Vranch House

Date added: Friday 10th December 2010
Latest updated: Thursday 23rd February 2023

Despite the unusually cold weather for this time of year, work on the new assessment centre here at Vranch House has been progressing well; and the site always seems to be a hive of activity during the shortening daylight hours.

In order to enable the safe installation of the roof trusses and the first floor, a temporary floor had to be created in both wings of the building. This consisted of a large number of vertical tubular struts supporting lightweight modular plastic plates, forming a safe working platform just below the level of the intended ground floor ceiling.

The photographs below illustrate this, and the construction of the roof.

As expected, much of the felt and batten installation on the roof is now complete, and as the building becomes more enclosed, the timber sheets making up the first floor are now partially fitted.

Alongside the completion of the roof structure, the tiling work is expected to start shortly. Unfortunately, the cold weather has prevented commencement of the brick-laying for the outer walls (some of the pictures show the bricks, positioned in anticipation of this work starting), and necessitated a reorganisation of the building schedule.

Although much of the internal work cannot proceed until the roof is waterproof, some of the initial plumbing work will be going ahead soon including the installation of the under-floor heating which will be fixed to the under-side of the first floor.

Hopefully milder weather will follow later this month to allow the brickwork to go ahead. In the meantime, work on the roof, the first floor and the other internal structures will continue.