THIS week I feature an interesting extension in a yard in Co Tipperary. The job involved roofing over an existing slatted tank. However, the new roof had to blend in with roofs on three existing sheds which stand alongside.

The shed is on the farm of dairy farmer Denis Ryan and his farther, also Denis, located at Dolla, outside Nenagh. The job was carried out by O’Dwyer Steel of nearby Dundrum.

Picture one

Here, we’re looking at the gable end of the new shed. The new roof is A-shaped. On the left we see an existing round-roofed hay shed. It has a lean-to, housing the milking parlour. On the right is the Ryans’ existing calf shed. It too has an A-roof, running in the same direction as the new one.

At the far end of the new shed is the cubicle house.

Picture two

Now we’re at the other end of the new shed. On the right we can see the cubicle house which has a feed rail covered by an overhang. It has an A-roof – running parallel to the hayshed/lean-to and therefore perpendicular to the new roof. There was a gap between the cubicle house and parlour lean-to but it’s now been roofed over, too.

The Ryans built the underground tank in 2009 and installed the feed rail alongside it. This gave them additional feed rail space for the cows while the tank also served as collecting yard in front of the parlour. The locking feed barriers were used for herd testing, when vaccinating cows, etc. However, the open tank took in rainwater and the silage fed at the open feed rail was likewise open to the rain. The Ryans could see that roofing over the tank and open area would have advantages. It would keep rain out of the tank, keep feed dry, would give shelter to the parlour and give shelter at herd testing, etc.

Picture three

So the Ryans went to O’Dwyer Steel and asked them to roof over the open area. O’Dwyer drew up a design on computer. Here, I show one of the nine final drawings produced by workshop manager Paul Fogarty in this process.

The main part of the drawing shows the main roof covering the open area in four bays. Running off to the side are two roof bays covering over the gap between the cubicle house and milking parlour. Note that four bays of the main roof vary. They are 4.7m, 4.7m, 6.1m, 4.4m respectively. The two-bay side-roof is at a different height altogether – that’s because it’s an extension of the A-roof of the cubicle house.

Meanwhile, look back at picture two and you’ll see there’s one thing missing – stanchions. In fact, O’Dwyers put up just one new full-sized pillar, the nice clean one in front of the feed rail. At all other points the roof is supported by existing pillars – they’re labelled as such on this drawing. It’s because the roof is supported by existing pillars rather than new ones that the four bays are different lengths, etc.

Also, at the end nearest the cubicle house the 7m (23ft) roof span was trimmed back by 1.5m to give swing room for the tractor loader.

Picture four

The parlour is under the lean-to of the round-roofed hay shed. We can see that O’Dwyers put a stub pillar on the parlour wall on the left and grafted on to the existing pillar at the far side of the parlour. However, the rafter for this bay is attached part way along the U-beam, to face a pillar on the other side of the yard.

Picture five

This was the open area between the milking parlour and the cubicle house. It serves as the exit for the cows after milking and there’s also a handy chute/headgate there. It has now been roofed over.

Picture six

This support point shows the complexity of designing a roof to cover an irregular area using pre-existing pillars.

Picture seven

John Hanly of O’Dwyer Steel drew up the overall design for the new roof. Roof water also had to be kept in mind, he noted, and brought to existing yard outlets.

Picture eight

The Ryans are happy with the newly roofed yard area. “It gives great shelter to the parlour,” Denis told me. He is pictured with his father, also Denis, his mother Nuala, sister Maeve and dog Jack.

The roofing job cost €13,000 including VAT.