Temporary Column number One.

There is a sort of excitement building, this morning we taped twelve of the twin wall 24" x 48" polycarbonate panels upper (open) edge with aluminum tape, basically duct tape, to keep moisture out, the asphalt shingles are folded, but need to be cut into 28" lengths for approximately a 3" overlap with the 25" pitch of the rafters.

A temporary column has been installed on the "front" side and in the morning we will do the same with the "back" side - this is to sort of square out the entire roof structure for the installation of the polycarbonate, as we have said from the start "there can be no windows installed until the roof is done" because waving big ladders about in a confined space will always result in tears.

The slight curvature of the front side beam has been mostly corrected, the second column will be installed on the back side as logically, even though it is not too noticeable, there will be a curvature, every time we add structure, it makes moving the ladder around more difficult, and it would be impossible if we had installed any of the windows.

I was explaining the curvature to Karen, being all engineering and all that, and I was reminded of a really funny line (well, funny to a couple of geeky engineers) that a great friend of mine, Alan Marsden, said and it goes something like this : "no matter what you do in life, you should always consider Young's Modulus!" and this is a perfect example.

Windows, back side.

I think we were both surprised this morning when we went to pick up the additional free windows from a local address, the photo on the listing showed perhaps five or six windows but when they were all loaded into the little car, there were eleven.

That is eleven approximately 28" x 33" single pane windows, with three double frames, which means that perhaps we can have a couple of sliding windows on the back side of the greenhouse for ventilation.

We believe now we have too many windows, however we are not complaining as the price was right!

No big progress today besides a few extra boards attached to the apex, which still took over an hour, once they are sorted out we will be affixing shingles, which signals that the roof is about to start, and once we are finished with the ladder work, all the windows, and the door, will be painted and start to go in.

Windows. Front side.

It is true at some point, that symmetry is discarded on what we build, and this is no exception, there is also that moment when we realise that we do not have enough windows, even though days ago, we were convinced that we had enough. I had a long, basically silly, conversation with AI today, and it is concluded that "garbage in and garbage out" is what you get with most of the so called artificial intelligence services nowadays, I could say they are quite mad, but the "services" are only as mad as their programmers.

Therefore, we went old school with our layout for the "front side" of the greenhouse.

In the middle there, at the top, we will place a vent.

When laying them all out, for this side of the structure, we realised how very big the thing is, and that more windows will be required for the "shed side" and so this afternoon, through marketplace and a seller in Sooke, we have found more free single pane windows for that side. We will pick them up in the morning, mainly as we have already had a few beers on our lovely Thursday afternoon "far from the madding crowds"

Big Progress

We class yesterday as one of the milestones of the greenhouse build, in the last week, everything has been tiny details, assembly of things, staining little blocks, staining big blocks...

Yesterday and this morning, all of that came together as the roof structure was added, of course it is "just" the rafters, but so much work went into the planning and construction of what you will see in the next photo, in addition, this was an awful lot of ladder work and it literally sucked the energy out of both of us to finish this barebones joist/rafter situation, we will leave placing temporary columns in the middles of the sides until another day.

What you cannot see from this photo (because they were not installed at that point) are the multitude of four hole 2-7/8" custom blocks that we created, sanded, stained and installed, to ensure that the roof is not just attached with brackets, believe me when I tell you, the roof is so attached now you could pick up the entire structure.

We considered what we should do next and the usual 'trip to the legion for a couple of beers" seemed to be perfectly adequate.

We slept like logs last night.

Lots of progress, but mostly little details continued...

An update, as the title says, lots of progress on little things, but it feels at times like the project has stalled and as you can see from the latest photo, it does not look that different, so I will highlight the changes.

Each one of the gaps in the corners, that will hold the patio door glass pieces (34" x 76") have been updated with strips of pressure treated 2x1 all cut and attached with nails or screws and then stained. In addition, four 65" long 4x4 have been stained and added to the base sides, smaller pieces will be cut to fill the gaps, and then another layer added to build up the side walls, we intend to use up all our materials if possible.

Today, on the side rails, the brackets have been added to locate the rafters, or joists, whatever you want to call them, the rafters will also be pre-drilled and "toenailed" into the upper side beams and apex, before we do that we will add a temporary middle support on each side to prevent those beams from sagging with the added weight.

The rafters have been updated as an assembly with the polycarbonate H-Channel bottom pieces, each held in place with five special screws to allow for flex and expansion, there are 14 rafters in all, 10 of them for the middle of the greenhouse and 4 have been modified to be end pieces.

The plan is to install the middle columns at the sides and all the brackets along the ridge beam tomorrow, which may be the day that all the rafters are installed.

We will see how much enthusiasm we have then...

Little Details

The creation of the rafters meant that we had a lot of small pieces of 2x4 sitting around in a scrap heap, so yesterday we decided to start filling in the middle space at the end of the greenhouse which will be below a specific window we purchased, we did a lot of cutting, and as we progressed we did cut some the wrong size, but we managed in the end without strangling each other. Today it was a far more relaxing day as staining was involved and at each corner of the upper structure, little details added.

Recycling end cuts of recycled wood.

Those top corners needed a "feature" to allow for the end rafters and angle brackets to extend past the outer frame of the greenhouse, along with four filler pieces to make the upper edge of the frame continuous. This involved much cutting, clamping, attaching and staining and even though it was all very relaxing, the workers have voted and we have decided that we deserve a pint.

 

Fit

The rafters are all stained and available, special roofing screws with neoprene compound washers ordered from Amazon, the "dry" fit of the polycarbonate has been done, as you can see, two rafters at the 25 inch pitch, H-channel that has been cut and one piece of the 2' x 4' polycarbonate twin wall used to verify the dimensions from the spreadsheet...

 ...and just to make sure we did not miscalculate the lengths, two end rafters were placed in position.

As mentioned, special screws that will allow for expansion have been ordered, once we have them, all of the rafters will be assembled with the H-channel, five screws per length and pre-drilled holes. There will also be a couple of "pitch guides" created that will help with the positions of the hurricane brackets, anything to make life easier, especially when up on ladders.