Ok my dilly dallying is over. :) Lets cut to the chase...Its March and we actually have a full roof on but im behind on the journal and so this entry covers the entire porch framing and the roof sheathing. Framing is one of the most fun and rewarding tasks in building a house i would say. Mainly because wood is such an amazing material to work with and is very flexible and forgiving. Anyways. Below is a picture of the Simpson Post Base hardware we used to secure the 4x4 posts that support the wrap-around porch beam. The Porch beam goes along the entire outside of the house to form an 8 foot wide wrap-around porch. The porch not only provides nice exterior living space but, shields the walls from driving rain and keeps the house cooler in the summer. The Post bases had to be secured by drilling and hammering wedge-type anchor bolts into the porch slab. Under each post is a footing.



Here is a shot of the first section of the wrap around porch being framed by me and Alfred. After that, we had help from Terry, Tommy and Paul, local carpenters and friends in the area. We were under a time crunch and this is where getting help paid off big time.



You can see that each of the porch rafters actually connects to the sides of the house trusses and then extends out on top of the porch beam. The porch beams were made of 4x8 doug fir. We had to specifically ask for exposed wood so they were i nicer condition than just any old 4x8.

Here is a shot of the connection between the trusses and the rafters. The 2x6 porch rafters sit on a little 2x4 seat and were then "sistered" to the trusses with 16d nails. This was a detail our genius engineer Darcey Donovan (Eco Engineering) came up with.



A shot from further back showing the buildout of the porch as we worked our way around. Basically we had to level out each post as we went along using a transit and then set our beam on top. Once those were in place we used a rafter which was pre-cut according to the pitch of the roof and distance from the beam to hold everything in place. Each time we hit a corner we had to make sure the octagon was lining up straight up the roof line. We didn't continue adding all the rafters until we were done setting all the posts/beams.



A close-up shot of the corner post to beam connection. Later you will see how we used hardware to secure all the connections.



Another close up of the post base to post connection.



Above each post sat a Simpson PC-44 Post Cap which held the posts to the beam. Also, since there were 2 beams to each octagonal side, we had to use them to connect 2 beams together on top of a post. In the picture below you can see that as well as the 2x4 blocking inbetween each rafter.



Here is a shot under the porch as you can see it starting to take shape once the rafters were all in.



And a couple more pictures to give you a better idea.





Once the rafters were all in, we added a nice 2x8 doug fir Fascia to the outside porch.



Once the porch was totally framed up we had to go back and add some hardware. At each blocking piece between the rafters the engineer required us to use a Simpson A35 angle that just looks liks a long "L". These are used to make sure the blocking stays squarely attached to the beam to keep the frame from racking during an earthquake. After that was done, we started adding the blocking in-between the trusses on the house.

In order to make sure we had a good amount of space to get 12" of cellulose insulation in the roof, our roof line actually sits 12" above the beam. This space was built-in to the truss design. 12" of Insulation gives us an excellent R rating in the roof to keep the summer heat out. Of course blocking in-between trusses had to also be larger. To do this we used TimberStrand LSL which is basically like a thick OSB engineered wood. They were ordered and came in 24' lengths. We cut them to size and drilled 4" holes through some of them which will vent the attic space. We then glued on some bugscreen/hardware cloth to keep bugs/birds out of the attic. Here are some shots of those being built:







So for the courtyard over hang originally we were going to post 8 posts and put a beam to support a 4' porch roof. After some though, it was decided that the posts would break up the nice open space of the courtyard. Man, wouldnt it be great if we had thought of that when we designed it and before we put in those nice concrete footings? :) oh well... live and learn. So, we contacted our engineer and got her to approve a design to "sister" and cantilever the porch rafters from the trusses just as we did for the exterior porch except with no beam to support it. Here is a shot from inside the courtyard showing the 2x6 fascia attached to the rafters.



Here is a shot from above showing the completed porch framing in the courtyard.

 

And one from underneath!



Once everything was nailed together the structure was increadibly strong and secure! The steep pitch of the courtyard porch made the house look very dynamic.



Here is a close-up shot of the T hardware we used at the corners of the post/beam connection on the outside porch.



A shot of the corner of the house showing the blocking.



And now a couple shots of the completed porch framing around the house.







Once all the framing was up we started on the roof sheathing. We sheated the "house" part of the roof with Foil backed 15/32" OSB. The Foil provides a radiant barrier to keep the heat out of the attic in the summer. On the porch parts of the house we used a 1/2" 5-ply Plywood. Here are some shots of that process.





In-between each sheet we had to put these little H clip spacers to create a 1/8" expansion gap as well as help make the boards more rigid in-between the rafters.





As the sheathing was completed, It definitely made the enclosed space feel much more human scale and larger.





And finally all done.



Next up, the beautiful, stunning and thoroughly expensive Galvalume Roof!