Category: Phase 4

We started the day in lovely hot sunshine .. but only for about 2 hours this morning before it got cloudy and chilly. We continued working on assembling and building up the External Wall, finishing off wall “P” from yesterday, and then turning the corner to go along the front section and completed wall “A”.

We did a total of 29 Legs in all. Tomorrow, we do the Front Extension, wall “B”, “C” and “D” and finish off at wall “E”, just another 19 Legs to complete the full circuit of our External Wall!

In a very misty like sprinkle of rain, we started the new week by continuing with the erection of the External Wall, doing wall “M”, wall “N” and wall “O”, all these sections going along the back of the house, that is 17 Legs all glued and nailed.

It is the same old procedures of adjusting the height of each Leg, then gluing and nailing them into place and finally the top-plate positioned and nailed into place on top.

We then got half way along wall “P”, this being the longest stretch of wall on the left side of the house and the Great Room, having adjusted 8 Legs out of the 16 needed to be done.

Tomorrow, we will finish wall “P” and continue around onto wall “A” going along the front of the house.

P.S. Here is a diagram of the Walls with labels.

 

It was a long 9 hour day minus a 45 minutes lunch break and also a little “tea” break too! We continued with the assembling of the External Wall using our Leg elements. We finished off adjusting the final 4 Legs on wall “I” we left from yesterday, and then brought out the compressed air nail gun and tubes of the special waterproof glue, to fix each Leg into place along wall “H” and “I”, a total of 20 Legs.

Then we put on the Top-Plate pieces of timber on top of the legs and anchoring at the corner with temporary screws to make the whole wall so much more solid and stable.

We then resumed adjusting more Legs on the next section, wall “J”, another 4 Legs, using the chop saw and guillotine

And nailing and gluing those in place, plus the top-plate too.

We progressed around onto the next wall section “K” which was a longer stretch with a window in it, a total of 9 Legs.

And finally, we completed wall “L”, another 5 Legs, getting half way along the back of the house next to the swimming lane.

A grand total of 38 Legs we installed today! Only 65 Legs to go! Phew!

With a slightly shortened work day, we started assembly, adjusting and building the External Wall of our house at last!

The first job was to adjust each and every Leg so that it is vertical as possible. We did this by shortening the inner post (the 63mm CLS going down to the concrete) using our little circular saw and a super sharp guillotine to chop and slice little bits off the end.

The basic operation was to put the Leg in place, then use our accurate digital spirit level to find out how much deviation there was off vertical using the measurement mode of millimetres off vertical per metre of height. We took this figure and divided this by 3 which tells us how much wood we needed to slice off the bottom of the inner post. It is a simple mathematical calculation of angles and height. We verified this was true with our first Leg!! So repeating this process between measuring the angle and slicing little bits off, including using a piece of timber with sandpaper stuck on it to rub the slots down a bit too, we arrived with a Leg which is vertical and solidly sitting on both the outer concrete wall and the inner concrete floor.

So we decided to begin on wall “H”, the one nearest the Garage that has the “back” door in the Utility room and going pass Bedroom 3. This had 12 Legs to adjust for this wall and then we turned the corner onto wall “I” at the back of the house near the start of the swimming lane. This wall has 7 legs in it and we did 3 of them before we stopped for the day early.

We had to remember that the two windows and one door in wall “H” needed left-handed Legs (the plywood webbing is on the other side of the two posts) and on wall “I” had one left-handed Leg as well. Also, wall “H” is the major support for holding the First Floor Joists as they runs side to side down the length of our building. Wall “I” has ordinary Legs that only needs to provide support for the upper floor boards themselves.

Tomorrow, we will do the other 4 Legs of wall “I” and then go back to the beginning and actually glue and nail each Leg into place and install the top-plates (the front horizontal rail, made of the 89mm CLS pieces and the inner rail made of the 63mm pieces). This will anchor and bind all the Legs together along wall “H” and wall “I” around the corner. Having this right angled turn will provide a very strong bracing force to keep the section of the walls solid and unmoving. We are Getting There at Last!

Today, we started off in the workshop to build the combined Top-Plate for Wall “E” which has another extended beam coming out to support the porch we got hanging over our back door beside our Garage. It Is made of 3 layers, just like the front door porch, but much longer as wall “E” is 4 metres long.

While the glue was drying, we went outside, still working in a chilly wind, using our Router to cut extra slots in both the 89mm timber pieces and the 63mm timber pieces, for all our doorways and internal corners that has extra Legs. We also discovered and corrected several misaligned slots on the 63mm bottom-plate that is down on the concrete floor.

After lunch, we went around sorting and cutting another layer of the flat horizontal timber pieces that forms the Top-Plate to sit on top of the Legs. It is the 2nd layer to overlap and reinforces the joints in the first layer. Both layers are glued and nailed together to form one continuous solid framework to hold and lock all the Leg Elements that forms our External Wall structure.

We did the 89mm CLS pieces that goes on the outer post of the Leg and then the 63mm CLS timber pieces for the inner posts.

One little job we did afterwards, was to reduce the width of our ramp we got positioned beside the back door (nearest the Garage) so when the Wall Legs are installed, we still can fit the ramp in place!

Now back in the workshop, we constructed a plump-bob gadget to hook over the outer Leg so we can get a good accuracy in making all the Legs as vertical as possible.

But it was interesting to discover that our best spirit level (a digital £75 device) is actually as good as our plumb-bob gadget! It says on the label that the spirit vials are 0.5mm accurate in every metre. Which we never truly appreciated before so we now can use our spirit level instead – after all that work! Grin!

Tomorrow, we will start the process of adjusting each Leg one by one to get them vertical before we glue and nail them into place, just in case we discover something odd and have to make some adjustments etc.

Today, on a chilly and windy day, we took the timber that had already regular slots cut into them, and sorted and cut them for the Top-Plate of the External Wall.

We first went around doing the outer leg position, the 89mm wide CLS pieces, making sure that they go from corner to corner and covering the windows and doors without any breaks, they also have to align with the slots in the foot plates. We had pre-prepared 20 lengths of the 89mm CLS with slots and we ended up using all but 1! We had lots more offcuts because being up on top of legs, we couldn’t just fit in little pieces so we made sure that any smaller piece always went over 2 legs positions for a better connection and strength.

Just before lunch, we brought in 4 more new lengths of 89mm CLS timbers from our pallet and delivered them into the workshop. After lunch, we chopped them up into 6 pieces as follows:

• 2 x 1266 mm
• 2 x 2685 mm
• 1 x 2565 mm
• 1 x 2745 mm

We then glued 2 set of 3 pieces into a single timber piece which will form the Top-Plate for the Front Extension, on wall “B” and “D”, which are the two short sides. These will form a contiguous “beams” that comes out the Front Extension and go out to support the Porch Roof that extends 1200mm beyond the front door area.

Then we carried on with sorting and cutting the timber, this time for the inner leg position, the 63mm wide CLS pieces.

Tomorrow, we will go around with our Router machine and cut the extra slots around the doorways and some of the corners that has extra legs surrounding them, in both the 89mm and 63mm CLS pieces we have done today.

On this bank holiday Monday, we carried on with the creation of the 12 Corner Posts for the Perimeter Wall.

First of all, we set up the circular saw to maximum height in the vertical position, and set an end stop at 450mm from the centre of the saw blade. We then pushed through each of the 12 pairs of “wing” pieces through the saw until they hit the stop, we then flipped all of them over (and reversed the saw machine too) and cut the remaining way through. The loose piece was then chopped off to clear the area at the top of each Post to allow for the plywood webbing to come down when the rafters are fitted into place.

After lunch, we adapted  and modified our right angle jig template so that the central 89mm CLS timber is always held and pointing in the correct direction into the very point of the corner.

Then, we took all the lesser angled “wing” pieces (the 33°, 36°, 40° and 44°) and glued and nailed each onto a full 89mm CLS timber piece.

on Wednesday, we will use our new jig template to glue and nail the other “wing” onto the half completed Posts. It has taken a long time to do these Corner Posts but they are one of the main structural elements of the wall to help support the major Rafters (the long hip ridge and valley lines) in our roof so it must be done good and proper!

Today, we took all our sawn up lengths of the 89mm CLS timber, and marked them up to make sure we had the correct end as the top of the Post. Every corner is unique so we had to be very careful to get each post with their “wings” on the correct way around.

It was a fiddly job but it had to be done.

After lunch, we then glued all the little triangular cut off pieces onto the Wings so it filled and extended the surface where these Wings will connect onto the central 89mm CLS element. It was a long operation of running the glue down the exposed surfaces and nailing it together to form one solid, approximately triangular shaped element.

We had worked out how to slice off the 11mm section at the top of these Wings which will allow the plywood webbing from the Rafters to slide pass and be glued and nailed onto the top of these Posts later on.

Next week, we will carry on with the creation of these corner posts by combining the new Wings we made today and glue and nail to a clean 89mm CLS length of timber to provide the completed solid Posts that sort of looks like an arrow but not really – Grin!