Category: self sustainability

Truss building station

I’ve also started on the pieces for the roof rakes. I’ve been tidying up and getting everything ready for a big sheathing push next Saturday.

No work today, lazy rainy Sunday. I did check on the house to make sure the tarp was keeping the water away which it did.

4 down 18 to go

Of course I’m missing lumber for the last step 🙂

Fixing the 22.5° problem, one trial at a time.

Unfortunately I forgot to snap a pic of the resulting trusses, tomorrow.

I raised the platform a bit to prevent conflict with the door, add storage, and because I think I can fit a little desk under the bottom stairs.

After a heavy storm, we upgraded the 2nd floor tarp

Sun-burnt, bug bitten, wind eroded, eye wood dusted and barely any progress. I’m taking a break tomorrow.

Today saw an amazing push with help from Peter, Matt, Rich & Kevin. This was quite a crew and 3 daunting tasks were taken care of fast & well. Nicole & I are ever so grateful for the help we received today; it was a lot of work, a lot of support and it puts us right in front of being able to raise the frame of the second floor. There is nothing like seeing walls go up to strengthen building will.

Sweet blocking!

There’s a party on the 2nd floor

The OSB isn’t attached to the 2nd subfloor yet but it’ll help prevent the tarp from sagging. It almost looks like a shelter!

Another 12h days, too tired for comments, just a bunch of pics.

The Sun was beating on me all day and a fire broke out pretty close to our land. I had trouble finishing the OSB and barely got started on a wall. Tarping everything up for the night took for ever. Not a productive day.

Blocking is very time consuming; so is having to deal with uneven boards. Thanks to my boss Mark for taking his own time off to work 11 hours straight thus saving me time and mistakes made.

 Once again I spent hours measuring & leveling; the laser level has proven itself to be invaluable.

To lift the beams up I used a technique I don’t know the name of but that I discovered watching this: link. This is no Stonehege but 3 2x8x16 with plywood sandwiched between is more than I can lift, this technique worked really well.

Leveling, mesuring, hammering for 9 hours. The 2 heaviest parts of the house, piers & beams are up a month ahead of schedule.

3 tons of precast 5′ piers

Remote controlled crane

Hats off to Shane for trying to get closer to the site

Level, like an Egyptian. This method is both cheap and very accurate. Note the use of windshield wiper fluid for color & anti-freeze.

Zeno’s paradox?

Unfortunately I couldn’t come up with a way of doing right angles I trusted, so I ended up getting a laser level; which is a pretty awesome toy and confirmed how accurate liquid leveling was on top of giving me a perfect 90°.

A perfect right angle if ever I’ve seen one.

End of the day, with every mason strings finely adjusted to a perfect & level square. It doesn’t look like much but it took 7 hours to get there.

Unlike the pricy electric laser level, the liquid one can sleep outside.