Roselea

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  • Third Pair of Leg Are Up and Connected

    This morning, in a freezing strong wind, we connected the second pair of legs (number 2 and 6) back to the first pair (number 1 and 7) using U Channel steel elements. They are 4.77 metres long of a u shaped piece measuring 100mm high by 50mm wide and made of 8mm thick flanges on the top and bottom edges and the vertical webbing is 5mm thick. They weighs just about 50kg each.

    Then, we put between the second pair of legs a thin metal strip to tie the legs together. This strip would normally be screwed down into the first floor joists but that isn’t in place yet!! This strip is 2.4metres long of a 5mm thick steel by 50mm wide. It was screwed onto a piece of 63mm CLS timber to help in lieu of the floor to stop it buckling if the legs tried to lean into each other.

    Four-legs-up-and-connected

    Four-legs-up-and-connected

    We finished off the morning work by moving along the scaffolding tower to the next pair of legs to do.

    After lunch, we hoisted up the third set of legs (number 3 and 5), these being also of the light duty square box steel measuring 100mm by 50mm with 5mm wall thickness. Each of these legs weighs 65kg. it was blooming chilly, well freezing actually, in the strong breeze up there on top of the scaffolding tower!!

    Next we hauled up two more U channel steel beams to connect these legs back to the previous legs (the second set, number 2 and 6). These horizontal steel pieces were the same specs as the previous u channel shaped beams used, so we now have a continuous connection from leg 1 to leg 2 and onto leg 3 and the same on the other side from leg 7 to leg 6 and on to leg 5.

    The final job was to put the tie strip between these third pair of legs, just like last time.

    Six-legs-up-and-connected

    Six-legs-up-and-connected

    We did have one incident at this point, the wind picked up a bit and blew over our tall wooden crane leg and caused some minor damaged two thirds the way up. We had moved it out of the way and it was sitting on its spreading out support arms but there was enough strength in the wind to knock it off balance (especially with a metal bar unbalancing it at the top) and it came crashing over and landed across one of the steel I beams and ramming the steel bar down onto the concrete slab. Fortunately, we were not in the way of this crash!.

    We finished off the afternoon by moving the scaffold tower over to the final position for hoisting up the seventh and final leg, which we will tackle on Saturday.

  • Next Two Legs Goes up!

    It wasn’t so bad today in regards to ice, there were still patches of ice here and there but they were just melting and breaking up as soon as you stepped on it.

    So we started the day by adjusting the position of the first two legs (the heavy duty ones at the Great Room end) and got them almost exactly in their correct positions.

    Next, we assembled the crane and hoisted up the next two legs, which are the lighter duty steel legs positioned at the Kitchen and Hall boundary, and hauled them into the correct point of the concrete.

    Legs-3-and-4-Up

    Legs-3-and-4-Up

    We stopped for a late lunch and the afternoon, we will be spent doing other tasks, so we will continue tomorrow, Thursday morning.

  • Too Icy and Risky

    Our concrete slab is frozen again and there are too many patches of solid ice. Again, we abandoned the outside work.

    Tomorrow, there are other meetings that have to be serviced so no work for Tuesday either.

  • That’s What We Call Frozen Solid!

    Today, Sunday, we woke up to a world of white over everything and a real chilly snap in the air .. this is indoors we are talking about!

    We were going to carry on with the assembly of the steel framework, even though it was Sunday so we could catch up on the lost days earlier in the week but fate has intervened again!

    The outside temperature right now is -3°C at 9am and that’s barely warmer  than the -4°C we had during the dark hours!

    So No Work Today! We call this a stoppage because it interrupted our plans!!

    Oh Well!

  • Hurray! Two Legs Are Up and Tied Together!

    Yippee! The temperature overnight was warm, positively balmy at 5°C and the water lying around on our concrete didn’t freeze again and nearly all the remaining ice had melted by the time we started our work at 10am today.

    We brought out our new homemade crane mechanism and got it assembled and installed at the top of the scaffolding tower.

    First-leg-lift-ready-to-lift

    First-leg-lift-ready-to-lift

    First-leg-lift-the-top-of-the-crane

    First-leg-lift-the-top-of-the-crane

    First-leg-lift-ready-to-lift-2

    First-leg-lift-ready-to-lift-2


    We then attached the end of the hook which had the wire going down through its pulley and back up to the winch. This setup provides double lifting strength at half speed which is good so we can monitor carefully what is happening and be able to stop and reverse if necessary.

    So having tied the top of the leg to the hook, we started carefully lifting it up. The scaffolding tower was holding firm and was not moving, the long wooden leg as part of the crane mechanism was solid and showing no signs of distress so we carried on winding in the steel cable into the winch and finally got the whole leg upright and dangling from the winch all by itself. We then lowered it back into position on the X marks the spot!

    First-leg-lift-halfway-there

    First-leg-lift-halfway-there

    First-leg-lift-upright

    First-leg-lift-upright


    This steel leg is one (of 3) of our heavy duty legs weighing about 160kg and 5.4 metres long. It stood there on the concrete quite well and was pretty stable all by itself, but we weren’t taking any chances so we clamped a short piece of 2inch by 2inch timber horizontally onto the scaffold tower and the sticking out end was tied to the leg with rope, all this near the top of the tower as possible. That was that Leg done.

    After lunch, we repeated the whole process over again, moving the crane unit over to the other side of the scaffolding tower and then lifted the 2nd heavy duty leg up into place and got that one tied to a second similar support arm sticking out the side of the tower.

    Then we tied the two steel legs together using the steel U channel piece which will serve as the lintel over the Great Room entrance to the hallway. This lintel is 2.5metres long and it is 150mm high by 75mm wide with a flanges of 10mm! that piece of steel weighed 45kg as well!!

    (No picture I accidentally deleted it…)

    Finally, as to finish off the day’s work, we assembled the second scaffolding tower, put the wooden platform in place at the top and installed the safety bars and kick boards around the edge of the platform.

    We were working completely in the dark by the end, but were well lighted with our super-duper 300W LED flood light! Tomorrow we will get up the next two legs and get them tied together AND back to the other two legs we have already erected!! Yippee!

  • Day 3 of Freezing Temperatures and Ice Stops Work

    Here we go! Here we go .. again! It was such a lovely sunny morning to the start of the day but we had freezing temperatures overnight and it refreeze the water on our concrete.

    We talked about putting down loads of salt to try and melt the ice but we decided that we didn’t want the steel legs sitting in a salty solution for weeks and weeks while we built the house up, around and over the steel framework.

    So, frustratingly, we had to abandon this day too!! Roll on Saturday and let’s see what we get .. this time!!

  • Day 2 of Freezing Temperatures and Ice Stops Work

    Again, we waited in vain for the temperature to rise enough to melt all the ice. The sun was very strong but it only melted the ice where it was deeper and floating on existing water, but the ice directly frozen solid onto the concrete held on for dear life!

    So the outside work was postponed and we did other housekeeping tasks instead .. in the warm!

    We keep our fingers crossed for tomorrow! It should be warmer! Or Not!!

  • Freezing Temperatures and Ice Stops Work

    We decided that it was too icy in the freezing temperatures we had over night (well below zero all night) and the concrete has lots of patches of frozen water all over the place.

    It would have been too risky to be playing around with pieces of steel framework that weighs hundreds of kilograms, trying to hoist them up etc.

    So after lunch, after waiting to see if the ice will melt, we decided that the day was lost to the weather.

    The forecast says that the next 2 days could be warmer with lots of sunshine so we keep our fingers crossed and we can resume progress.

  • Repaired and Modified Scaffolding Platform

    Since it got dark and too cold to work outside, we carried on in the workshop to repair the damaged platform segment (this is the middle of the 3 segments that makes up the whole platform) which we dropped the other day (from the top of the scaffold tower  onto the concrete!). We removed completely the broken 89mm CLS timber from one side of the segment and cleaned off the old glue joint etc.

    We then put on a new piece of the 89mm CLS timber, 1400mm long, all sanded to remove old dirt, onto (glued and screwed) the 1st segment of the platform so that both platforms are now the same design and have the same method of assembly.

    We are now ready to build up the second scaffolding tower later on when we are lifting the very long and very heavy steel I beams!!

  • Crane Unit Completed

    We finished off building our little crane unit by making a hollow tube attachment welded on to a metal plate, this will hold the other end of the horizontal bar (that has the electric winch hanging off it). This piece will go  through the wooden support leg near the top.

    Crane-Top-of-Timber-leg

    Crane-Top-of-Timber-leg

    The tube is another piece off an old 2inch steel pipe, 100mm long to go through completely the wooden leg. A plate about 250mm high by 85mm wide had a large hole cut using the plasma cutter tool, in the middle and 6 small holes drilled around it for mounting screws. The tube was welded on and then the wooden leg had a large hole drilled through at about 200mm from the top to accommodate this metal tube and plate and help spread the load of the steel item being lifted up without running into the risk of splitting the wood!

    Then after a late lunch, we constructed various bracing elements for the bottom of our crane support leg using a beam (about 2.4metres long) of 89mm CLS timber mounted on two 2inch by 6inch timber blocks as feet. Another shorter bracing beam (made from 600mm of 2inch by 2inch timber) went cross ways reinforced with a triangular OSB board to stiffen the joint. Both were attached to the leg outside as we could no longer work in the workshop as the thing was getting too big!!

    Crane-Base-of-Timber-leg

    Crane-Base-of-Timber-leg

    We took the completed leg over to the scaffolding tower and pushed the whole thing upright on its bracing feet elements and it stands there all by itself and is quite stable .. so far!

    The last job as the daylight was disappearing, was to rotate the tower around and moved it so it was positioned outside the footprint of the 7 steel legs. We decided that it was too dark, even with our flood lamp switched on, to continue and it was getting very cold so we are going for the fresh start in the morning!