The Trusses

Saturday

We had everything in place to put the trusses up on Saturday. We had nearly a dozen people ready to come up and help, the scaffolding was in place and the boom truck was reserved from the lumber yard. But, plans began to change when the driver of the boom truck refused to drive his truck down our "steep" slope down to the house. So, we began making plans for manually lifting the trusses into place while the flatbed truck dropped our trusses onto the hard wet ground.

To make matters a little more stressful, we noticed that there was a little dmanage to one of the gable end trusses. All the while the wind howled in sharp gusts, tossing tarps and bending the trees. All signs told us to wait to put the trusses up. So, all hands were called and kept on hold for a couple of hours. While we waited for the weather to turn, we put in fireblocking and cut bird blocking with help from Jane's dad, Read. We also put in the plywood for the risers in the stairs, totally closing them in. A couple of hours later, the weather still wasn't cooperating. So, Saturday's plans were put off until Sunday.

Sunday

Sunday morning began slowly as the wind continued howling. But, in the distance there were spots of clear skies. While Eli cut notches in the first gable end truss for the lookouts, Jane went to town and got some last minute supplies and shortly after she got home, the crew was there and right to work. Scaffolding and planking wereset up to provide the crew with an elevated place to roll the trusses into place. We had a slightly different rolling experience to most because we had specially ordered trusses with a really large "energy heel". This allows us more space to insulate. So, we cut notches into the plywood before the trusses were put into place, thus giving us a castle look until the truss installation.

Then, when the trusses came up, they were set right into the notches, spaced and then fastened. After the second truss, the skies miraculously cleared and what had been forecasted as a rainy and windy day turned into a gorgeous sunny one.

Once everyone got going, this was a pretty rapid process. Including the time taken to make and install 4 lookouts on the gable ends, it took 2 and 1/2 hours to get all the trusses up!! The last gable end had to have some repairs done to it and had the lookout notched cut out before it was lifted.

The crew was fed a hearty meal and thanked profusely.

Then, Jane and Eli continued bracing and securing the trusses and marveled at the progress.