Not quite enough time after work.

I got up there after work today, and managed to make some progress.  I got all the brackets on the rafters.


I also dragged down some plywood.  This is the sheet for the shed for the last joist in the loft that I never installed.  Unfortunately it is warped pretty bad at this point and is hard to move around, but it gets the job done.



I was nervous about how far my drill was going to go, I got one screw in and the battery died.  Thankfully the other battery lasted for the rest of the evening.  I managed to get three sets of rafters in.  I didn't install the ones at the very end since those aren't as important for getting the building tarped.


I have been thinking about using hurricane ties to tie the frame to the trailer.  I am not sure how strong they are, but they are designed to prevent lift, which is primarily what I am looking for.  I am not sure how well they hold on side to side motion though.

Something that struck me this evening as I ran out of daylight is that I need to finish all those items tomorrow.  I am losing Wednesday evening because that is when the meeting with the planning board is.  I might have to take a half day tomorrow to get the rest of the rafters up.  If it were just one day of rain and then nice weather, I might not bother, but after Wednesday, only one of the next 5 days looks nice.  I can tie the trailer down even if it is rainy, as long as I have enough roof that I don't get wet inside.

Frame centered and level.

The big task for today was getting the subflooring centered on the frame and getting the trailer frame blocked and leveled so that I can make sure the walls are square and don't end up with a tilted house.
Everything is within the center set of line on my level.  It was a lot more work than I expected.


I didn't want to use any shim boards (I prefer something meatier) but had to on one stand to get the right height.


I also made sure to pull the trailer forward.  I had already moved it away from the side so that I could skirt the side, but the trailer was also too far back.  That has been rectified.


Despite the leveling taking longer than expected, I also managed to get the door framing and header done, and also get the top plates on so that I can start on the roof.


My new door.  It is a fiberglass one, but was the only one under 600 bucks that had windows that you can see through.  Most of the them are decorative and would let in light, but they were at weird angles so you can't see through them.  I would like more windows in it, but didn't want to pay for it.  At the present moment I am not intending to install a storm door, but the door frame would support one.  The door frame looks a little thick for a 2x4 wall, but was the thinnest that they carried.  Unfortunately I didn't see these when I designed the wall, but they do stock standard width 76" doors, so I could have made the door frame a little shorter (it was the limiting factor on wall height).  Oh well.


It was a good weekend productivity-wise, and the weather this weekend was perfect.  It isn't often you get highs in the 70s at the end of July, and chilly enough at night that I actually pulled my blanket on me.  Unfortunately this week sees the return of the heat, but I still hope to have the rafters and sheathing up before Thursday, when the rain returns.

Looking at the next steps I laid out yesterday, I got several of them checked off today.

1. Level trailer and get jackstands under it.  
2. Square and center everything up.
1. I haven't squared the walls, but the centering is done.  
3. Install the door.  I am doing this before the roof since the roof will require the top plate, and the header nails into the board under the top plate.  
1. The door isn't installed, but the essence of this task is complete.
4. Install the top plates and rafters.  
5. Sheathe the roof (I intend to fully sheathe it with 1/4" CDX instead of using furring strips).  Put the tarp on it.  I hope to get this far before it starts raining again.
6. Install the windows
7. Tyvek wrap the outside.

Walls and ridge board installed.

Today was a gorgeous day to do some building.  I had some coworkers over to help with the walls.  Thanks Mick, Barry, Greg and Tim.  It went really quick (faster than I expected, under an hour) to get all four walls up and nailed together.  There was only one snafu, one of the bits that I lopped off with the reciprocating saw wasn't a straight enough cut.


Everything got moved off the slab.


I did the ridge board supports a bit different on the house than I did on the shed, it is only two boards instead of 4.  Not as strong, but but still plenty strong enough.  The ridge board is screwed into place.




Unlike the shed, I couldn't get a single board for the ridge board.  To strengthen the join, I used merging plates, which worked not as well as I would have liked, and I also built a 2x4 C beam around it.  It still sags a little, but once the rafters are in they will help hold it up.  For now I just have a support under it.


Towards the end of the day, I started running out of things to do, so I started leveling the trailer.  I need to level the trailer so I can make sure the walls are square.  Unfortunately I need more blocks.


While I was building the ridge board support, The other guys got bored.  So they decided to clean the slab.  It looks nice guys.




There are big piles of dirt and debris though.  I might try to pull the nails and stuff out and then just sweep it into the yard.


It was only 5PM when I ran out of blocks for blocking up the frame, so I also fixed the tractor.  It works good again.  The key that came with it is a bit rusty, but I think I have a spare one somewhere.


I will go up tonight after showering and eating and get the rest of the blocks and the door.  Here is the next plan of attack:

1. Level trailer and get jackstands under it.  
2. Square and center everything up.
3. Install the door.  I am doing this before the roof since the roof will require the top plate, and the header nails into the board under the top plate.  
4. Install the top plates and rafters.  
5. Sheathe the roof (I intend to fully sheathe it with 1/4" CDX instead of using furring strips).  Put the tarp on it.  I hope to get this far before it starts raining again.
6. Install the windows
7. Tyvek wrap the outside.

Ready for tomorrow.

Most of my time this evening was spent getting ready for tomorrow.  I have a bunch of people coming over to help me stand up the walls.

I got the long walls cut down to size.  The cuts aren't great, but not bad for a reciprocating saw.


I also picked up the rest of the boards for the roof (except for the plywood).  I now have the ridge beam, and all the top plates.


It was interesting getting them there.  16 foot boards don't sit well in a 6.5 foot bed.  They bounced around a lot, but didn't break or get irrevocably warped.


My red "flag".  I lost my old one on Rte 9 when Dad was here.  I probably used a few percent of the toner of our printer at work, but it worked.

Soggy, but getting ready for tomorrow.

Today was a bit wet, but everything moved out this afternoon (supposedly) so I went up and untarped everything.


I have tarps everywhere.


It was kind of hard to snap, but my property was covered in mist.  It was kind of neat.  By the time I got home, the sun was out.


Heather's birthday present showed up tonight.  The box was enormous.

Found a derp. Tarping failure.

I went up and drained all the water out today, siphoning out the extra water that had pooled.


The tarp on the back didn't make it.


I noticed when I went to remove the large tarp that everything under it was wet.  It looks like my gigantic tarp isn't as waterproof as I had hoped.


I realized today as I was recruiting people that I made a derp.  When we were building the subfloor, we concluded that I couldn't make it as long as I wanted to, so I cut 18" out of the subflooring.  When I did that though, I just went and built the walls on the fly, instead of using my BOM cheat sheet since it was no longer accurate.  The end result of that being that I forgot when I calculated the length of the long walls to remove the two board widths from them.  Oops.  Fortunately, I got lucky, and taking 7" off from the long walls will be a cinch.  Still an irritating rookie mistake though.


Given how wet and soggy everything was, I decided not to play with power tools in the water.  I also went to see how easy it will be to fix the tractor.  The short version: easy.  I don't need to remove the gas tank or anything, it is all right there.


I pulled out the old one in a couple of minutes.  Not as simple as a snap in, but still really easy.


The old one's contacts didn't look awful.


Unfortunately I broke the key trying to get it out.  I hope the new ignition switch comes with one.


One of my other toys I picked up a few days ago.  A solar battery maintainer.  If the battery survived the ignition possibly being on, I hope this will keep the battery going.  It is only a trickle charge (just under an amp in full daylight) but hopefully it will keep it going.  I could still hear electrical clicking when I was removing the ignition though, so hopefully the battery isn't utterly annihilated.

Walls ready, tractor broke.

Something that I found rather annoying is that I have to drive an hour to Harbor Freight if I want a tarp larger 10x12.  The largest Home Depot carries in stock is 8x10 and the largest that Ace had in stock was 10x12.  Harbor Freight had a cheap 20x30, but two hours is a lot of time to spend just to go shopping...  

The first thing I did when I got up there was move the trailer away from the edge of the slab about a foot.  This way I can put skirting and stuff on it.


I also installed the corners around the wheels.  I used a 2x4, but I might have to shave some of it away when I go to work on it.


The 2x4 clears the tire, but only barely.  It might be challenging to take the tires off.  That is a worry for a later date though.


All the proper california corners are installed and everything is ready to go for the walls.  I also picked up the rafter hangers and hurricane ties.


I did manage to get the yard mowed today, but the tractor is busted.  The ignition is seizing up.  I managed to finagle it enough to get it started today, but once I got it started, I made sure I didn't turn it off until I was finished.  I also noted that I can't remove the key anymore, it is stuck in the ignition.  I will have to look up and see how easy it is to change, to see if I am going to do it or bring it somewhere, I don't have a lot of free time at the moment, and the push mower hasn't been fixed yet either (not that going back to the push mower is an acceptable alternative).


Everything may have come down pretty quick, but it takes a lot longer to get the tarps back on.  I don't have complete coverage, but oh well.  I plan on standing up the walls this week, and hopefully getting the roof on as well.

Muggy day. but good.

Thankfully the heat broke, though the humidity today was awful.  It was only upper 70's, but the dewpoint (even at midday) was still in the 70s, which made it uncomfortable to work in.  Also unfortunate is that I was apparently really tired and didn't roll out of bed until 11...

I picked up a new toy that I will be using to commit genocide.


I also took down the tarp walls today.  They come down reasonably quickly and easily when I am working.  Another nice note is that the center pole isn't needed, it will stand without it.  This made it easier to move around the wall pieces.


All the walls are assembled.  I will be putting the california corners tomorrow on the ends, but that is all that is left.  There are a lot of nails in it too, since the walls had started to warp a little, and I forcefully pulled the warp out.


All the walls are now laid out on the slab in such a way that it is just stand the wall up, move it over to the trailer, fasten it.  No turning or anything is required.  Unfortunately, I don't think I will get that done before the next round of rain on Monday, so I will have to go find a larger tarp.


I also centered the flooring on the trailer.  It was pretty close, the front was off by a quarter inch.  I also marked the front so I know where it lines up.


The last thing I got done today was the remaining parts of the frame that I had welded are now painted.  Most of the welds look pretty nice, but there were a few that looked awful.  I probably won't go back to that guy.  While I did go over it with the wire brush, these are not as clean as I would have liked.  I am not too worried though.  I did have some overspray, but it will get over it.


I am hoping tomorrow to make sure everything is ready so that I can stand the walls up and get the roof installed in one go.

I went to a cookout for some of our Indian guys that are visiting, but managed to get up and check things out.  Everything was still standing, though I noticed that one of my guy ropes is pretty useless.


Apparently it rained up there, though I don't recall it raining the last couple of days.


I got the tarps pulled off and attached to the sides.  Apparently either these tarps are shorter, or this carport is longer.


All done.


I picked up a few cinderblocks to try to raise it up, so I can stand up the walls.