Framing - About 70% Done
Tomorrow, weather permitting, we will reach another major milestone; the trusses will be set in place for the main roof. We have been in the framing stage for the past 5 weeks or so, and alot of progress has been made. The garage and room over the garage is nearly complete, and the main walls of the house, except for the complicated rear wall, are in place. Linz and I have spent countless hours preparing the main trusses, which included alot of complicated cutting, planing, sanding, routing, and hole-drilling. I tackled the first truss on my own to save myself some embarrassment in case it didn't go together as-designed, but it turned out perfectly and the framers finished the other one today. More about the trusses below.
We wanted exposed trusses in the large vaulted great room of the house, and decided to just vault the entire structure, settling on two heavy timber scissor trusses to complete the look. Alot of "heavy timber trusses" in modern construction are faked using pre-engineered standard wood trusses in multiple plies, and then wrapped in hardwood to give the illusion of heavy timber. I just couldn't bring myself to go that route as an engineer, so we did the real thing, but with a twist. Instead of solid sawn timber, we used glulam beams, which are larger dimension beams "built up" out of conventional lumber pieces stacked and glued together. The trusses are made up of 9-1/4" x 5-1/8" top and bottom chords, with smaller 6-1/4" x 5-1/8" web members. The beams came in rough lengths and had to be cut with all the miters to fit together properly into the truss. We quickly discovered that cutting beams this thick with a standard skil saw from both sides was a pain, so we got a massive 16-15/16" monster skil saw to help with that task. It worked great! The entire system of truss components are connected at the joints with 1/4" steel truss plates we had fabricated locally from plate drawings we created in-house. The files we generated in CAD were input directly into a plasma cutting table which burned the plates out of a larger sheet of steel. The brackets were then welded together and painted in my shop using an industrial acrylic black semi-gloss. Each truss was then fit together on the floor of the new great room and kitchen, and all 180 holes were painstaking drilled to accept the 3/4" thru-bolts holding the assembly together. We've gone through about every 3/4" drill bit in the greater Charleston area, but they are complete and ready for the crane to set them into place!
The framers have done an excellent job following the plans and making changes on the fly, which have included modifying the room over the garage to become our new master suite (at least for the foreseeable future), adding a walk-through from the master to the balcony at the front of the house, and various other smaller improvements. The master was relocated to the room over the garwge when we discovered the view from up there was incredible, and decided to add a rear dormer and a set of large windows to maximize it.
Our next move is to utilize a large hydraulic crane (telescoping boom, outriggers, etc.) to pick up and place each truss (about 3000# each) and the heavy steel moment frame in the rear wall (about 2000# assembled). I'll let the pictures tell the rest of the story (in no particular order), but we are hoping that tomorrow goes smoothly and we don't drop anything, break anything, or hurt anyone. Fingers crossed!
We wanted exposed trusses in the large vaulted great room of the house, and decided to just vault the entire structure, settling on two heavy timber scissor trusses to complete the look. Alot of "heavy timber trusses" in modern construction are faked using pre-engineered standard wood trusses in multiple plies, and then wrapped in hardwood to give the illusion of heavy timber. I just couldn't bring myself to go that route as an engineer, so we did the real thing, but with a twist. Instead of solid sawn timber, we used glulam beams, which are larger dimension beams "built up" out of conventional lumber pieces stacked and glued together. The trusses are made up of 9-1/4" x 5-1/8" top and bottom chords, with smaller 6-1/4" x 5-1/8" web members. The beams came in rough lengths and had to be cut with all the miters to fit together properly into the truss. We quickly discovered that cutting beams this thick with a standard skil saw from both sides was a pain, so we got a massive 16-15/16" monster skil saw to help with that task. It worked great! The entire system of truss components are connected at the joints with 1/4" steel truss plates we had fabricated locally from plate drawings we created in-house. The files we generated in CAD were input directly into a plasma cutting table which burned the plates out of a larger sheet of steel. The brackets were then welded together and painted in my shop using an industrial acrylic black semi-gloss. Each truss was then fit together on the floor of the new great room and kitchen, and all 180 holes were painstaking drilled to accept the 3/4" thru-bolts holding the assembly together. We've gone through about every 3/4" drill bit in the greater Charleston area, but they are complete and ready for the crane to set them into place!
The framers have done an excellent job following the plans and making changes on the fly, which have included modifying the room over the garage to become our new master suite (at least for the foreseeable future), adding a walk-through from the master to the balcony at the front of the house, and various other smaller improvements. The master was relocated to the room over the garwge when we discovered the view from up there was incredible, and decided to add a rear dormer and a set of large windows to maximize it.
Our next move is to utilize a large hydraulic crane (telescoping boom, outriggers, etc.) to pick up and place each truss (about 3000# each) and the heavy steel moment frame in the rear wall (about 2000# assembled). I'll let the pictures tell the rest of the story (in no particular order), but we are hoping that tomorrow goes smoothly and we don't drop anything, break anything, or hurt anyone. Fingers crossed!
Both trusses assembled and ready for lifting (36' span, 28' center height), Evie in foreground for scale
Standing in the loft looking toward front wall and garage
The view from the loft without the rear wall in place
Standing on rear screen porch slab, looking in at kitchen and great room
Truss #1 under construction, plates in place but no holes yet
Front yard looking at front door (right side, and garage)
Back yard looking up at master dormer
Beginning truss assembly
The monster saw!
Raw truss plates ready for paint
Chris, Grandpa Otto would be proud! He would probably do it the same way if he could.
ReplyDeleteThe house he built in NJ had cables running from top of wall to bottom diagonally and he used a triangular radio antenna for the roof ridge with two large decorative rectangular support posts (12"x12").
The building inspector was amazed. The house withstood hurricane Sandy direct hit. No structural damage just 4-5 feet of bay water inside the house.