day 93, a Thursday, and the expectation is that the roof sheets will be fully installed by the end of Friday. As for the colour,  the end caps on the roof rafters and the roof sheets themselves are indeed a colour match.

Handling 5-metre-plus sheets is definitely a two-person job even at the best of times – but especially in Tolmans Hill’s always breezy conditions. Look closely and a second set of hands is revealed half-way along the sheet.

It doesn’t take long for tangible progress to be seen. The team starts on the biggest of the three roofs and then quickly turns their attention to installing the box gutter. They roll out an insulation/anti-condensation blanket underneath the sheets as they go.

It’s a privilege to capture the gracefulness of human labour found even in mundane tasks such as removing the protective plastic sheet from the inside of the box gutter.

True to the plan, the three roofs and the box gutter are easily completed by the end of Day 94. For those readers who have had trouble envisioning this butterfly roof, getting the sheets on should help.

The steepest roof plane (above), which is north-facing, was designed for solar photovoltaic (PV) panels, which can now be easily and simply installed in the coming weeks. The plan is for two rows of six panels, which will create a 3 kW array. More on that in a future post.

The roof sheets are ready for a thorough clean.

Gutters at the remaining low points, as well as flashings around the entire perimeter of all the roofs, will be on the agenda later. In some areas of the house, the roof flashings can only be installed after the external wall cladding is on.

Short of hiring a helicopter or a light plane, photographing all three roof planes together to show how they intersect proves to be almost impossible. Above, the art studio roof, which falls in the same direction as the solar PV-ready roof on the right, can just be seen in the distance. Site foreman Nathan stands on it while contemplating his next moves. Your blogger’s next move is to post again soon.