We had a very productive weekend in the garden. One job we managed to get done was re-felting the shed roof. As promised, Joe saved the best strips of felt he took down from his own shed and brought them round. They weren’t in bad condition, certainly better than the felt that was on the roof already. I had also noticed a slight design flaw to the guttering system we installed. At the edge of the roof there was a slight fold in the felt that created a small lip, which we relied upon when placing the guttering underneath. However, I noticed that for a long stretch of the guttering there was no folded lip, leaving a gap between the shed roof and the guttering. We’ve barely had any rain since we installed it, so we won’t have lost much. There is some water in the butt, so it wasn’t completely ineffective, but clearly we could be harvesting more if we bridged this gap. So when Joe re-felted the roof, I asked him to felt over the top of the existing part that we had screwed the guttering brackets into, to create a small lip over the guttering.

Before: A long stretch of the guttering had a gap between it and the roof

After: The roof neatly re-felted. Note the lip of felt over the gutter.

So now we should be collecting much more rain. The next day it did rain some more, but still not enough was collected to bring the level up to the tap, so I still can’t use it. But with the modifications to the roof felt, it can only be a matter of time. All of the materials used on the roof were recycled from Joe’s shed, both the felt and the nails, so it was a nice green solution to a nice green project. I am considering setting a water butt up on the other side of the shed too. It seems a wasted opportunity to only be collecting from one side. But I think that will be a job for the future, as I still have a lot of crops to get into the ground which is my priority at the moment. There is more rain forecast for later in the week, so I am hoping to be able to put the water butt to use very soon!