Skill Builder Guides & reviews for building and construction
The Extension project is now up to plate level so it’s time for Pythagoras’ theorem.
“Plate level is the timber plate which is going to hold the roof structure including the roof joists, hips and roof rafters.
“When you put this on you need to spend a lot of time getting this right because carpenters curse bricklayers like mad if they’ve bedded the plate on and it’s wrong and some carpenters even prefer to put the plate on themselves.
“Luckily Mark, our bricklayer, is very diligent and he bedded it the old fashioned way. It comes off the existing plate of the house and we used a laser level to ensure that it is level all the way round and we’ve also checked that the whole thing is square which is also really important.”
3-4-5- method
“You can do that using a folding square but an alternative way to check the plates are square which can be useful on larger roofs is to use the 3-4-5 method.
“Take any 3 measurement such as 30 inches from the corner down one side, then measure 40 inches down the other side and the distance between the two points will be 50 inches if the corner is 90 degrees.”
