Roofing Sweet Roofing.

Our long anticipated roofing arrived 2 days ago! Which has prompted me to get myself up to date with the blog, in order that I might (very soon) be able to post some pics of the roofing up and… well… being a roof. So lets begin the update.

Last time I blogged we were starting work on the 4^th frame. In order to get that up we had to build what will be window frames in the first bay of the workshop. This starts to enclose what has up to this point been a huge open concrete slab, and what will one day be a huge open workshop. I, at this point, was really feeling disillusioned with timber frame building. It is such a long, slow, heavy process which is no longer new and exciting… more of a slow slog. It also started to feel completely unachievable as Bernt had gone back to work fulltime and we were only able to work together on the weekends. After a few weeks of working like this, and another delay as we were both taken ill with a nasty stomach bug, we decided that it would be better for the build if Bernt started working part time. Arrangements are now in place, Bernt works 3 days a week for the time being and the build has once again picked up pace.

You can see the window frame beyond the dividing wall which starts to define the edges of the workshop.

Due to my sporadic distaste for timber frame building we alternated between timber frame and laying concrete blocks to build up the wall which divides apartment and workshop. Although laying concrete blocks is not a glamorous job, it is quite fulfilling. You can stand back at the end of every day and really see a change in the build. And there is something strangely satisfying about ending the day so covered in concrete that you have to take a shower as soon as you walk in the door.

So the wall grew, and the timber frame slowly came together on the ground. We filled the concrete blocks with concrete at intervals as we got higher. If we had left it all until the end, not only would we have had to lug more concrete to a greater height, we would also run the risk that it might not pour smoothly down such deep cores. Air pockets would weaken the structure.

The timber frame was eventually ready to raise. We bolted Frame 3 onto the concrete wall for added stability, but as we had only filled the blocks to a certain level we could only bolt it about half way up. Bernt attached the chain block to the collar tie (3 quarters of the way up) of Frame 3 and started the ascent. Dan was there as moral support that day, and well needed as I was very close to calling the whole thing off when the rafters of Frame 3 started bowing so badly under the pressure that I was sure something would break… Something did indeed break, one of the horizontal purlins connecting Frame 3 to Frame 2 broke its dovetail and with a loud band fell onto the mezzanine floor. It was a joint that we had already deemed insufficient and had changed for the next bay. The damage was not huge, and fairly easy to fix and Bernt convinced his worried onlookers (Dan and I) that he was safe to continue… As ever, he was right.

Frame 4 on its way up.

 

Aaargh! Look how the top of Frame 3 is bowing due to the weight of lifting Frame 4!

 

Frame 4 safely up

Oh, Ill get side tracked for a minute; a lot of people have been asking about how we make the ‘curvey bits’ (which are actually called braces… which is such an uninspired name :) We cut a straight slab of timber 300 wide then Bernt expertly uses the chainsaw to roughly cut the curve. Then we use an electric planer to get the curve all smooth and lovely… and viola! The curve looks deceptively more curvey than it actually is.

Bernt expertly chain sawing a rough curve to the ‘curvey bit’.

Laying concrete blocks and lifting buckets of concrete up to 7 metres in the air is not as simple as it sounds… haha. We had to rig a pulley up to the top of the scaffolding (god bless scaffolding… that is when I’m not cursing it for feeling so wobbly and scaring the bejeebies out of me) which we used to pull up each block and each bucket. It worked pretty well, though the pulley we bought for the job carked it within the day and we had to resort to a rusty old thing out of my ‘rusty old things’ collection. But that one went the distance.

Our pulley system greatly helped us to get blocks and buckets of concrete to that crazy height.

Stacey at the top of the scaffolding sending an empty bucket back down to Bernt.

The wall is so HUGE! Big and beautiful, though I pity the fool who has to plaster it… hang on… As it is pitched we had to build boxing along the angled edges and fill them with concrete to create a straight line. It had looked a big raggedy with unevenly stepped blocks as its edge but looks very neat since the concreting.

Stacey cleaning the mortar from some of the last blocks on the dividing wall.

 

Bernt laying the very highest block (7m).

 

Infilling the stepped blocks to create a straight edge to the wall.

 

Stacey smoothing the concrete for more infilling.

With the concrete wall finished and filled we bolted the top of Frame 3 to it. This now means that all of the timber framework in the apartment is locked into place, level and square. What a good feeling! We then worked to mill, cut and fit the purlins which connect Frame 3 to Frame 4. This went fairly smoothly as we have got the hang of hoisting them up the scaffolding with our trusty chain block. I have my moments of panic on the scaffold (some worthy) but I feel like I’m getting better.

Bernt hoisting a purlin up the scaffolding with the chain block

 

Nearly there.

Bernt hammers it’s tight dovetail joint into place.

With all of that work finished we were ready for the roofing. And after a little bit longer wait than expected it arrived!! O wow! I know how I banged on about it… well it really does live up to expectations EXCLAMATION MARK. It is a beautiful silver colour and the profile (suggested by Roofing Salesman of the CenturyJ) is spectacular! It has a very fine angular corrugation which gives the impression of a kind of two-toned silver pinstripe. I can’t wait to get it up!.... Except for the fact that we have no idea how we are going to do that (each panel weighs around 100kg). But when have we ever had an idea how to do any of what we have done… last minute of course!

What a beautiful panel!

So let me just brag for a minute about this ripper bargain buy I recently had. We went to an auction of an apple orchard that had gone out of business. We were there all day (got the sunburn to prove it) and I spent a grand total of $6 on random bits of rusty old metal… too add to my ‘rusty old things’ collection of courseJ. I love an auction! One of the things I bought was this ancient looking metal trolley. It was spur of the moment, Bernt said he was kind of interested in it and the auctioneer sped through auctioning it. When I realised no one had bid and he had worked his way down to $1.00 I said ‘YES’ at (what seemed to be) the split second that the auctioneer (with his back to me) called sold. So I assumed someone else had got it until he turned to get my number. I said something like ‘Oh me?’ which seemed a source of amusement and meant the auctioneer tried to find me in the crowd next time there was a piece of old ‘treasure’ that no one else was interested in. We lugged it home (why is it that the word lug is often associated with me spending money…), put it in a corner and I looked at it a few times and wondered what the hell I was going to do with it…

Fast-forward a month to the arrival of a semi trailer load of roofing. I got our local truck driver to help get the roofing off the semi with a forklift, up our driveway on a smaller truck then onto the slab. Semi’s are the only truck so far that we haven’t been able to get up the drive. I hadn’t figured my way through the logistics of stacking the roofing on the slab, mainly as I had no idea how it would be packed. We encountered problems as there was not enough room to get the truck onto the slab as the stacks of roofing expanded. Andrew (the fork driver) spied my humble hunk of metal trolley sitting in the corner and suggested we use it to assist the fork to push a couple of packs through the opening in the dividing wall and into the apartment. I suspected that he was overestimating the capacity of my $1 bargain but we gave it a go and it worked like a charm! I might bill the cost of it to the build budget and put that $1 back in my pocket money purseJ

The semi parked down on the road while the panels were loaded onto a smaller truck by forklift.

 

The forklift loads two packs of panels onto my trusty trolley.

 

I steered the trolley at the front while the forklift did the moving from the rear.

With the roofing safely on the slab we had guys who work for the company come out and cut the angle for the apex of the roof and the overhang for the guttering. They usually do this in the factory but there was some confusion about the angle so they decided to do it on site to be safe. They too seemed unsure of how we would get it up and in place… and they do put this stuff up professionally… Well, that’s our task for tomorrow. I will update you all on how it goes.

The guys customising our panels on site.

 

Once the steel is ‘beaten’ (cut but left with a rounded not sharp edge), the polystyrene is cut using a steel wire.

 

The polystyrene is then smoothed with a homemade tool; a rasp with handle welded on. It leaves a smooth even finish.

PS. These are the views we have to look forward to when we move in  All the more exciting since we’ve been living without windows for a while now.

The New Year

Welcome 2010! May this be the year that we finish this build J We are now jumping back into it after a little sojourn; about a week of guilt free/ work free holidays and a scattering of guilt ridden lazy days off. The New Years period welcomed a few guests to Tassie, the ger and the build. Bernt's mum, Froukje, left yesterday after 2 weeks with us camping out in the ger. Together we explored our primitive roots, fossicking for oysters at the river for a bit of a feast and watched an experimental damper cook on a slab of rock on the woodstove. Neither of these bush skills came easily to me, but somehow the need to Google for instructions didn’t dampen my grassroots enthusiasm.

The experimental damper rises in our makeshift oven; a rock carefully selected from the river and an upside down Pyrex bowl.

 

My aunties Jen and Bev were also here for a couple of nights during their Tassie campervan adventure. We accompanied them to Salamanca markets for what was the busiest market day of the year. With the Sydney to Hobart yacht race having just finished and Tasmania’s biggest food festival on the wharf; the harbour was full of boats, boaties and thousands of tourists. Bit of a shock to be pushing through all of those people after so many months hiding away on our own at the block.

And we had some campers at the block too. Friends of ours camped out in the future bathroom for New Years. A total fire ban meant the sparklers stayed in the drawer but we did get treated to a beautiful lightning display. And the ger got a visit from its mamma! Saatia (who we bought it from) brought a couple of friends for a night after having set up and taken down 10 gers at the Falls Festival. What a sight that would have been!

All in all it has been so lovely to have people around. I’ve really enjoyed having some human interaction, which was also important as Bernt returned to work yesterday so things will change around here. But this blog is not about the future, its about where we are at now so I will focus on what we did on the lead up to Christmas/New Years.

We decided that the best use of our time in the lead up to guests arriving was to focus on building the mezzanine floor into the apartment. We were unsure as to when people were arriving and how many guests would overlap. As the ger is fairly tightly packed and the only undercover area on the block it made sense to create another area undercover from sun and rain. So I ordered in a serious hunk of steel angle (specified by the engineer) and managed to squeeze its delivery in before companies closed for Christmas. We bolted it to the wall running through the bedroom and bathroom where it forms the structure for the mezzanine floor joists to sit on.

Steel angle running through bathroom.

Bernt realised that we could save a substantial amount of money by building the joists/ I beams ourselves. It was really straightforward. We used the Lucas Mill like an upside down table saw to cut grooves the length of pieces of framing pine. We then glued strips of ply between 2 pieces of pine to form the I shape. These were then cut to length and hoisted up (not as hard as the timbers, these are very light) to sit with one end supported on the steel angle and the other on the interior bedroom wall. Cutting the beams to length around the opening for the spiral staircase required Bernt's mathematical genius (always handy to have one in the family).

Gluing up our homemade I beam ceiling/floor joists.

 

Joists up in position in bedroom.

Next we pulled green tongue boards (they have a strip of green plastic which locks them together like tongue in groove boards) up onto the joists and screwed them down, sealing between the joins with sikaflex (to keep the floor like a watertight roof until we have the roof on) A long anticipated detail, for me, was to see the curvy bit on the timber frame intersect with the flooring. And it turned out just as beautiful a detail as I had hoped. Once finished we coated the whole floor with an anti decay product as it will be out in the weather for a month or so. We also cut the circle out through which the spiral staircase will poke.

Green tongue in position on top of joists.

 

One of the ‘curvy’ bits protrudes through the mezzanine, my favourite detail!

 

The void for the spiral staircase, covered in platforms for safety.

It is really exciting to stand up on the mezzanine, it gives a different perspective on the apartment and how the space will work. It will be so cosy up there in the nook of the angled roof that we are thinking about changing our room layout a bit. Don’t worry it doesn’t impact on anything expect the placement of furniture, I’m not about to start redesigning building elements now! J As the mezzanine is also the ceiling of the bedroom we now have a really nice little bedroom space with 3 walls, a ceiling and an amazing view. I can’t wait to sleep in this room.

Mezzanine.

 

Mezzanine; looking back into the apartment.

 

The bedroom.

While Froukje was here we cut some logs and got started on Frame 4, we also laid some blocks to build up the wall that separates the apartment from the workshop. That wall is getting high now, It’s a matter of carrying blocks up a ladder in order to get them on the platform. Now we have to finish that wall, and get Frame 4 up so that when the roofing arrives we can get part of it up over the apartment as soon as possible.

This wall needs to be built up to the apex of the timber frame.

Exciting stuff. Now we have to learn to work a bit differently with Bernt back at work but that certainly will do wonders for the bank account.

Till next time.

Slow and Steady

Well we are plodding along as usual. Two weeks ago we invested in a chain block and managed to get the third frame standing up by ourselves, without a crane.  I know I always say it; but it WAS a nerve-wracking task. Things really creaked and the two standing frames moved significantly (the chain block was attached to them so they were being pulled sideways by about a tonne of timber). One of the joins wasn’t strong enough so a wall plate popped out of its position. But it wasn’t fatal, so we clamped it back down and kept on going. Things should be much more stable now for future frame lifting since we have put in more purlins (the beams between the frames) and roof braces (we have curvy bits in the roof now!). And having the third frame up means that we are into the workshop now; pretty much finished the timber framing in the apartment! The veranda is going to be just gorgeous, I’m very excited that we have cut enough ‘left over’ timber from the milling to build it because it really wasn’t in the budget J

The chain block was attached to the already standing frames in order to stand up the third frame.

 

Nearly there…

And its up! Now we have to build that concrete wall (dividing the apartment and workshop) up to the top of the frame..

 

So this is the finished size of the apartment, now we will build 4 more bays for the workshop.

 

This will be our beautiful veranda. 

Bernt attaching one of the roof braces (curvey bits)

And a win on the roofing front. After about a month and a half of scouring the countryside for roofing I finally found a company who can make us the product we are looking for in a beautiful colour! We are using an insulated panel system which is essentially a sandwich with two colorbond skins glued either side of a thick layer of polystyrene (so it is the roof, insulation and ceiling all in one) . We had our hearts set on a colorbond colour called ironstone and I had been told in the design stage (back in Perth) that it was possible to have the product made in that colour for a small extra charge. So we went ahead and got our water tank in that colour and had looked into finding the perfect complimentary paint colour for the walls, and basically formed a completely one tracked view about how the build would look colour wise. So when I started ringing round for roofing quotes it was a huge shock to the system to find that all except one company was unwilling to make the product in that colour (and that company would only make it without a warranty). For a pretty good reason (if I allowed myself to think rationally, not colour-blindedly about it :). Ironstone is a dark grey blue colour, and being a dark colour will absorb more heat than lighter shades.  The concern is that the darker colorbond colours will absorb enough heat to cause delamination i.e.; the colorbond skins to peel away from the polystyrene core of the product. And one company told me that the melting point of polystyrene is 80 degrees so that was also a potential issue… So we were left with a very limited choice of colours; a pale green, an off white, cream, and a light grey; none of which were working with the little colour pallet fantasy we had created for ourselves.

After many many phone conversations and much sitting with my head in my hands I made one last call to a company that produces the product here in Tassie (the rest were going to be shipped from Sydney. Melb or Brisbane). I explained, to the very patient man, what we were trying to do and asked if there was any possible way to expand our choice of colours. I wasn’t feeling very confident because we had already poured over colorbond samples many times and there wasn’t any other colour that we were loving… And that’s when we discovered that… wait for it… colorbond has, in addition to its standard colours; a metallic colour range!!!

I know, I know, I can hear myself… I know I’ve been rambling for paragraphs about colour and that in the global scheme of things it is so infinitesimally insignificant. But here's the thing; we have made this huge leap of faith, Bernt and I, to move so far and to design and painstakingly build this dream of ours; we have spent months and months laying concrete block after concrete block; milling, chiselling and sanding timber after timber; shovelling and sweating and swearing and feeling our hearts swell with excitement every time we finish something that once seemed impossible. And if I then, picked up the phone and ordered 400 square metres of roofing in a colour which we both hated (yes, for all of you wondering what Bernt's position on the whole colour issue is; the answer is that he is far less willing than I to compromise) it would be a permanent disappointment which would really bug both of us whenever we looked up. And I would have always thought that I if had looked a little bit harder I would have found a solution that didn’t leave us feeling like we could have done better.

And the moral (and conclusion) to this long-winded self-indulgent story is; that if you keep trying you will eventually talk to just the right person who will have exactly what you need. And that’s what happened; my roofing hero got back to me and told me that they had recently done a job at a Tassie winery with a colour from the metallic range (its called Axis and is kind of a muted coppery silver) and that they had some in stock and could do our panels in that. And, we love it! And I am really excited because I think it will be really beautiful, probably 10 times prettier than our first choice even! And now I’m very aware that you all will be looking at the roof (when its up) with very scrutinising eyes, and most of you will be thinking, ‘Well I don’t see why a cream roof wouldn’t have looked just as nice’. All I can say is; if we were easy to please kinda people we would have bought ourselves a kit home and been wrapped with how simple a process it all was and how nicely it turned out. And that, my friends is the end of today’s rant… I mean blog… J

Framing Up

What an exciting and inspirational morning!! Today we had some more logs delivered (3 more loads to come later in the week) and after he had unloaded them, our favourite truck driver used his Hiab to put the trusses of frame 1 and 2 into position.  Nail biting stuff!! But let me talk through how we got to this point before I go into it…

Not long after I wrote the last blog, we decided (well Bernt decided and I reluctantly agreed with a big grimace on my face) to try and stand up the remaining wall and arcade posts of frame 1 by hand, without mechanic intervention. Bernt was confident and he obviously has a better grasp on physics than I do because his method worked perfectly without a hitch. We did enlist Dan's help (and ropes) on the day as I was content to watch on terrified from the sidelines. It was a slow process to tilt the frame up (already pegged together) but with the risk of its massive bulk falling, I wouldn’t have wanted it to go much quicker. We braced it in place so it wouldn’t fall over and got to work building the second frame.

Bernt’s ingenious tilting method.

Frame one just waiting for its truss.

It was slow going. Especially as we had to mill all of the timber, and we had some hot days in there during which we both gave up and productivity slipped a bit. But we milled and drilled and chiseled and sanded our way through frame 2. Bernt and I stood the wall and arcade posts of this one up ourselves. This time we did them one timber at a time (not all pegged together) but I still found the task scary because of the sheer weight of the timbers. The ones in the bedroom were fairly straight forward as we had concrete walls to help as stops. The veranda side was a little more scary but we managed it somehow, with the aide of scaffolding and engine crane. Then we worked on the door and window frames in the first bay, which tied frames 1 and 2 together and made them rigid. This meant we could take out some of the bracing. It was really exciting to see the character of the veranda emerging.

The wall and arcade post of frame 2 in the bedroom.                   

The wall posts extend out from the slab and will support the veranda.

To completely tie the frames together we put the ‘wall plates’ in. They are the timbers which stretch between the frames where the truss (the top triangle) meets the wall posts (the outer vertical timbers). On the veranda side this meant fitting in more ‘curvey’ bits, the rounded braces which give the whole timber frame its character (in my opinion) Putting the wall plates up was, again, daunting. They weigh maybe 150kg and we had to lift them about 3m in the air. We did it with the assistance of our trusty engine crane but that only lifts to less than 2m so it was a process of levering and ‘walking’ the timber up to different heights before we got it to where it needed to be.

The wall plate (the horizontal beam extending out towards the river) makes this part of the frame rigid so we can see it for the first time without bracing.

 

The intersection of two braces, or ‘curvey bits’ as I like to call them.

With all of those components in, the two frames were fairly self-supporting so we were ready to have the help of a crane to get the trusses up. As I mentioned in the last blog, there were some concerns with using a 28 tonne slew crane (namely, having the weight of it on our waffle pod slab). I rang Steve, who had delivered our Lucas Mill as well as all of our concrete blocks and logs on his Hiab truck (a truck with a crane attached to its back), and he seemed confident that his truck would manage the job. So we decided to do it in conjunction with our next log delivery. That meant we had to finish milling all of the remaining logs and clean up the milling area for truck access (two whole days of cutting all of the off cuts into firewood size and moving it). We also constructed two purlins (the timbers which join the trusses and will eventually hold up the roofing material) ready to be put in place on the day.

And today was that day!! Steve was here bright and early to deliver the logs. I thought Id really had enough of milling but when I saw them arrive I felt a little bit excited to get going on them again, Phew… because we have nearly 70 logs left to mill so I cant afford to have had enough yet!! And when he had unloaded them all, the fun began!

Stacey’s sculptural woodpile made from all of the off cuts from the milling, inspired by one a neighbour was building.

 

Steve drove the truck up onto the slab, he and Bernt talked through the logistics of what went where and how best to attach straps for lifting etc. Some of our concrete blocks had to be moved, but that was light work for the crane, and luckily the truck fit through the gap in the concrete block wall, with only 10cm to spare would you believe!! Then came time for the lifting which went really smoothly and then… the nail biting moment of truth, would everything fit together?...  Of course J Its almost like we had measured it or something! Haha… It was a moment of self-doubt though. And then the second frame truss went up and then a purlin on each side to hold them together. And everything fit!! So so exciting. And the end result is just breathtaking. It is sooo tall, the huge timbers we have been struggling with at ground level are so high up in the stratosphere that they look like matchsticks…J Well… exaggeration alert… but they do look much less bulky. It really will be an amazing space. But as I was talking to Steve’s wife about the benefits of owning such a crane, she mentioned that the forklift is much handier, to clean their 2^nd storey windows with and I suddenly thought; ‘How are we ever going to clean our windows??’… 

Truss being lifted by the Hiab.

 

Truss 1 fits perfectly!

 

Truss 2 being lifted into position. Note the truck squeezed through the gap in the concrete wall.

 

The mortises and tenons fitting snuggly together.

 

The purlins took a little more persuading to fit.

The view from the driveway, no wonder people keep stopping on the road! ;)

This shows that we have a huge amount of work ahead of us! 5 more frames to go.