Well this week has probably been the most challenging and the most frustrating. Want to know why? THE ROOF. If someone told me that I would have to resort back to high school geometry with Coach Leicht I would have hired a contractor to come over and just do the damn calculations for us. The Pythagorean Theorem has never brought out so much anger in both of us. It wasn't even the equation itself, which is pretty straight forward...it was the fact that it didn't work! Every time we solved for C, a.k.a. the length of our rafters, it somehow did not sit flush when we actually made the cuts.
Bottom line is that when Shannon tells you to use the Pythagorean Theorem, don't do it. Sorry, Shannon...we love you. After using the guess and check system for the half of the roof that we actually got done this week, we realized that the ridge beam was not 100% centered (it was off by maybe 1/16" or 1/8") so one side ended up being a 41 degree angle and the other side was more like 45 degrees. This explained the whole math thing not working out.
Once we got one rafter on each side to fit perfectly, we kept them as templates, and traced their cuts onto the rest of the 2 x 4s that would become the rest of the rafters. We also left about 6" after the bird's mouth (the cutout in the rafter that sits on the framing of the house) for an overhang. We decided we would worry about the accuracy of the overhang later. We will just go back and with the SkilSaw and cut the overhanging boards to be even.
Please tell me that you don't get a headache just looking at all these scrap papers filled with our multiple attempts at the Pythagorean Theorem. This isn't even all of them....yea.
Bottom line is that when Shannon tells you to use the Pythagorean Theorem, don't do it. Sorry, Shannon...we love you. After using the guess and check system for the half of the roof that we actually got done this week, we realized that the ridge beam was not 100% centered (it was off by maybe 1/16" or 1/8") so one side ended up being a 41 degree angle and the other side was more like 45 degrees. This explained the whole math thing not working out.
Once we got one rafter on each side to fit perfectly, we kept them as templates, and traced their cuts onto the rest of the 2 x 4s that would become the rest of the rafters. We also left about 6" after the bird's mouth (the cutout in the rafter that sits on the framing of the house) for an overhang. We decided we would worry about the accuracy of the overhang later. We will just go back and with the SkilSaw and cut the overhanging boards to be even.
Queen of the Chop Saw! I was the designated rafter tracer and cutter
The start of screwing in our supports for the ridge beam. The diagonal board is just a temporary brace.
The supports are up and the ridge beam is in place. We decided to use a 2x7 x 20' ridge beam made of manufactured wood. I don't remember the exact name of it. It was more expensive because it is stronger, but we figured if we are going to splurge on any wood, it would be the wood that's holding our roof together.
Not sure what Jon's doing here. Something important, I'm sure.
Next, we started to nail on the hurricane brackets that we purchased. These secure the rafters to the house framing/wall. Here I am, owning that ladder and nailing away.
Here is the video that we watched in preparation for doing the roofing. Even though, in the end, we didn't use the Pythagorean Theorem to determine our rafter length, I think this video is helpful in understanding roof framing and installation...like if your house is actually even...and straight.
Jon and I actually filmed an amateur YouTube video today of our easier strategy that ended up saving us a ton of time in the end. That video will be uploaded in next week's update blog post! Get ready for some serious carpentry. Here is a picture of the progress we made as of Sunday 8/24...damn tree is in the way but you can get an idea.
Last week's progress!
Galena, the poster dog for what neglect looks like. She will pretty much be satisfied with any of these three balls being thrown. She no longer has a preference. Sadly, we have not been playing with her nearly as much as before. This project has been pretty time consuming. POOR LITTLE GALENA!!!!
No comments:
Post a Comment