Posts
First stages of Roofing
We’ve spent the past two weeks working on getting the roof up on the house. We started on the two story section. First, we sheathed the roof, using the same boards we used to sheath the walls. These boards become the high ceilings in the one story section and in the second floor of the two story section. We placed the boards so that the beveled edges face the inside, the opposite of what we did with the wall sheathing. We first put up seven rows of sheathing, which gave us enough support for the first row of foam (which comes in 4 foot wide sheets), tacked down the Typar housewrap, then nailed down the foam with the strapping boards on top.
August 30, 2012
One story rafter raising
At the beginning of last week, we spent a couple of days raising the rafter goal posts for the one story section of the house. We’d already built the components (posts and rafters) over the previous week or two. Raising the one story rafters is a bit like raising the goal posts for the two story section: nail the rafters to the posts flat on the deck, then raise the assembled units and drop them into the post holes along the edge of the deck. We had two or three helpers each day. It’s best to have two people on each side as you walk the rather top-heavy assembly along the deck to the post holes. We raised the first three with only three people, though, by using a rope tied to the collar tie and a person on the second floor pulling on the rope.
August 19, 2012
Sheathing
We are now more than half way through installing the sheathing on the two story section. The sheathing is made up of 1x8 tongue and groove pine boards that are nailed to the outside of the posts. This part is fun because it goes up quickly, and because it isn’t quite as fiddly as decking. That’s because the joints are going to be hidden under insulation and siding, so the lengths don’t have to be precise.
August 3, 2012
Rafters
After decking the second floor, we now have all the rafters for the two story section assembled and raised. This was the most difficult step so far. Each rafter is assembled from four 9-foot long 2x8 boards, with four 2x4s and a 2x8 collar tie sandwiched in between. The cuts on these boards are tricky, with angles like 36 and 54 and 16 degrees at various points. So getting the boards cut and assembled cleanly was very frustrating at times, due to slight variations in angles caused by imperfectly straight cut lines, and twists and bows in some boards. This was probably another case where our attempt at perfection went a bit too far.
July 23, 2012
Aligning the goal posts
After the chaotic day when the goal posts were assembled and raised, we still had to do some more work to make sure they were aligned correctly. There are several things that need to be checked: squareness of joints, vertical plumb (checked with a level), the spacing between the posts (must be same on second floor as on the first floor), and straightness.
July 23, 2012
Goal posts
Last week we start preparing for the raising of the twelve “goal posts”, which are the combined beam/post assemblies that serve as the support for the walls, second floor, and roof of the two-story section of the house. First we assembled the 24 posts, each of which is a sandwich of three 2x4s, the center one being longer since its ends serve as tenons for the joints at the floor and roof. This was a fairly straightforward job that took a couple of days.
July 6, 2012
Backfilling
The foundation finally got backfilled last week, during the three day heat wave where the temperature got up to around 90. Even though most of the work was done by the excavator, we still had to do a lot of exhausting manual labor to lay down various pipes and move crushed stone around. Before any of this work could be done, we had a coating specialist come out and seal the below-grade part of the foundation with a sticky black rubberized tar substance, on top of which was placed a 2-inch thick compressed fiberglass matting that acts as a drainage board.
June 25, 2012
Workflow
Whenever we start a new piece of this house-building project, there’s a learning curve as we figure out the most efficient way to proceed. For example, our first beam took maybe an hour to construct, as we went very slowly and consulted the instruction book constantly. After that, we knew what to expect for the next 21 beams and were able to divide up the work between the two of us in a time-efficient manner. For example, one of us would finish nailing up a beam while the other fetched the lumber for the next beam.
June 24, 2012
Decking
The floors in this house use 2x6 tongue and groove pine boards from eastern Europe, instead of the usual plywood subfloor and hardwood flooring. The T&G boards become the ceiling for the floor below. This simplifies construction in some ways, but it also requires some care in choosing boards that will look good where they are visible. For the first floor, we tried to choose boards that were damaged or dirty on the bottom side, because that side will only be seen in the basement.
June 18, 2012
Nail gun
FirstDay Cottage doesn’t recommend using nail guns on their houses. But we’re getting on in years and are a little concerned about tennis elbow and other wear and tear from pounding thousands of nails. So we bought a Paslode CF325 nail gun as a supplemental tool. This is is a self-powered tool that doesn’t require an air compressor, which was a big advantage for us, since we (1) didn’t have electricity at the house site for a few weeks, and (2) didn’t want to have to rent a noisy compressor for many weeks and deal with air hoses.
June 12, 2012