Roselea

Author: Shaun

  • Installation of Support Timber Framework on Steel I-Beams

    Today, in glorious sunshine, we started the task of mounting all the special timber pieces we made in the last week, and putting it up on the steel I-Beams.

    We also put the extra flat pieces of timber on top of the I-Beams as well. Each section of the steel framework was scrubbed with water and a little bit of detergent to wash off the dust and bird poo, then measured and cut each piece of timber to fit into place, using our laser alignment tool to accurately get the special timber pieces down on the lower flange and a regular rectangular timber piece on top of the upper flange.

    Timber-rafter-supports-Fixed-in-place-1

    Timber-rafter-supports-Fixed-in-place-1

    Timber-rafter-supports-Fixed-in-place-2

    Timber-rafter-supports-Fixed-in-place-2


    We used our special all weather construction glue to stick the timber onto the steel surface, using lots of mechanical clamps to squash the joint tight before locking it down with 5mm x 50mm long screws (we had previously pre-drilled clearance holes in the steel ages ago).

    Today we managed to get exactly half way around the steel framework and we will continue on Monday and get it completed. After that, we will build up the Sky Light framework on the newly fitted timber supports and this will provide the structural anchor points for the roof rafters, hence why we are having to do all this now.

  • Timber Rafter Supports for Steel I-Beams Created

    Over the last few days, we have been cutting, slicing and routing a whole series of timber pieces that will provide the fixing points for the ends of the roof rafters up on the Steel I-Beams.

    There are three basic sizes for the different parts of the steel work as follows:

    • 2 ends which has a 40 degree angle sliced @ 61 mm from a 75 mm by 50mm wide timber
    • 6 lengths with a 32 degree angle sliced @ 117 mm into from a 150mm by 50mm timber pieces
    • 8 lengths with also a 32 degree angle sliced @122 mm from a 150mm high by 50mm thick timber.

    The differences is the height of the slots that have been routed in. The end result is that when the roof rafters are placed into the slots, the top edge of the rafter all lines up, thus creating a levelled roof. The steel I-Beams comes in two sizes and thickness hence why we needed to have difference sizes.

    Rafter-lower-supports-on-I-beams-1

    Rafter-lower-supports-on-I-beams-1

    Rafter-lower-supports-on-I-beams-2

    Rafter-lower-supports-on-I-beams-2


    We had to make a template to route the 10mm deep slots, all done at the correct angle, one at 32 degrees and 40 degrees.

    Now we need a dry day to go out and fix these pieces on to all the steel I-Beams all the way around. We will align up each piece using our laser alignment module (this sits on the top of the walls on a leg and the laser sends a beam up to the steel work). But first, we would have to clean the bird poo off before gluing and clamping the timber into place – grin!

  • Odd Jobs

    This afternoon, we readjusted the sun shield over our corridor we did last week. It needed tightening up.

    Also, we reduced the height of the scaffolding tower down by one segment so it can be moved around on its four giant castor wheels easily when we come to installing the rafter beams around the steel framework and down on the walls.

  • Summer Bug Brings Down Half the Workforce!

     We had an incident where half of our workforce was struck down with a nasty Summer cold virus, from last Monday (29th May) to today (5th June). All outside work on putting up cement boards, rafters and other work needing two people had to be postponed.

  • Sun Shield Installed on Temporary Living Quarters

    We put up a new tarpaulin on our long corridor in our temporary living quarters, to block out the sun’s rays. We usually put up a sun shield each summer to reduce the amount of energy blasting into our corridor and making it bearable to live.

    We took an existing sheet of plastic tarpaulin and cut it down to 3metres wide by 10metres long. Then, using a soldering iron with a flat head on the tip, melted the edges over a thick rope to keep the covering taught and neat without having to use eyelets and having it ripping out.

    Hopefully, this shield will last the Summer and that’s it!

  • All Window and Door Sub-frames are now Complete

    Back to work after two days of interruption’s , we resumed the task of putting together the Lintels and Framework around all the Windows and Doors.

    We had 7 more openings to finish off where the short vertical studs are put in above the Lintels and got those done just before lunch.

    Then we fetched another five lengths of the 89mm CLS timber off our pallet (we have virtually used up one of the two pallets bar 2 lengths!) and brought them in our workshop to be chopped into:

    • 9 x 1711 mm pieces
    • 2 x 1100 mm (using the off cuts of above)
    • And 1x 480 mm piece (also taken from the left overs of above)

    We then ripped down the middle of the timber planks, to make equal sized (about 43mm wide) pieces. One would go on the bottom sill on all the 12 windows, and the other half went up on the underside of the lintel. These pieces are designed to allow us to have space for roller blind mechanisms to be fitted below and above the window unit.

    After lunch, we went around fitting all these half pint pieces on all the windows, trimming them down so they just fitted in nice and tight, glued into place and then screwed down in several places (four points for the widest windows, three for the medium sized ones and two fixing points for the narrowest).

    Final-parts-of-Window-Subframes-1

    Final-parts-of-Window-Subframes-1

    Final-parts-of-Window-Subframes-2

    Final-parts-of-Window-Subframes-2


    We finished off the day by dismantling one of our scaffolding towers and moved the 2 castors over to our existing tower to make it much easier to move around.

    The next job is to slice up half a dozen cement boards into narrow strips of about 300mm wide and go around the whole building putting on the second layer and after that, the final third layer using whole sheets again, but making sure whole sheets bridge completely over each Window and Door for maximum strength and racking, without any joints in the middle.

  • Last Door Frame is Done and All Lintels Are In Place

    Today, under another glorious and hot sun, we finished off the final Door vertical framework (the Utility Room Back Door), which came out as 1041 mm to 1042 mm wide, in various places from top to bottom, this door will be a single extra wide style to allow better access for bigger items to get into our house.

    We then carried on with the next job of putting the Lintels over all the Windows and Doors. We measured and cut to size each opening, the two layers of 89mm CLS timber, glued and nailed together and also nailed down onto the vertical legs. There were 15 openings all to together, and we made sure that all of them were within 1mm to 2mm of being horizontal, putting in solid wooden spacers where necessary to make adjustments.

    Door-sub-Frame-completed-with-Lintels

    Door-sub-Frame-completed-with-Lintels

    Window-sub-Frame-completed-with-Lintels

    Window-sub-Frame-completed-with-Lintels


    Tomorrow, we will first measure the long diagonal rafters that forms the valleys, hips and ridges of our roof, so we can double check against our drawings to know exactly what we need to order from the specialised timber manufacturer, the man-made laminated veneer lumber called LVL. This material is basically lots of thin layers of wood, just like plywood but 200mm thick and can come up to 12metres long – wow! After that piece of survey work, we then carry on with putting in all the vertical short studs that connects the lintels to the Top-Plate, and once this is done, with one or two other little jobs, we then can continue putting up the second line of cement boards!!

  • Windows and Doors Framing Progresses

    On this lovely warm Monday, we carried on adjusting, gluing and fixing into place the remaining six window subframes going around the Great Room, the Kitchen and lastly the Entertainment Room. We had our framing template which is exactly 1708 mm wide so that all our 6 foot width windows will be the same. We then did the two 4 foot windows (the side of the Great Room and the Utility Room) making them both 1098 mm wide and finally, we did our only 2 foot window in the side of the Front Door extension and that measured 480 mm wide.

    Last-window-framed

    Last-window-framed

    The next job was to cut and frame the three doorways. They would need a height such that the top of the doors is the same as the windows so the calculations for this resulted in pieces of the timber to be 2252 mm long. We pulled out 3 lengths of our treated 89mm CLS timber and chopped them down to that size, but we noticed one of the timber being rather warped so we fetch’d another length from the pallet! We drilled 4 fixing clearance holes in each of the timber pieces, a clearance 8mm hole for the 100mm concrete screw and 3 x 5 mm holes for the ordinary 80 mm wood screws.

    Taking the 6 pieces out, along with the SDS drill, spirit level, screwdrivers and glue etc. We started with the Great Room-Conservatory French style doorway and fixed and fiddled the two vertical timber pieces into place. It took quite a while for doing all of it, like drilling the concrete holes, getting the spacers in and out and finally getting both sides vertical. We then measured the gap or width of the doorway which turned out to be 1491 mm to 1493 mm in various levels from bottom to top.

    We moved over to the Front Door and repeated everything again and the measurement this time came out at 1495 mm to 1496 mm wide. We were not concerned with this slight difference because these two doors are different styles and both are unique.

    Comservatory-Door-framed

    Comservatory-Door-framed

    Tomorrow, we will finish off the third and final door, the Back Door, and move on to the next job of putting in lintels over all the openings, both windows and doors, all 15 of them!

  • Windows Framework Being Installed

    Today, after our lost day caused by the wet weather yesterday, we resumed our work of putting in the two vertical posts that forms part of the Window frame. We continued on around the building doing each window in turn, putting in spacers to align each post to be as straight and vertical as possible.

    Then just before lunch, we went around measuring all 12 windows and recorded the width at the bottom and at the top. We wanted to know what was the smallest  width and whether we had managed to get the framework vertical too.

    The results are:

    • The smallest width is 1709 mm
    • The largest width is 1718 mm
    • Some windows are not as vertical as we wanted

    So after lunch, we designed and made a template frame that represents the exact width and height of a window. This template was made using 100mm wide strips of the 11mm plywood sheet, all screwed together with diagonal bracing and horizontal ones too, to make a very square and rigid template that is exactly 1708 mm wide between the two parallel vertical edges.

    Window-framing-jig

    Window-framing-jig

    We will use this template, which is now our master reference for our 6 foot windows, to go around each of the 6 foot windows and adjust them so the vertical posts are truly correct and also exactly the same width. This operation is the Real Thing this time around, meaning that we now applied the construction glue to the cement board and the timber to set it in place permanently. We managed to do three windows (Bedroom 3, Bedroom 2 and Bedroom 1) before we stopped for the day and weekend.

    On Monday, we will continue around the Great Room, then the Kitchen and the final 6 foot window on the Entertainment Room. Then we will do the 4 foot windows (2 of them) and finally the single 2 foot window.

  • Friday Mostly Lost to Rain!

    No work outside today as it was wet all morning and occasional showers in the afternoon too. Plus also we were only going to work until mid-afternoon because of other commitments. So the day was mostly written off.

    We did get the stop/start switch on the work bench replaced (it was damaged a few weeks ago), the new switch is much easier to press!

    New-Stop-Start-Switch

    New-Stop-Start-Switch

    Hopefully we can get on doing the windows and doors tomorrow.