Monday, February 05, 2007

A Hard Day's Night

Progress on the roof is coming along slowly but surely, I guess. We got all but one piece on the front half of the house this weekend. This is the worst side due to the fact that over half of the pieces are 27 feet long. We were afraid the weather was going to be too bad to do roofing but it turned out okay after all.
It has been fairly cold here (for us) lately as we have been averaging in the 40's during the day and the 20's at night. Usually we are in the 50's during this part of the year. Pablo had asked awhile back about how our winters are and sometimes they can be pretty cold. The past 3 years, I would say, have been very mild winters but this year has been making up for that. I remember my first winter as a little apprentice carpenter. I was working on a 6 story building, pouring concrete columns and floors. You just go straight up with that part and then much further below they start putting up walls, so if you are on the sixth floor, there is nothing between you and the wind but a barbed wire fence as the old guys used to say. Anyway, it gets cold up there and I remember one day I looked around and all the guys with mustaches had icicles hanging down out of them. I thought to myself', "what the hell am I doing out here?" But, the desire to eat and have a dry place to sleep will keep you going sometimes.
But back to the original story... we had a bit of a time getting these long pieces up on the roof. We finally devised a little ramp on the back of the house, where the ground is higher, and would walk the end of one up and prop it on the roof. I would push the piece up as far as it would go while Allen ran around to the front of the house and up the ladders etc. and then over the roof and grab the piece and pull it up. Then, I would run around and up the ladders etc. and get on the other side and we would carry it over to where it was to be installed.
Since we have lights and heat (YEA!!) we can work after dark so when the sun went down we insulated the attic. It's only about 300 sq. ft. but that took a little over 5 rolls of insulation. It went down pretty quick and easy. The boards you see laying around over the joists are all the patterns for rafter tails and such. We made sure to save anything like this so that when the other half of the house is built, everything will match. I was using them to kneel on while stuffing the insulation. I always have a fear of falling through the sheetrock in attics. I will probably put a little plywood down up here for a little storage space but not much. If you have space like this you will fill it up and usually with junk so I limit myself in some areas. FYI, this insulation is the standard R-25, 8" deep. Some green builders advocate the use of the foil lining on the rafters but I'm not really convinced that stuff works. Does anybody out there have any experience or proof that it helps?

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

So I'm guessing you'll close those openings at the ends of the joists in the attic. Or do you plan to host critters in your attic?

Also, who is the hottie with the pony tail?

MamaHen said...

Hey Pablo! For some reason Blogger did not alert me to your comment so I just happen to find it today. I probably messed something up with my account! Anyway, Yes, we will close in the eaves there in the attic soon. We are not sure what we want to use right now though. It should be something that vents but I want something that looks halfway decent. I also need to get something over the big gable vent too. I could just imagine popping my head up through the access door and some giant raccoon jumping on me! As for the hottie, I'm not sure who that is! ;)

R.Powers said...

You're right about the tendency to fill attics with stuff. We sure have ... everywhere there's plywood attic floor!

Smart to keep those patterns!