A Little Living: The Roof! The Roof! The Roof is on Fiyah! {slash: top of the house where it should be, right?}

Exhausted from climbing and felling a spreading chestnut hanging over two outbuildings on Friday in return for half of my final months full rent ($625, yowsa!) and a morning workday in the powercuts, Saturday had a minimum of productivity. I did cut the rafters, quite efficiently and cleaned up the auto shop...sooo much more metal and grinder disk dust.

Worm drive saw set at 14 degrees (3:12 pitch)

Finished the cut with a handsaw.

Saturday was the BIG day, and darn beautiful! I moved the trailer around back and had a little struggle getting off 2 of the wheels, ended up having to deflate them completely and take out one of the spring bolts to lower the axle (design flaw!). I got the rafters bolted on and got the 3" foil-faced polyiso insulation rough cut and set between the rafters (gaps to be filled with foam in a can later). I then measured the diagonals on the roof and one was about an inch longer than the other. I called up good friend Gred and he said he was headed to the shop anyways and would bring a come-along. Unfortunately, he showed up sans come-along, but willing to help as I was incredibly akwardly attempting to lift 4 sheets, individually, of 5/8" x 4' x 8' OSB out of the bed of my truck and onto the roof. It wasn't happening.

"Gred, Help!"

Thanks Gred!

I had already sent up the other 4 pieces of insulation to go on top of the rafters, so there is zero "thermal bridging" and got to setting 3 of them in place and Zip taping them together. Then I started shuffling around sheathing to get the 4th piece of insulation placed and taped and finally got the sheathing laid out properly (tongue goes up-slope!) and got a few screws in so I could feel much more comfortable standing and moving on the roof.

Thanks to Ashlyn for filming it ALL! Videos will be making their way here soon.

I set to pre drilling all my holes into the rafters roughly every 6", then worked on getting all the screws in. I was very happy I went with standard 24" O.C. rafters spacing and only had to pop chalk lines at the short ends of the roof, all the other lines were already marked on the OSB. Since the OSB seams butted over the rafters, but were 3" away I used a fender washer to use only one screw, but hold down both boards. I guess I could have "toe screwed" them, but figured I had enough screws elsewhere to keep the OSB from moving sideways.

Almost all was done around 7:30 (headlamp to the rescue!) except for that last little strip I needed to rip for the bottom edge, the screws at the short ends, taping the seams, and getting the billboard tarp on. I tidied up and got Gib's tires re-inflated with the help of a ratchet strap and his special trick of taking the air chuck off and removing the valve core to get a bigger shot of air to seat the bead.

Apparently I hadn't had enough headlamp/moonlight work for the evening and helped DZ and KC finish planting and straw-mulching their garlic. It was nice to get a little unplanned time in the garden soil before the year end.

[sigh]

Monday morning came quick and beautifully!

I'll sure miss this house.

Had to push myself to cook breakfast and not just go running off into the day.

First stop, returning wheels and tires. Wah-wah-wah. I started jacking up the trailer and those jack stands at the rear just flopped sideways and everything fell to the ground.

No problem though, just a quick run across the field to visit you neighborhood Gib and borrow a "handy man" jack (aka hi-lift)

That jack is awesome (double aka a bumper jack)

It helped to use a foot on the tire iron to avoid palm pain.

Next stop, Ray and Teresa's for some more windows they've been offering me for a few weeks now.

A bit 'o workin' at the day job with a little quadcopter drone action for lunch and I was back outside by 4:30 to finish up the loose ends.

Matt loved the quadcopter he got last week so much, he ordered a second one..supposedly flies much better. Admittedly, they're quite a bit of fun, but I think I can resist buying one for now. Anyways, he was stoked to do some aerial vidoes, yes, yes, soon, I promise.

"It'll go that way!"

So excited! Gotta love Matt's enthusiasm for...EVERYTHING!

Going for another angle.

You can barely make out the speck that is the 'copter, almost dead center.

I think a mask of some sort is pretty important with plywood and OSB especially because there's so much glue in them, but even wood dust made from most power tools can be bothersome. Oh, and don't cut your neck or anything.