Wow, no rain for a whole week (knock on wood). Lots of fog, but the sun has been out for several days. Framers were upstairs last week. They added the floor joists (BCI 5000 and 6500 engineered floor joists, 11 7/8" high), the 3/4" A/C plywood subfloor, and then started framing and rolled up the exterior walls (2x6).On Friday they got the second floor exterior finished, and we're waiting for two large overhead beams to arrive on Monday. The big one is a 26-ft long 6 3/4" x 21" Gluelam and the shorter one (first floor bedroom) is a 22-ft long 5 1/4" x 18" Versalam. The gluelam is basically a sandwich of 2x6s, 14 of them glued together on their broad side. It weighs about 750 pounds, whereas the smaller Versalam only weighs 500 pounds.
On Monday morning, Carl's dropped off (skidded) the beams using a tilt bed truck, and in the afternoon, a small crane arrived to lift these in place. The bedroom (Versalam) beam went in first: it sits in a pocket of the upstairs bedroom and rests in top of the outside bedroom wall, each of which accommodate big Simpson brackets (4@ $60 each). Once that was done, Gary and crew wrestled the bigger one onto the peak of the roof (26 ft above grade). It dropped right into the brackets like a hot dog in its bun (its getting to be lunch time, can you tell). Troy (Gary's son) nonchalantly walked out onto the beam and undid the lifting straps—Nancy couldn't even watch this part.
On Tuesday morning they'll start the roof rafters. These will be hand built from 2x12 # 1 DF (doug fir) for most of the house. Twenty three engineered roof trusses are used for the roof over the mudroom and garage, where I asked for an box-type attic truss. This will allow some additional work space in the garage attic for storing wood or other manly stuff. The roof-truss company (TrusWorks in Bothel, WA) will send someone over to confirm the measurements, then build them in a week±. I suspect they'll arrive at the end of the month, just 2 weeks away. Once all the trusses and roof rafters are in place, we can put the 5/8" OSB (oriented strand board) roof underlayment on and the house will be "dried in". I suspect this event will be accompanied by the onset of a record setting drought in the Pacific NW.So today is Day 90 of the build, which puts us at about 25% into our allowed 9 month (273 day) schedule. So far, so good. Once the roof is on (late February), the weather won't be a real factor and it should be getting warmer. Days are already noticeably longer (sunset at 4:30 pm) and by the vernal equinox on April 21, we'll have 12 hrs of sunlight ( fog permitting).
