House Wrap Rap

Camera is out of batteries but progress continues and documentation calls!

The house's current state is this:

1- Three windows have been installed (the three biggest ones) and sealed with Protecto-Wrap 6"-wide tape as per the window department's recommendations. The extension jambs will be installed later once the interior paneling is more well defined (e.g., in hand). We think the preferred thickness of knotty pine is 5/16" but it's not at the job site yet.

2- The impossible hip rafter is finished!
2a- The impossible part of the roof over the porch is finished!
2b - Did we mention the impossible part is done?!

Basically the front of the Weebee has this complicated little roof which is there to make it look interesting and house-like and well put together, the way the outfit of a well-dressed New Yorker makes you say, wow, that is a well put together person, even though the person may or may not be well put together and, by extension, the house with a nice roof may or may not be well put together. But it's for effect.

Since the plans only included front and side elevations of the roof the actual dimensions of the plywood were not easy to see -- if we had it to do again we'd just use a CAD program, draw this section of roof, and get the dimensions of the pieces from the computer. This would not be a big task even for someone relatively new to CAD. NOTE TO ANYONE BUILDING THIS THEMSELVES WHO HAS NEVER MADE A HIP RAFTER: think about doing some CAD.

For the computerless, another method was used here. We used trigonometry to find the angles on the hip rafter, installed that, cut the plywood down, installed the "dormer window" (the small section of roof directly above the bay window seating area) and then went for the old school style: stapled a piece of house wrap (big paper would also suit) along the hip rafter and along the rafter which runs parallel to the back edge of the trailer (e.g., the rafter at top of bay window area -- we let this run the width of the house) -- then we pulled this paper taught and cut it with a razorblade where it intersected with the sheathing of the dormer window. Now we had a parallelogram-shaped sheet of paper aka a template from which to cut the plywood. This worked well. And, it's finally done. And, admittedly, it adds a nice effect to the aesthetic of the exterior of the house.

3- Most of the Tyvek house wrap is now on -- need to do a couple more sections (front of house and back of house)

4- Framed up a vent for the space above the bay window seat This will help the house comply with building codes enforced by anyone overzealous or diligent It's probably not strictly required since the square footage of the loft is so small and the loft already has a window (which opens) But it seemed like a good idea

5- Installed porch light and kitchen light (and wired them -- they work!)

6- Designed custom door

We were all set to start cutting the boards for the door (a panel door) and then noticed the wood was totally warped. We're working in Spanish Cedar. We mistakenly purchased planed lumber...... should have bought rough lumber so we could make sure it was totally perfectly planed and even since the door really must be even (building a warped door jamb to match a warped door does not seem like a good idea, though it could happen at a place like the Mystery Spot). So everyone went home crying their eyes out over this tragedy. Ok fine no one cried but it was a disappointment.

Interesting fact: "8 quarter" means "2 inches" in lumber-speak. 8 quarter rough lumber is on the order of 2 inches. When you buy smooth lumber, 8 quarter would be about 1-5/8" The ideal width for a solid door is 1-3/4" (the panels are thinner) So, back to the lumberyard to get The Right Stuff and go to town on this door. That will be an activity for next week.

In a stroke of convenience, Jeld-Wen makes a door jamb kit you can buy for $70 at Home Depot -- has the weather strip already installed. Can be cut to length. Hoorah.

The octagon windows don't have built-in vinyl flashing like the Anderson windows we're using for the rest of the house -- we're looking for input on how to seal up the octagons. Possibly just going to bend aluminum flashing and use oodles of silicon goop (that would be a metric oodle, not an english oodle) but interested to hear if anyone has other ideas.

These seem to be the salient lessons learned from recent memory. Onward!

A Window on the World

Today we installed the first window: progress! After being forewarned by everyone in the windows department (of a certain large hardware store chain which shall not be named) that it would take half a day to install a window (or we could pay them a paltry sum (300 dollars?! yowza!) to have them install it for us) we overcame our discouragement and went forth into the great blue yonder of DIY window installation.

Piece of cake! In less than an hour, we had the window shimmed in place (so that bottom edge was parallel with floor of house and side edges were even in the rough opening space), silicon-gooped until the end of time, sealed for extra measure with another piece of flashing over the top of the upper edge of the built-in plastic flashing flange, and installed with screws (1-5/8" fasteners were recommended; screws are used here since in the event of driving-down-the-highway road vibrations nails could potentially work themselves out). Here is the photographic evidence:



The eaves were sealed this week with 2x4s ripped on a table saw to have a 45-degree edge -- these were installed in the previously open space between the top of the wall and the underside of the roof sheathing.

In other news, yesterday we installed the hip rafter above the porch and made progress on the "dormer window" shape above the bay window area. The valley rafter still needs to be installed there, followed by more plywood. Then we'll be ready to put tar paper over the whole roof, flashing in the valley/hip, and the actual roof material (metal is planned). No soffit vents are being used.

And! Electricity is happening! All outlets are now wired to the subpanel and have been tested. It is a great thing to be able to plug in a drill or sawzall to an outlet INSIDE the house while working. Less tripping on extension cords. More glory.

Stay tuned for the upcoming chapter: let there be light!

Astronauts Take Over the Weebee

Today astronauts invaded the Weebee and inspected key features. They brought a number of space-age tools in apparent preparation for repair and maintenance procedures. Mission command specifically assigned them to the roof eaves assessment and creation mission, which they accepted with only minor chagrin.

Fortunately, the astronauts also brought along their payload specialist, the bagpipe player.

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.