Roofing continued

Roofing continued... When we ran our string line we realised the packers were too short to where the fly rafter would sit. We needed to wedge them out from the inside truss to correct this and put blocks in to compensate for them being short.

 

Once we had them corrected, we fixed them across the purlin and into the truss.

We used a straight edge on the apex across two trusses to get our fly rafter into position.

We got our fly rafter into position, clamped it up and fixed.

Unfortunately our fly rafter moved from that position we had it at, and only realised after we tried to fit the second fly rafter, so we had to redo it, to get it correct at the apex again.

The nogs that were supplied with the roof frame pack up were installed and wiredogs fixed to help prevent up lift in high wind zones.

 

Extra timber for support in the gable end truss frames needed to be cut and fit around diagonal bracing.

More had to go in, anywhere there was a stud was below.

roof construction

We got the trusses delivered today. We were lucky enough the delivery guy could use his crane to put our trusses up on our roof. He made a bit of a lazy error by standing under the pack when he was hoisting it over head from the truck to roof. We need to be careful around these packs to stay well clear as the strapping is unlikely to, but could break and fall on someone.

 

We needed to mark where the trusses would sit on the double top plate, so we had a running measurement going down the length of the house.

Once we had our trusses up we needed to get them all sitting aligned at the apex. We had one guy at the top checking this as we readjusted them with the sledge hammer and each side of the house. We then could start marking out where our purlins would go. We left the trusses strapped and marked off where the purlins would go along all the trusses, the max spacing for purlins are 750mm and the first purlin down from the apex we measure 150mm, the ridge capping gets fixed to these purlins.

We needed three cleats at each gable end for the trusses to be slid along to, and helped support as we plumbed, braced and fixed them. We cut them so they would protrude over the trusses when they were fixed to the wall. To check the wall was still straight after we fixed the cleats we ran a string line with dodger blocks the thickness of the cleats.

We fixed the brace at the floor and adjusted the truss back and forth at the top till we got it plumb on the level.

As the trusses were bowed we needed to straighten them. At the gable end we straightened it by fixing one end straight and plumb, and then moving down the length of the truss clamping and fixing by skewing nails as we went, straightening it out.

 

Once the gable ends were done, we could start moving the intermediate trusses along to the marks we had done earlier on the double top plate.

We undid the strapping and released the first truss that was fixed to the one beside it with a nail.

On the back end of the house we walked the trusses down to their marks, one by one. Using a spacer we fixed the nogs alternately, one right below the nail plate on the trusses and the other below that one on the truss following. We also had a spacer at the bottom sitting on a ceiling batten so we had the same distance on the trusses, top and bottom.

At the other end of the house we had two mobile scaffolds down the centre of the lounge so one person could walk it down through the centre, and a person each side of the house could also walk the truss along on the exterior scaffold.

Once we had all the trusses standing we ran a string line down the apex to make sure the trusses were align at the apex and any that weren’t would get the sledge hammer treatment to knock it into place.

We have ceiling runners running the length of the house; we fixed the bottoms of the trusses to these once we had them plumb with the addition of the diagonal braces for extra support in the roof (three nails must go in the top and bottom of these braces).

Where we marked for our purlins we put bright nails just below to rest our purlins on till we’re ready to fix.

Here we have the purlins being run; we want the purlin to end on half the width of a truss, so we had a saw up with us to cut them back to this point.

The purlins needed two cyclone ties on each end of a truss connecting to the wall frame to prevent uplift and need to be fixed the right way round.

For the bottom purlin we used a square against the plumb cut of the truss which prevents the purlin getting in the way of the facier.

We needed strapping over the roof and for it to be fixed to the wall framing on the side and underneath the top plate. We chiselled out a channel for the strap to run on the exterior of the wall frame so it wouldn’t protrude and interfere with exterior cladding.

We had to make sure the strapping was straight and tight going up to the gable end truss. The strapping went over the trusses and under the perlins. We also had another strap going from a nog we fixed up at the apex down to and around the top plate at the end of the house. We also have two more straps to fit to the front end of the house.

Next we cut some packers to sit underneath the cantilevered purlins that will support our fly rafter at the back end of the house. We ran a string line with dodger blocks from the end of a packer at the length we require up to the apex and down to the other side. From here we can make sure all our packers are sticking out to the correct length for our fly rafter to be straight.

As part of the roof pack we got our timber to construct the outriggers on the front of the house. Any overhang of over 450mm needs an outrigger system.

To construct the outriggers we ran running measurements down the length of the outrigger.  The first measurement was 150mm, which is where the first nog will sit up near the apex.Then 600mm thereafter until the end nog, which is only 10mm in from the plumb cut end at the bottom of the eve.

scaffolding

Today we started the scaffolding of the house so we donned our hardhats; this was a good thing as I probably bumped that helmet about three times ducking and weaving through the scaffolding

We dismantled the scaff on the semester one house’s (I’m sure they will be much appreciative of that since they won’t have to do it themselves) and carried it all up to our site.

We put a dazzle down to the spacing we wanted to build the scaffolding to the house.

 We lay sole plates for the scaff to sit on and started construction.

We got our ledgers, standards and right angle couplings at the ready. As the six metre lengths of scaff were so long we needed at least two people to stand them. One would stand at one end with their foot on the end and the other would walk the pipe up towards the other till vertical. 

We made sure to plumb and level as we went along. Louise cut a timber spacer which saved us time pulling out our measuring tape every two minutes.

Using a ‘standard’ running on an angle with the swivel couplings was excellent obviously for support to the structure, but also when plumbing the standards, we would fix at the bottom of the diagonal standard and adjusted till plumb at the top, and fixed there.

Every pipe that stuck out we put a bright yellow plastic cap on for safety.

To the horizontal ledgers we would fix putlogs.

When using any coupling we made sure the seating was always below.

Pipes that needed to be extended we used joiners; these were particularly useful when the pipe would end right on a point where we would need to put a vertical member. We should have checked before we fixed the pipe and started fixing that the end wouldn’t fall on a point where a standard would have to go in, we could have picked two shorter pieces of piping and a joiner to go past the point where a vertical needed to go up.

We found that if we went two sections along and plumbed it there and then worked back the previous section wouldn’t need much straightening up at all.

We needed to have a scaffold to a height above the roof at the gable end at the back of the house. We made three levels of scaffold at the gable end. When we finish our work on the roof we will take the very top level scaffolding planks off as we work down the house.

We fixed the scaffold planks down with putlog clips (2 per plank on an edge).