The Floor Joist Week

The first order of business this week was to remove the upper portion of the first three trusses of the garage so that we could set up the TGI's (engineered floor joists) on the beams.  Here Brendan is cutting thru the end gable truss after we had just completed removing all the shingles... hence the shadows from the roof strapping on the wall.

With the siding removed off the end gable and all the strapping taken off that section, we are ready to take off the end gable.

With a rope attached at the top of the gable, Brendan lowered it slowly and I was in position to receive it and take it away to separate the plywood from the 2 x 4's.  It came down perfectly!

Taking down the tops of the other trusses was pretty easy once they were cut off... Brendan just passed them down to me.  We then had to temporarily support those few trusses with 2 x 4's from the garage floor until we had some floor joists to attach them to.

After putting up the heavy LVL beams, these TGI's were light and much easier to handle... however, every one had to be cut to the right length first.

From the cutting table we lifted one end on to the beam...

I would then push the TGI just over half way so it would teeter into Brendan's hands.

And he would walk it up the ladder and set in place on the beam.

With an air nailer it made spiking the TGI's in place pretty easy and quick to secure.

At the mid point we had to assemble a 5-ply beam, which we used the tractor to carry these heavy LVL's (Laminated Veneer Lumber) to it's final resting place.

With a chain we kept the LVL attached to tractor bucket extension and Brendan walked beside it balancing it.

The tractor took the hard lifting out of this job.  Brendan just had to balance it into place as I drove forward putting the beam over the other beam.  We got to do this 5 times here... as this is the heaviest beam here.  With five ply's this one ends up 8.75 inches wide by 16 inches high and about 33 feet long.

On the other end the tractor lifts the beam close and Brendan takes up the final bit into place.

There is no doubt that the little tractor really helped to reduce the lifting we would have had to do.  It actually made setting up these beams fun!

This was a little sketch I did to figure out the bolt layout for this five-ply beam.  In addition to nailing each ply together with four rows of nails a foot apart... we also needed 5/8" bolts every 16 inches to secure these layers to make one very solid beam.  By determining the layout for the blots we could then nail with confidence knowing we wouldn't be hitting a nail when drilling holes for the bolts.  This helped me determine we needed to buy 24 10-inch 5/8" bolts with 24 nuts and 48 heavy washers.

It sure felt good to have most of the TGI's in place and this heavy beam in place... with the trim boards in place.  We left this centre beam un-trimmed for now... as this will carry a canopy roof that connects to the new master bedroom closet.  At this time I don't know exactly how that roof is going to come together.  There are a few possibilities of how much soffit it will have and how this will work best.

Shirley took this shot from her "Sunken Jungle."  It was a good week.

We still have the TGI's to put over the pantry and closet... but before we can do that we have some walls to build there as well as tear off the old eaves of the house in those areas.  With all the rain in the forecast we have left those eaves in tact as long as possible.

We pulled our car into it's future parking place on Saturday... where I took this photo of Shirley as we were heading out to an evening fund raiser for Pat Hennebery, the father of Brendan, who is suffering with Parkinson's Disease.   It won't be too hard to get used to this luxury.

Once again all the photos in this blog except this last one were taken by Shirley... who only charges me $1,000 for each one I use.