Joists or rafters, Ridge angle and supplies...

It is labour day, supposedly a day off for the workers, but not on this job site.

We need 14 rafters, and need to have a couple spare for the back end of the greenhouse if the tolerance stackup works against us. Therefore we cut 16 rafters, or joists, whatever you want to call them and they are 65" long 2x4 material, then an extra cut of 22 degrees at the ridge point. 

It became somewhat of a production line, finding straight (ish) wood, cutting to length, then cutting the angle at one end. Then all of them needed to be stained, which will take a couple of days because they need to be stained on both sides.

In the photo above, in the distance you will see three bundles of wood that someone on the estate was giving away, 8 foot long strapping for siding, we will use it for the inner, and perhaps, outer retention of the large 34x76 window panes on the left there which are scheduled to be installed after we have finished the roof.

Talking of that, it was looking like we may have to exceed the budget on the ridge line of the roof, plus we needed a plan, we always need a plan. I had worked out that as I still have plenty of the 2x4 wood, I could use a double width of 7" on each side of the ridge, so that factors into other calculations of polycarbonate length, positions of H-channel and some clearance, and all that material is on hand, except for sealing the ridge, which of course is essential to minimize leaks.

On marketplace yesterday, the above popped up with a price tag of $20 and after talking to the chap, we arranged to pick it up today, which made it quite a labour filled labour day. The EZ-Ridge XT has 24 of the original 30 remaining (a full box costs around $180) and 24 of them covers a 16' length so it is perfect, plus the shingles will also be used to cover over the 2x4 external ridge beams, which will also be stained and retained with those angle brackets we bought a week or so back.

We love it when a plan comes together.

That means that, besides a box of roofing nails, caulk and some short screws and washers, we should have all the materials required to finish the project. 

Famous last words.

Back in the saddle...

We had a great four days in Calgary and returned on Saturday, on the drive back from the airport we stopped off at Home Depot for an eight foot piece of epoxy coated rebar and as usual, strapped it to the roof rack but this time using four zip-ties we had found in Calgary City Center - it was odd that zip-ties would be lying around on the street, however, there was construction everywhere and one thing for sure is, I cannot walk past a free zip-tie on the floor without picking it up and subsequently watch Karen give me the look.

There was to be no photo today, mainly because after about two hours working on the greenhouse, it does not look any different, as though nothing happened. Ok, I will show a photo as it is a record of what happened, plus when we add the 4x4 on top it will never be seen again, except here :

The rebar was cut into six 16" pieces using the reciprocating saw, then on each side of the greenhouse base three holes were drilled at about equal distance, the base being approximately 5-3/4" deep and the gravel was cleared below the holes before the stakes were driven into the compacted ground using a sledgehammer, after that we pushed the gravel back and finished off with some stain.

This two hour process is merely to add some lateral stability to the structure. A greenhouse, or a shed, will move over time because of vibration, gravel shifting and of course, the weather, especially the wind. Although this greenhouse is quite sheltered we decided that placing six stakes about nine inches into the ground provides a little sleep at night factor that at least we did something to stop the structure moving.

As we say, time will tell.

Not painting today.

It feels like a lifetime ago, when I was a teenager, I would be tasked with creosoting the fence at "The Cottage" on Pottery Lane, Whiston. Technically I wasn't painting the fence, Technically, I was applying a coal-tar distillate wood preservative, but in practice and appearance, it functioned far more like a penetrating stain than a paint.

The nice man at the Dulux store told us of the difference a few years ago when we tried to buy "paint" for our fence and he expressed how it was important not to mix the two things up.

So today, we did not paint the greenhouse over a three and a half hour period :

The weather cooperated and it was a lot of fun, we even had a break for a cuppa.

The wonders of Marketplace

As an update to yesterdays blog, in the afternoon we bought 32 x H1A Simpson Hurricane Brackets and 13 x A35 corner brackets for $40 cash from a local chap who had saved them from a jobsite dumpster. The retail cost from Home Depot would have been $143.92 so it was a great deal and the expenditure sits at $425 with very little now to buy besides short screws and caulk as I have just checked that we have nothing suitable in the caulking department, I also need some waterproof tape and fasteners for the polycarbonate joints and H-Channel and I suspect our remaining $75 could be used up in the blink of an eye if we are not careful.

To the left are the A35 corner brackets, not sure what I will use them for yet, but they will be used, the H1A hurricane brackets are to the right, they will make the rafter installation far easier, which is important when balanced on a ladder eight feet above the ground.

The shopping list is for short screws, #9 1-1/2" long, to attach the H1A brackets, a quick calculation would be about 28 x  6 or about 170 screws. A quick check of my "old man" screw supply shows that I probably have enough. Then there is waterproof tape, caulk and fasteners for the H-Channel, I probably have the fasteners in my supply, but I think a fibre or rubber washer will be needed, or perhaps a blob of caulk for each fastener.

I will need to do some research...

The ridge beam arrives and we practice ladder safety.

It is Friday, the end of the working week for the two retired labourers, although we may do some staining at the the weekend. It was priority today to construct and place the ridge beam down the centre of the structure, the design of which required an old fashioned diagram to work out the roof pitch, ridge beam height and length, which is longer than the greenhouse 145.75" to cater for a rafter at each end to ensure that the total of seven rafters on each side can be at the correct pitch for the six polycarbonate panels and snap H-channels.

Ladder safety was important because of the height getting up there, 110" now to the top, the ridge beam should give the greenhouse rafters a slope of about 22.5 degrees or thereabouts. Additional work done today was the reinforcement of the step plate at the bottom of the door and as mentioned yesterday, the far right corner has had a tie added to true up the second wall and add to the XY rigidity.

I was on the top step of the ladder and I told Karen that "I can see your house from here" and I was careful not to drop power tools, clamps or large pieces of wood on her head.

It has now been just three weeks since we purchased the door and the single pane wooden windows and the current expenditure sits at around $385 which includes all wood, stain, screws, glass and polycarbonate roofing materials. There will be some hardware needed, some hurricane brackets for the rafters, perhaps some plates here and there, but it seems that our $500 budget is more than enough.

The barn of many planes and angles.

The greenhouse continues to evolve, and today we erected wall number two or the "far end" of the structure and another set of pivot blocks and XZ ties were used in a similar fashion to make the wall approximately square to the approximately level base. 

The whole frame is surprisingly square, despite our low standards.

It was quite a bit of fun, especially when installing the two upper side beams which involved stretching, ladders, some danger and balance, all of which went together quite well and the fore and aft stiffness (XZ) of the structure is good, some play in the side to side stiffness (XY) at wall two end, but that is expected as it is weaker in that plane than wall one with the stiffness of the 4" x 4" door posts and the play will reduce each time we add more side wall, or populate the middle rectangle of that second wall, which will include a (free) fitted 35" x 59" two pane window and wood in the lower 20" or thereabouts. 

There may eventually be short 45 degree inner ties at each corner to increase the stiffness and provide more real estate for hanging baskets. We will leave those until later as we observe how continuing the greenhouse with the wood framed windows increases the rigidity. There will definitely be at least one temporary external tie beam installed in the XY plane to pull wall two so that a small, mostly optical, vertical offset is corrected on that stud wall, that will be on the lower far right side.

 

There will be many opportunities to hide tolerance gapping, which we have decided is more of a feature than a flaw. There are some slightly out of plane uprights which will be corrected, or disguised, as time goes by, but after all, we don't really care as it is our greenhouse, made with our own hands on a really low budget, and our own tomatoes and peppers will taste far better than any from a five star construction costing ten times as much.

The next stage is to reinstall the front door step and then paint/stain the structure before the next phase, we're not decided on the roof design yet, but we have the materials so that could be next.  

Building the barn, part one

The weather at the moment is perfect and after creating the two side beams, today was the day to start "building the barn" which involves erecting the two ends to be (almost) level and then joining the two ends with the 145.75" beams.

The more observant amongst you may have noticed that the original beams were to be approximately 145" long and then later, when we assembled the lower base frame, the number was measured as an average 145.75" showing the amazing precision of our joining process and how tolerances stack when you just don't care!

There are 2" x 4" top plates on walls one and two, the side top plates will sit on top of that, so a composite top plate of 145.75" - 7.00" = 138.75" is needed along with wiggle room of 0.25" per end, so the "hanging top plates" on the side are 138.25" which leaves a 3.75" gap at each end that can be used to attach to both walls.

It matters not, just numbers, too many numbers.

The door wall, wall number one, was raised using those two little pieces of wood as pivot blocks, once in a vertical position we then used our steel right angle for a rough guide and then used a 3' x 4' x 5' tie arrangement (classic right angled triangle) to lock all into place. Then it was a case of screwing down the wall to the base. It was a lot of fun and the pair of us put some work in and had a giggle, for the first time in the construction a ladder was used to correct a joint at the top right end of the wall, this thing has height now!

This wall is now very firm in the XZ direction due to those ties, mostly level and mostly square. The two side top beams can be seen in the photo, fully constructed and ready for the raising of wall number two to an upright position, which should be tomorrow. 

We commented yesterday that the structure coud not be seen from the road, that changed today!