Day 50: Glulam and I-Joists

We had a small crew again today. We set the 2nd large curved glulam in the beam seats. Then we attached hangers to the curved glulams and hung 3 rafters over the great room before the end of day 50.

Green comment for today:
Consider using engineered wood instead of dimensional lumber. The I-joists I am using for rafters have the following advantages compared to the solid dimensional 2X10 members they replace:

• they are constructed with small leftover scraps from other wood manufacturing processes, thereby reducing harvesting of additional trees
  
• they use less material to provide equivalent stiffness
  
• they do not warp

The curved glulams are also considered engineered wood. They have the advantage of being constructed from smaller laminated pieces with custom curvature. The equivalent solid dimensional lumber beam would have been cut from one large log.

I can hear you asking why I used solid dimensional lumber for the loft floor joists. I needed to keep the floor as thin as possible to save ceiling height in the bedroom. I was able to use 2X8 dimensional joists. I-joists do not come any smaller than 2X10, and I did not want to lose 2” of headroom in the bedroom.

I’ll close today with a great panorama shot I got while up about 40 feet on the telehandler. Thanks for reading. Please feel free to leave a comment.

Thanks for the lift Trevor!

Day 48: Curved glulams and loft floor

The FSC certified curved glulam beams from Standard Structures, Inc. arrived this morning. Two large beams are used in the main home roof framing, and 9 small beams are used in the porch and utility roof framing. We rented a telehandler to hoist the large beams into place – they weigh over 600 pounds each. The following pic shows the east beam being hoisted into place. Raphael has the leash, Trevor is driving and Justin is waiting at the south beam seat.

The following pic shows the beam nearly in place with Joshua at the north wall.

From here, measurements and marks were made for the beam seat cuts. The beam was lowered back to the ground for cutting. The beam was then raised back into its final resting position.

Holes were drilled through the beam, and bolts were installed to fasten the beam to the brackets. In the following pic you can see the north beam seat bracket with 2 bolts and the 11 plies of 2X6 lumber that make up the 16-1/2 inch tall beam.

The loft floor was also completed today. Here is a great shot Raphael took from the lift earlier in the day while the floor was in work.

And a pic of the finished floor...

...and another showing the loft floor and beam.

I’ll close with a pic of a large beetle we found this morning upside down but still kicking on the slab. We named it Ringo. As soon as it warmed up, it was on its way. Thanks for reading. Please feel free to leave a comment.

Day 34: Still getting ready for wall lift #2

Cindy showed up around lunch time today and took pics. Hanging a ledger in the family room.

Justin, Trevor, Mike, Marty and Raphael are all doing something...

...and Stella is taking a nap - she better not report those hours on her timesheet.

Justin spent a few hours preparing and hanging a ledger for the porch and utility room roof. He also prepared a beam seat for an exposed redwood beam over the porch.

The crew spent a few hours building braces and shoring up walls to make them vertical. Here is a pic of Cindy in front of the South wall. The APEX block walls are like a patient in intensive care - braced and supported to hold shape until the grout is poured.

Mike spent a few hours cutting the last vertical rebars that will go up to the wall top plate.

Joshua installed malleable iron washers on the ledgers and set the depth that the J-bolts will be cast into the concrete cores.

Thanks for reading. I appreciate your comments.