Buangi Lane - page 6

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18 April 2008

After sorting out some more bracing Trev and I got on with nailing down all the joists. Dad had arrived for an extended weekend too, and got to finishing off the electric trench into the house. The showers came and went all day again. We got a break in the afternoon and with Otto's help as well we carried all the outside frames down the hill. While dad sorted some cabling Trev and I got the first of the floor sheets nailed down.

19 April 2008

The rain overnight wet everything again, and filled our trench in again. But after some bailing and getting stuck in the mud some more the electrics were ready to drop in. Trev spent some time sorting the flooring in the wet areas. Its a bit of a jigsaw and needs extra joists inserted for the ends to sit on. Dad had some fun playing with the Telstra conduit. We had one coming out of the pit to the top of the hill, but it seems that it had pulled out of the pit and when dad went to put the draw wire in, there was 2 feet of mud to get through. So he spent the afternoon digging more holes and fixing that up.

20 April 2008

So after slaving away digging the electric trench, it was time to fill it all in again. We cleaned up under the house as best we could, there is still a lot of water and mud there, but hopefully it'll dry out eventually. With the trench finished we could then stick the floor sheeting over the rest of the northern end of the house. And with the flooring down, we were able to stand the first of the frames up. Very exciting. We now have a complete wall! I was wrapped to stand there and look at the house taking shape. There's still some fine tuning of the frames to do, but they're up and looking great.

And because I probably won't get to the snow much (if at all) this year, I made my self a snowman. Out of mud. Man it sticks together well. I would love a few months of dry weather. You really get sick of the slop there.

27 April 2008

Another busy weekend. And the weather was finally nice to us. Was clear, sunny and warm all day Saturday. The first day of the holiday that is didn't rain. Dad and I got the floor finished off, and Trev was busy sorting more frames out. Once the floor was done we dragged all the other outside frames up and braced them into place. Looks fantastic, and you can really get a feel for all the rooms and where everything fits together. A very exciting stage. Now we can spend ages getting things square and stright and in the right spot. And then its the roof!

11 May 2008

The last week and a bit we've been sorting out frames. Getting them square and true. Using the car trailer tie-downs to pull them in to the spots required. I finished off the bracing around the sub-floor. Its all done now. So last Friday Glenn and Corey gave Trev and I a hand to move all the big roof trusses down onto the house. They weren't that heavy, but very fragile when not in the right plane. Saturday before Trev had to go off to see Billy Elliot in Sydney we started on the diagonal frame bracing. Got them tensioned up. In the afternoon I went around and put nails into all of them. Then started on the ply sheet corner bracing.

Sunday Trev and I moved 2 trusses into position and stood them up. We're going to join the circus after this as trapese artists! Was a bit of fun balancing up there holding the trusses in position while nailing on the bracing. We got the 2 braced and solid. They're not in the final position yet, they need to move over. But we need some there so we can build a platform to get the 4 trusses in over the kitchen/dining area as they don't rest on any frames. Once that was done we put some more ply sheet bracing on. With nails every 150mm vertically and 50mm horizontally we went through a few. We were doing them manually, and I only hit my thumb 3 times, although the second time was a beauty!

But its great to see where the line of the roof will be and how it will look. It makes it more visible across the hill now too.

18 May 2008

Trev has done some more practice for the circus, and we have more of the roof trusses up and in place. There is plenty of temporary bracing on there at the moment, but things are pretty much in the correct spot. Now there is some fiddling involved in getting the rest of the jack and hip trusses into place. Then it all needs to be tied down. Kitome says 2 skew nails for each truss end, but we're going to put triple grip brackets on for extra security. So its coming along. We really need to get as much done as we can. Trev is going away on June 20 and it would be nice to get the roof sorted by then. We'll see how we go.

23 May 2008

Once all the trusses are up progress appears to slow down. For all the time we have spent adjusting, straightening and squaring up the trusses, it looks like nothing has been done. But we're getting there with the roof. Still a long way to go and a whole lot more fiddling to do. We need to start on the verandah too as the roof on it needs to go one before the big roof.

1 June 2008

More fiddling about with trusses. But at least you can see the progress on the verandah. While Trev started on the verandah dad and I got to nailing all the cyclone straps on the ends of the trusses. The plans said for only 2 skew nails, but we figured this wouldn't tie down anything, so put straps on all of them. While dad and I continued cutting and hanging the verandah joists Trev started on the outriggers on the roof gables. There is still a lot of hanger brackets and nails to put in the verandah, but its looking great.

edit: June 6 - Only just got pics. I was going to go back Monday and take some snaps of the weekends work, but it started to rain, and has only just stopped today. Of course everything is wet again, and the mud has gone back to being sticky.

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