Journal of Progress--July 22-29

Monday, July 23, 2018

Installed both of the 24-foot rim boards today, and cut the remainders (about six feet long) but did not get them installed. Might have, if I hadn’t taken a mid-morning nap.  I had to design and manufacture three installation jigs to allow me to maneuver the long rim boards into place. They are OSB, 1-1/8 inch thick, and VERY heavy. They are more than twice as thick as nominal half-inch OSB, and 9-1/2 inches wide by twenty-four feet long. So each one weighs as much as 2-1/2 sheets of nominal half-inch OSB, which is twice as heavy as plywood. A sheet of half-inch plywood weighs forty pounds. A sheet of OSB weighs eighty pounds. So a twenty-four foot rim board weighs in the neighborhood of 200 pounds! Not something you want to chance dropping on the roof of your car from atop an eight-foot high wall! Hence the alignment jigs. They worked perfectly the first time. Made me feel good, but it still took time to align the rim board to each joist end and nail it home, then toenail it to the top plate of the wall in between each pair of joists. I don’t have my tall ladder yet, so I had to do it from above, lying on strategically placed decking sheets and hanging head and shoulders over the wall. Scary!

Also caulked between the foundation and the lower joists with Liquid Nails®. Why use Liquid Nails, a construction adhesive, rather than cheaper caulk? Because there is a chemical in Liquid Nails that insects, especially termites, don’t like. You should have seen the ants and other bugs come running out of the woodwork as I caulked! Now the walls will be ready to sheath as soon as I finish hammering in all the mending plates, a job I’ve been putting off. It requires swinging a three-pound hand sledge 100 times for each mending plate. I’ve got about twenty left to do.

Tuesday, July 24, 2018

Finished the rim joists today. The ones over the stairwell were the hardest yet. My left chest still hurt from laying down prone to shoot nails yesterday, so I was trying to kneel and lean over the edge to shoot them. The nail gun slipped out of my hand and fell into the stairwell. I grabbed for it, but missed the gun, grabbing the quick disconnect instead. The gun shot off the end of the hose and fell all the way to the bottom of the stairwell, about fifteen feet below. It hit on a stair tread and broke the tread clean in two-- a three-foot 2x12! Didn’t hurt the nail gun at all.

Looking up from where the nail gun dropped.

showing the broken stair

A neighbor gave me a 39" piece of scrap 2x12, perfect to replace the broken stair tread.You can’t tell which one was broken, now.

Working on the deck.

Did a little amateur “ghost town archaeology” with a guest from the Pioneer Day Potluck, and found a white, ceramic door knob from a mortise lock, where the dance hall used to be. It’ll look good on the bathroom door. Her son, who was with her, is a roofer, who specializes in metal roofing!

Also hammered in six more mending plates. Only twelve more to go! If I’m really on my game, I can get a plate in with only seventy blows. Still seems like an awful lot of work with a three pound hammer, but I wouldn’t want to use a heavier one, which would damage the framing.

Wednesday, July 25, 2018

Hired a guy to help me. He’s a good worker, and needs the money, and I need the help, so it’s a good deal for both of us. Today we started decking. Got one line of decking panels glued and screwed down, plus another panel of the second (offset) line. Then the storm hit, and we had to stop working. Rain from every direction, a real downpour. Soaked everything, even downstairs in the root cellar! It’s going to take several hours for everything to dry out enough to do any work at all. Even the studs are too wet to pound mending plates into.

Anchoring the ladder so it will not slide.  It is wired to the top.

The sun was so hot, all the wood dried out after supper, so I worked on stabilizing the root cellar stairs. Got all but two of them done, before it got too dark to use the table saw safely. Good day’s work!

Thursday, July 26, 2018

Lots of good work today! G C (my employee) and I have figured out the best way to work as a team on decking. Since I have two electric drills, we were both screwing in screws, then he’d help me prepare the next sheet, which often involves sawing off a bit, then he, or I, or both of us would lay Liquid Nails on top of the joists, and position the sheet of OSB decking, and repeat. This worked OK, but was only a little faster than one person could do it. Yesterday, in five hours, we only got five sheets installed. Today, my oldest drill finally died, so we couldn’t both screw in screws. So I switched to prepping the next sheet while he was shooting in screws. It turns out that I can lay out and saw a sheet as fast as he can shoot screws. Then, while he’s starting to screw, I’m snapping chalk lines for him to follow. Both of us are working constantly, with no down time, and the work goes FAST. Today, in eight hours, we laid eleven sheets! Only one or two more days work, and we’ll have the whole deck done.

I even managed to get another root cellar step blocked. Only one more that needs to be done, but I may do the last one, that doesn’t actually need it, just to have it be the same as all the other steps. Also, still have a few mending plates to install, before we can start working on wall sheathing.

One thing I did NOT do was cut out the decking over the stairwell. I want to leave the whole floor flat and solid so I can build and/or set roof trusses, which take up a LOT of room. But if I’m going to build twenty-four of them, I’m going to need a full-size jig, which means thirty by thirty feet. So, for the near future, no stairs, which means we’ll still be climbing the ladder to get up and down. Maybe I’d better wire the ladder to the side of the house, instead of tying it with string, as I currently have it. I don’t think it’s going to blow down, but I’ll feel safer with wire.

Part of my worries is that some of my (adult) kids are coming to help next week, and bringing their kids. Right now, we’re living on a pretty standard construction site, which means, NOT KID SAFE. I don’t have time to fix all the dangerous things, so I worry.

Tomorrow will only be a half-day, as Barbara have to do shopping and laundry.

Saturday, July 28, 2018

Brought a 12 year old and 10 year old granddaughter home with us last night. Got home VERY late, then had to figure out how to make the couch into a bed for them. With their help, this morning I was able to finish all the decking. A daughter, her husband and grandson arrived about lunch time. With their help, we finished the root cellar stairs, and started sheathing the walls. Not easy to hold a full sheet of plywood in place on a wall, standing on a ladder, and nail it in place. Not enough hands, not tall enough, etc. Don’t know how I’m going to do it without them.

I’m thinking of screwing a screw into the decking, and another into the center of the plywood piece, near the top edge. Then lifting it up and tying or wiring the piece in place, or near enough that I can get one corner nailed in the right spot. Once the top two corners are right, I can nail the rest in place normally, that is to say, with lots of mistakes. I can remedy that, too, by measuring and chalk-lining the positions of the studs on the outside of the sheathing.

Another neighbor says to nail on the house-wrap with gasketed nails, instead of the staples one is “supposed” to use, as the staples will not hold it in a high wind, and the wrap is very expensive. I have thousands left over from nailing down the sheet plastic to cover the foundation and deck last fall, so that’s what I plan to do. I doubt that I’ll have enough time to install and paint the faux board-and-batten siding, before it gets too cold. That’ll have to be a spring project.

My nail gun just absolutely refuses to shoot two-inch nails, so I have to use three-inch. A minor irritation, except for the expense of the thousand nails I bought. Fortunately, I bought them at The Home Depot, so I hope they’ll let me return them. I don’t remember the price, but it was not inconsequential. If I had my way, I’d buy a nail gun that WILL shoot two-inch nails, and use that, but even the cheapest costs around $100.

Last time at The Home Depot, I finally bought my new ladder--my combined Father’s Day and Christmas present from Barbara and my children. It’s a Werner knockoff of the Little Giant ladders, but has a couple of minor features that actually make it easier to use than the Little Giant. It’s also a bit lighter. Extended full length, it has a “reach height” of 26 feet. This means that a person of  my height, standing on the highest safe rung, and reaching slightly above their head, could comfortably reach that work height. This means that I could successfully paint or install rain gutters at the peak of the west gable, the highest reach I am likely to ever need. I can probably even use it to work on the steep part of the roof!