Figured since I am so behind on the journal I would go ahead and try to get caught up this weekend. We have been so lucky with weather this year we feel truly blessed. Usually by December we have had several storms and the ground is very muddy and  wet. Its pretty cold here right now but not a whole lot of rain. Which is great for us cause we are going to get dried in real soon.

This entry focuses mainly on the couple days it took to install our beautiful roof trusses. We got them from a local place called Systems Plus in Anderson, CA. Roof trusses are a miracle, they are not expensive to have made, they are pre-engineered by the manufacturer and they go up fairly quickly. Which after only a couple of days looks like a month of work!

We wrestled with the possibility of manually installing these things with 4-5 people but realized with the 10' walls and the size of some of the corner truss girders that a crane would be well worth it. I still hired 3 guys to help me and Alfred out, Terry, Tommy and Paul. Also Renee's dad just so happened to be visiting at the time so we enlisted his truss crane attaching expertise (jk, it was his first time) but he did such a damn fine job of it!

The truss truck came and using a crane dropped off all our trusses on the side of the driveway. They were mostly separated into piles according to the location of the truss. Our design basically calls for 8 longer girder trusses which go on the 8 octagon corners from the outside wall to the inside courtyard wall. Then there are 4 standard trusses on each side of the house with 4 more jack trusses which attach to the corner ones. Anyway... enough of the chit chat, here is the photo of the first girder truss we put up.



We built a jig which braced the first truss so it couldn't go side to side. Since there was no wall to brace against, we build something which spanned the floor and a 2x6 which nailed to the side of the first truss. We had the crane first set all of the corners first, and we nailed some 2x4s up top to brace them as we put them in place. Each truss is toe-nailed to the beam as they are installed and then nailed into the brace that is on top. Here is a photo of all of the corner trusses in with the top 2x4 bracing them together.



Bob attached the crane tie to the trusses each time and the truck driver would then just move the trusses into the air and then place them where they needed to go. Here is a shot of the crane being loaded into position.



Next we had the crane drop a batch of standard trusses for each wall section on the top so we could manually install the rest. This was a bit tricky since the truss length was exactly the same length of the beam to beam distance. This just meant that the placement had to be pretty exact so the trusses wouldn't fall down. We set the top corner ridge of the truss right on top of the corner girder trusses which were already in place. You can see below how they fanned out as they were released. This way we could just take our time putting in each one and not have the crane be paid by the hour to install them all.



The truck eventually left 3 hrs later and at $100/hr, I was happy it gone done that quick! Once they were all on top of the beams, we all just went to work putting each one up, nailing them into the beam and then nailing them into the top brace with some 2x4 blocking at the ridge. (2 ft on center). Here is a picture of Terry securing one in place. Man my legs were so tired after all that ladder work!



Here is a shot from inside the courtyard area.  



Once we had the main trusses in we had to put the jack trusses in which are the smaller ones at each corner that do not go the full length of the house.



All said an done it took 3 days to get it all completed. Here is the result.



Ah starting to look kind of like a house now huh? or a space ship :) woo hoo. In order to make sure the weight of the trusses didn't make the beam deflect too much we needed to go back and make sure we put in the extra 4x4 box columns where support was needed. Here are some that we built for that purpose, they are the same design as the ones we did for the ag building. Eventually they will be filled with Cellulose insulation.



Here is a shot from the east side showing one of the box columns installed.



Here is a picture from inside the house looking into the kitchen/dining area to be. As we began to close the house it in, it actually seemed larger than it did when everything was open.



Here is a nice close up of the courtyard brickwork after the rains cleaned them up! You can see the herringbone pattern much clearer now.



In order to get the hardy frames to act as the main lateral / earthquake load support, the tops needed to be shimmed and screwed into the top beam. The 2ft hardy frames had 22 1/4" x 3" SDS screws in them! We shimmed them using solid plywood to make sure there was minimal compression.



Now that the roof trusses are on, we need to begin working on the porch roof, which ties in directly to the trusses. The porch roof wraps around the entire building and is supported with more posts and beams on the outside. Once the porch roof is completed we can begin to sheath the roof off. Our whole plan revolves around having a roof with a large porch to keep us protected from rain so we can work on the house through winter. Thanks for reading, hope you come back for the porch details next time.