This was an exciting project I finished recently near the knavesmire. The customer had a new roof fitted not long ago and along with the new roof, they installed a sun tunnel. But they only fitted the outside part, they never installed the indoor part. So for a fair few months there were plenty of sunlight came through the roof straight into the loftspace.
So my job was to cut a whole in the ceiling and conmect up the rest of the tunnel. And that’s exactly why this job was on pause for so long. The ceiling is right over the staircase with a very difficult access. I had two plan of attack. Plan 1: get a long ladder , tie it to the first floor spindles and carry out the work from there. Plan 2: using smaller ladders and scaffold boards build a platform. First one seemed safer, as I could tie things properly not just balancing on a few boards so I hoped I can go with plan 1.
I got really lucky this time as my ladder was 4.7 meters high while the ceiling was 4.9. This meant I could work from a ladder what I could tie properly on multiple points and I could use a harness to tie myself to the ladder and carry out the work safely
The job itself wasn’t complicated and luckily the owner kept all the parts and installation instructions as well. First, I had to crawl into the loftspace and move all the insulation aside. This was the bad bit. They used the worst type of glassfiber insulation (the one that sticks on you and itches forever) an it was boiling outside, so I was sweating properly under the disposable suit and mask. After this I had to mark where we wanted the tunnel to come through on the ceiling. We had to cut through a ceiling joist which meant we had to brace them up first. Couple of short lengths of timber later I could start cutting the ceiling with my multitool and plaster saw.
And voilà, after a few hours of messing about I finally made some progress. Once the hole was cut, the whole thing came together relatively quickly. Pull through the ducting, cut to size, install the ceiling trim, seal it on both sides and put the frosted plastic cover on. Once this was completed, I just had to pull back all the insulation around the tunnel so I headed back again to the oven called the loft. Another round of sweating later I only had to clear out. Close back loft hatch, take down ladder and clear away all my blankets. Quick hoovering and I was ready to go. It nearly took me a full day and definitely wasn’t an easy job due to the access but at the end it turned out nicely and the customer was well satisfied.
Screw it! 