Roof Gets Closer

Here are pictures taken toward the southwest, yesterday and today. Today I was standing upon the mechanical room roof - about five feet higher.I started the day by sanding the rough-sawn beams that will become lintels. I started to sand the beams that will hold up the porch roof, but they are too heavy for me to turn over, so I can only sand one side.I did get a phone call that the vigas were ready for pickup at the local sawmill, so I went out and got them. They stuck out the back of the van a bit, but otherwise fit just fine. So now we have all the material we need to build the porch. We will need the full crew because the materials are heavy, and we will need the forklift to hold up the big beams, so this must wait until next week.

Because we are expecting rain this weekend, Eli called the plumber to run the roof drain pipe somewhere near the outside — rather than dumping the rainwater from the ceiling of the garage. So Ray and his two boys were here all day. They connected most of the gas pipe, called in the sheet metal man for the ventilation ducts, and got the radon exhaust pipe ready. I built three canales and gave them to the sheet metal man (Randy Cisneros) who will line them with copper.

As I was leaving, Ray the plumber pointed out that he will have to cut out one piece of one truss in order to fit the air duct. So now I have to get the structural engineer to work out a solution and certify it for the building inspector. One risk of not designing the entire system — the heating engineer was unaware of the duct vs. roof truss conflict.

Unfortunately, two of the wires to the temperature sensors I embedded in the floor are broken off. I will need to chip away the concrete slab and reconnect them. Not a fun project.

I was up on the roof, helping a bit and getting in the way. I brought up the canales to be sure they will fit correctly and to build out the parapet to slope into the canales correctly. That required a few trips up and down the ladder, as the big saws are not on the roof. Jake carved the corners of the parapets (14 plus 4 on the mechanical room), as shown in the photo (right). Yes, that is styrofoam.