Roof Trusses – Part I

I’m slowly getting caught up. Among other issues we’ve been battling a conflict between the posting app I like, Mars Edit, and my web hosts security need to limit the number of transactions per minute to prevent malicious attacks. This makes getting a post from Mars Edit a bit of a pain.

Today is a kind of interesting day each year. It’s the first day of the end of summer. There’s always one point about this time of year when you notice that it’s getting darker a lot earlier and so indicating that we’re on our way towards the much shorter days of winter. Last night driving home my wife said “it’s only 9 and already getting dark.” – the telltale sign. Today it gets noticeably darker about an hour and 30 minutes earlier than it did just a few weeks ago on 21 June when the sun set later and it never got as dark anytime during the night as it does now. 

The crane coming up our road. On the right is the bikeway that we ride to the grocery, pharmacy, wine shop, and a few different places to eat. It’s one of the primary reasons we chose to build here. Work with the crane had to be done in two parts. This first part is to get the steel beams in place and most of the roof trusses.

Executive Conference

They’re quick. They got the steel beams in place and started working on trusses before I could get my drone up to capture it.

Trusses going on west gable. Nick is working on the steel beams, Justin is standing on the wall to direct the crane operator, Sean and Dan are placing the trusses.

A bunch of trusses are on across the main part of the house and now the garage.

They’ve a good system down. 1) Nail on a support spacer.

2) Gently position the truss.

3) Rotate the support spacer down and nail it on.

4) Next. 

Do not try this at home as it may not end well.

I’ll leave the Miley Cyrus comments up to others.

Floor decking going on in what will be my office.

When you can’t get the color right just make it B&W and call it artistic.

They leave plywood sheathing over the windows and doors until enough structure is above them that the walls won’t move. With the roof trusses on they can finally begin cutting them out. These are in the NW corner of the kitchen and will be counter height.

A key reason we chose Murphy & Co architects and Hendel Homes. This is a very solid structure. There shouldn’t be any movement in any part of it for a century or more.

A few of the many trusses yet to be placed.

Move a gob of wood or make a scaffold support to go around it.

Looking through Spare Oom (my wife’s office and coolest room in the house) in to Narnia (cold storage over the garage).

Windows and door on the west end of the family room. It was fun to finally see this view.

Starting to look like a house.

Our son and daughter-in-law came to visit for a few days so I got to take him up to see the loft.

My Office.

Looking north across the loft from my office.

Alie, our daughter-in-law had never seen the north shore of Lake Superior in the summer, only when we’d go up in the winter to go skiing. So, off we went for an enjoyable weekend in Larsmont, just north of Duluth. Given the Scandihoovian population a sauna is a must. On the horizon you can see an ocean freighter, called a Saltie, heading to Rotterdam NL.