Garage roof almost done

The extra matrials for the garaged arrived on Wednesday last week which made it possible for us to continue working on the garage. First on the list was the missing perimeter beam, which turned out to be a hard job to put up. The beam was cut to size to fit between the other beams already attached to the posts. We first placed one ladder on each post and tried to carry the beam up. This method was used on other beams, but it turned out to be a bit too heavy for the two of us. Second attemt was to use ropes on either end of the beam and pull it up, but this too turned out to hard. Third attemt was Jodie holding one rope at the time, whilst Geir carried one end of the beam further up the ladder. This went OK for a while, but then the wind started blowing and it got a bit scary on top of the ladder with a 4.8 meter beam in your hands. So we took a break.......

....and in the break came the two concreters to help us find the level to use for filling in sand below our slab, before putting down the void formers (also called pods), steel, etc. Having finished finding the level, they had a look at the beam and said: "hey, we can put that up for you". So the two of us ended up holding the ropes, whilst the two concreters (Albert and Kevin) walked up the ladders with the beam between them and putting it in place. It was then clamped in place and Geir could drill the holes for the bolts to hold it up.

The next task was to put up the roof beams in the middle of the garage/workshop, that helps holding the roof trusses up. We got up bright and early on Thursday to start the work, and just after getting all the equipment out, our friend Laurie from the other side of the hill, turns up and says: "I have five hours free, what do you want me to do?". So Laurie helped us put up the two beams across the building. We first had to build up a little pyramide above the double door lintel on the wall dividing the garage and the workshop. Then we lifted up one end of the 6.4 metre beam onto this wall, before walking up the ladder with the other end to fix it to the post at the north end of the building. After that we had lunch - of course - and then we did the other beam over the workshop in a similar way.

Next task was the rafters - 28 in all - that had to be installed on top of the perimeter beams and the middle beams. In the original drawings our designer specified either using hybrid laminated beams that could span the full width of the garage, or to use seasoned hardwood where two rafters joined in the middle. When talking to him, we also found that we could use green hardwood, which turned out to be around AUD 400 cheaper than the other alternatives. The dimension is a bit bigger, but it saved us a lot of money. So we then cut the ends of all the rafters to get the right angle for the fascia board and gutter, before we started the process of putting up the rafters the next day.

Putting up the rafters were actually quite easy. We first put up rafters at either end, then put a string line in place at the front, back and the middle, so that we could adjust the rest of the rafters accordingly. The rafters are all fixed with tripple grips (a special metal bracket) and nails. As we started the work, we also got the void formers for our slab delivered, so we had to use a couple of hours unloading these from two containers, stacking them up and tying them down. We had received all the steel work for the main slab earlier in the morning, so we used 4 sheets of mesh (6m x 2.4m) as a base for the void formers. These were then stacked in 34 piles with 4 in each to ensure that we did not go to high - in order to avoid damage from winds. We then placed another 4 sheets of steel on top, and tied the top steel down to the bottom using rope. In addition, we placed some other steel work on top to help hold it all down. The void formers are made out of polystyren, so we do not want them to blow away......

Anyway, back to the rafters.....we completed the rafters on Friday and were then ready to do the outriggers and battens on Saturday. The outriggers help holding the rafter at the far end of the roof connected to the rest of the building, even tough it is not supported by anything below. This is done by having pieces of wood connected to the last rafter and connected to the perimeter beam, with a continued span out in the air on the side of the building. The final rafter is then nailed or screwed to the side of these pieces of wood at the same level of the last rafter inside the square frame of the building. It is a bit hard to see from the picture below, but as you can see, there are pieces of wood sticking out to the right and left of the building, well pasted the posts holding the roof up.

We tought it would be relatively easy to put up the outriggers and last rafters, but we were very wrong indeed. Well, we now know that it is not too hard, but we had to learn the hard way, and it took us all of Saturday to put up 3 of the 4 sets of outriggers.

So, the last few outriggers had to wait for Sunday, and then our good friend Andy also showed up and offered a helping hand. We had the outriggers more or less completed by the time he came, and then we started on the battens (wood across the rafters that are used to fix the colourbond roof). Andy did the work with the drill and the screws, Geir placed the battens in place and Jodie prepared screws with soap to help ensure they went in smoothly in the green hardwood.

And the end result so far is as follows:

And here are a couple of pictures of Andy giving us a helping hand:

So, tomorrow we will be ordering the colourbond materials - we had to wait until we had the exact measurements of the roof, which by the way are 8.0 metres wide and 11.57 metres long - and they should then arrive on Thursday the coming week. So next weekend might be roofing time, at least if it stays quiet. Putting up roofing sheets is most certainly not a job to do on a windy day.

We should soon also be ordering sand, cement, and lime so that we are prepared for the stacking of strawbales and rendering. We are a bit unsure about the rendering, but as it is very expensive to have it done, we will give it a go at the garage and see what we think before we decide whether to get help with the house or do do it ourselves.

But before we start putting up the bales we will finalise the house slab now that the materials are all here. More words and pictures are sure to follow when we get to the house slab.

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