The Roof Boards - Insanity

After getting the I-joists in place, we had a boom truck with a forklift on a crane come from Williams Lumber (the place we're ordering all our lumber from) and lift the Zip Boards up to the roof (Rob and Dale had stacked them in piles the day before so they could be dropped in different spots on the roof). Rob stood on the roof (the ladder is 24' high) to guide the piles of boards down where he wanted them, while the guy from Williams used his remote control to operate the crane.

If anyone ever doubted Rob's insanity....

This is the view down from the roof

Rob then worked furiously to get the Zip Boards in place before it rained yesterday afternoon - this meant balancing on the beams below (16" apart) while lifting the heavy boards. I tried to help, but my fear of heights made me pretty useless. Rob put the big blue tarp over the boards as it started to rain, but it's really not a surprise that the tarp let all the water through - again! This morning, Rob and our neighbor friend Michael dried everything off, finished putting the boards in place, and started taping the seams of the boards with the special Zip tape. We got about 2/3 of the way across the roof taping this evening, but now we ran out of tape - good thing it's not supposed to rain for a couple of days. After we finish the taping, we should be waterproof on top.

The Best and Hardest Day Yet: The Roof Joists

The next project was to figure out how to get huge I-joists - 16" wide x 30 feet long - onto the roof. Each one also had to be individually cut to fit in with the angles of the slanted walls. We had help from Dale, who did a great job helping us strategize and get the joists up to the roof. On Tuesday, Rob and Dale got the first five joists in place, and then it started to rain, so they had to stop so we could "waterproof" the building - this time we put 6 ml plastic down underneath the big blue tarp, but it didn't work much better than the first time. On Thursday, the mission continued - I helped with measuring the beams and lifting when I could. Amazingly, by lunch at 12:30, all the beams were up and in place.

My job was to measure and mark 30 feet because the 30' beams were actually longer than 30 feet

Rob cut the beams at the correct angle (which he had previously calculated because the angle for each beam is different) on each end with the circular saw.

Then Dale sawed through the wood

The Lifting Method: Rob and Dale carried each beam and placed it on the saw horse (behind Dale in this picture)

Then Rob and Dale lifted the beam so it would rest on the first floor

After this, Dale went up above and pulled the beam up to the first floor, while Rob and I lifted it on the bottom end

Dale and Rob then had a method of lifting the beam first onto the scaffold and then the rest of the way up on top of the wall (or LVL's)

They nailed in each beam as they went to keep them in place

The 27 I-joists in place!

Unbelievable!

After lunch, Rob and Dale worked on getting the blockers in place - one row of support pieces through the center of the joists; nailing in the joists with the nail gun; and putting in bracing pieces of wood on each of the ends of the joists to provide further support.

Putting in the blockers

Bracing above the LVL's on the east side

Bracing in between the joists on the west side

The end of an incredible day!

The East and West Walls

After Lance and Rob got the floor boards on, they began nailing together the framing for the second floor walls on the east and west side of the building. The vertical wood pieces are 2"x6" - the height varies with Rob's design because the roof is sloping in two directions - the east side wall goes from 9 feet to 7 feet high and the west side wall goes from 9 feet to 8 feet high. On the outside of each wall section are Zip boards, which are waterproof panels, but they are vapor open to allow any water vapor in the walls to escape. Our amazing neighbors came over to help push up the wall panels, and then we put the giant blue tarp over the structure, since it was supposed to rain. Unfortunately, we found out the next day that giant blue tarps are not waterproof at all! The whole building was soaked and we had to sweep off the water and let it dry out.

Rob building in flip-flops - his normal attire

Lance's final day on the job - we miss you Lance!

Two windows on the west side

The east side wall section

Lesson: Do not buy big blue tarp on Amazon.com and expect it to be waterproof

Here you can see the Zip boards from the outside

The next challenge was to put in a post in the northeast corner, which will have windows on both sides. After Rob cut and fastened the post in place, he lifted three LVL's (really heavy beams) above the opening. They sit on the post and in a groove in the east side wall. He nailed the LVL's into place with the nail gun and glued the LVL's together and to the post and wall with adhesive.

Putting adhesive on the post 

Putting adhesive on the groove in the wall

Clamps held the pieces together until they were nailed in place

The first LVL in the groove

Looks really heavy!

Putting the second LVL in place

Loading the nail gun

Nailing the LVL's together

Putting in four giant screws to hold everything together

I can't forget my job - sometime while all this was going on, I learned to use the screw gun, and screwed down the plywood boards onto the joists and LVL's underneath.