Roof Work Illuminated

Updates from the last week -- we framed the roof this past week and held a ridge ceremony on Monday night, nailing a pine branch to the ridge. We then completed the rest of the rafter pairs and put the sheathing up. Here's a picture of the cutouts on the exterior plywood where the rafters go. This was measured out beforehand to enable fast rafter installation. The reason for the cutouts was to minimize the amount of material to be removed from each 2x4 for the bird's mouth cuts.

To put the ridge up, as described previously, the rafter coordinates were laid out on the ridge piece on the ground. Here's an action shot of the ridge installation. You can see the metal brackets which were preinstalled on the ridge. Three rafter pairs were sufficient to hold up the ridge.
Next, the plywood sheathing was installed lengthwise (e.g., long side parallel to long axis of trailer). First we installed the shorter piece (at the eaves), which was about 19 inches wide. We then lifted up the larger piece (the full 4'x8' sheet) and rested it on this smaller piece, rotating it around the seam such that it lifted slightly off each rafter so that glue could be squeezed into the gaps. Then we lowered it back into place. Next, we slid the sheet up about 1 inch (up toward the ridge) and installed plywood clips at the unsupported edge for strength. Then we let the sheet slide back down into place and proceeded to place screws every 6-8 inches as for all other sheathing. We found it helpful to stand in the window openings while installing the roof sheathing -- yet another reason not to install the windows quite yet.

There is a double rafter pair at the extreme end (the trailer hitch side of the trailer, i.e., the back wall of the house) since this wall must be wide enough to accommodate insulation. All told there ended up being 9 rafter pairs for this main portion of the roof.

Tonight we finished framing the pseudo-dormer window on the front of the house (it's not really a window but we're not sure what else to call it). We will proceed with sheathing that portion later.

Installing the First Rafters

Today we installed the first three rafter pairs and put up the ridge -- a milestone indeed! We set up a cot on the floor of the loft to enable a creative method of clamping... wherein one person lies on their back and holds up a rafter pair while the rest of us scamper around installing other rafter pairs. We decided three rafter pairs would be enough to hold up the ridge (the 165-inch 2x4 which is directly beneath the peak of the roof). It took five people to complete the ridge installation -- one human clamp (on cot on loft), one human foundation (holding a 14-foot 2x4 vertical as a support for another rafter pair), two scampering drill wielders leaping from beam to beam to install metal brackets supporting each rafter, and one videographer to document the scene. The videographer was soon pulled into the fray as well though, rest assured, filming continued.

Rafters were laid out using a template drawn to scale on a spare sheet of 4x8 plywood. To make the bird's mouth cuts (notches where rafter meets top of wall) each piece was placed on the template and marked accordingly.

The location of each rafter on the ridge was marked beforehand and small angle brackets were installed on the ridge while it still lay on the ground. This meant less awkward drilling while the human clamp's endurance was being tested -- all that needed to be done in terms of alignment was to anchor each rafter to the top of the wall and then place it against its designated bracket on the ridge and drill in two screws.

The rafters are 24" on center with one exception for installation of the skylight.

The next step will be to install the remaining rafter pairs and then sheath the roof. Exciting times!

Action Shot:: Installing Sheathing

Here is a view of the house-in-progress with the porch in the foreground. You can see the nail plates along the back wall intended to protect the electrical wiring from misguided future construction events (e.g., modifications). 2x6 cedar boards have been installed for looks. The glorious blue tarp is currently serving as a pseudo-roof in order to enable inclement weather progress.

Sheathing the Frame

Welcome to the blog about building a Weebee! Here you can track the progress of this epic project and, hopefully, learn new things about buildings/structures/windows/mobility.

This has been mostly a weekend/evening project. The steps completed thus far:
-flatbed trailer acquisition
-installation of subfloor
-completion of wall frames
-installation of wall frames onto subfloor
-installation of loft floor joists and plywood (used 1/2" plywood)
-installation of some of the wall sheathing

So, in other words, it looks like half a house.

To put the 3/8" sheathing on the outside of the house, construction adhesive is applied to the studs and then the plywood is clamped in place and secured using 2" screws with ~8" spacing. In order to cut the right shape for the wheel wells, the plywood was temporarily clamped to the inside of the wall next to the wheel well so that the outline could be traced onto it directly (a piece of aluminum flashing placed along the wheel well helped with the trace). This was then cut out with a jigsaw and final adjustments were made with a plane and a random orbital sander. Silicon caulk (100% silicon) was used to seal the plywood-wheel well interface.

Alright! Back to work.