It was a very, very cold week but extremely cold weather usually brings sunny days :)
We started the week with one long wall laying flat on the 2nd floor deck ready to raise and ended the week on Saturday, February 3rd, with all of exterior and interior walls up!
Mr. Dunaway, our pincipal and Mr. Nally our assistant principal supported us by visiting our site on Wednesday the 31st. Here is a picture of Mr. Dunaway, kneeling second from right, with one of our classes. Green Detail: Notice the foam inside of the header area above the window opening. We elimated the 1/2"OSB sandwich core and replaced the full 2 1/2 " air space with foam and sealed it air tight.
Monday was so cold that we didn't go to site in the morning class. In fact, we've been hit this entire week with a blast of cold artic air. As you can see in the photos, we are all dressed with lots of layers on to keep us warm. Enlarge the picture and see the snow that we constantly had to be clearing from our floor deck.
The photo. on the left shows Craig and Tom working on the interior walls. Advanced Framing/Green Detail: Since we are not using two top plates, we are using Simpson Strong Tie plates with N8 nails to tie the walls together. Also notice that there are no jack studs in the closet door opening or any other interior door opening. In the photo to the upper right, Jesse, Will, Phil, and Craig are framing a complex wall detail. These details were framed at school about a month and a half ago and all of our angled walls fit perfectly.
If you enlarge this photo, one can see the remants of snow after the floor deck was shoveled off to start the days' work.VIDEO VIDEO VIDEO VIDEO
Click on the link below for a video of the front wall.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jF7PVBuAdtw
The photo in the upper left shows us using our pevee, a new addition to our tool box this year. This simple tool enables us to push and pull our walls straight to an existing chalk line which is barely visible if one enlarges the photo. Being able to easily pull a wall in on the second floor is a big time saver. The photo on the right shows Tom, Will and Jesse at the end of the day in 18 degree weather. It was seven degrees at the start of this day. For cold weather work, we put our cordless drills, sealants, and adhesives inside of the ice chest that has a light bulb in it to keep the batteries from draining and the other materials in a working viscosity.
End of the day on Saturday - a day that was from 9 A.M. until 6 P.M. If one enlarges the picture, one can see all of the walls up in the interior. Also, the temperature dipped to about 0-degrees Farenheit with wind gusts up to 40 mph so we really braced the house. Our house really gets it's strength from the roof.
