With all the wall panels up we needed to do a few adjustments before proceeding with the rafters. I was also glad to send the $700/day forklift back to its owner. The heaviest items that needed to be lifted were the king trusses, the big rafters that run from the center of the roof to each of the 10 corners. I could almost lift them by myself, so even though the boys complained a little I sent the forklift back. As we were putting the walls up we had some small gaps appear between them where they met at the top. Over a total of about 80 feet of circumference this was a total of about 1 inch or so. This was mainly due to the foundation being slightly out of level, but I really didn’t want to shim the walls off the concrete unless we really had to. The way to fix this was to tilt some panels slightly in to make up for the gaps. This of course took the walls out of plumb a little, but I really wanted the walls sitting directly on the concrete. The way we forced the panels together was with the big eyebolts that we used to lift them, and a 3 foot length of 3/4 inch threaded rod. We ran the threaded rod through eyebolts on adjacent panels, and then by tightening the threaded rod and pulling with come alongs closed all the gaps.
Using threaded rod and come alongs to close the gaps
The walls are 10 feet high and the panel that was most out of plumb was 3/8 inch out. Our bathroom back wall (the one we had the most trouble getting up) was also about 1/2 inch out of square. I needed the boys to help me get the heavy stuff up before they went back to their normal jobs so I accepted this as well. I would be building the shower along that wall myself later so I could adjust for it.
On Day 6 we nailed the panels together, and began building the scaffold that would hold the erection jig up.
Building the scaffold
The next day while the boys were finishing the scaffold I nailed the beveled top wall plates to the top of the panels. These would hold the end of the rafters. A little after lunchtime was had the jig pole up and ready for the first big rafters.
The first couple of rafters
With some looped ropes the three of us could easily get them into place. Once they are up, you have to nail them to the jig from the INSIDE of brown part of the jig. As this is one of the smaller Deltec houses this part of the jig is not very big, it would be almost impossible to drive a nail by hand. A good thing to have is a palm nailer, which I had brought along to attach the hurricane straps later. I have this one:
It’s really an amazing tool, and a time saver. Day 8 was spent setting the trusses, and as with most things we got a lot faster at doing it.
They’re all up!
The next day we put the last rafter up. The next thing to do was to put the stainless steel compression collar around the jig and the trusses. This was a real piece of art, beautifully welded but at around 80 lbs it was a bit of a bother to get in place. Raul had a great idea after the 3 of us struggled for a while to lift it as high up on the jig as we could. He put some screws in the rafters just below where the bottom of the ring would rest. Once that was done we could take half the ring, put it in place, clamp it and then do the same with the other half. A little after that we had all 6 bolts in that would clamp it together.
At this point the Brian and Raul needed to go back to their regular jobs. Their help was incredible and we’d like to thank them again for their efforts!
Looking sweet!