Al and Robins 20x30 1 1/2 near Lake Eufaula, OK

[ColchesterCabin]

Cool Beans AJ.... Just wanted to double check if not for you but for me as I am using a comparible layout for my Cabin. How do you find the engineered I beans as opposed to construction grade 2x lumber, cost wise?

[JavaMan]

Cool Beans AJ.... Just wanted to double check if not for you but for me as I am using a comparible layout for my Cabin. How do you find the engineered I beans as opposed to construction grade 2x lumber, cost wise?

I'd like to know this, also ... once the shed is complete, I start building m cabin.  It would be nice to have some idea what the TJI's cost... if they are cost effective.

Yours is looking good!  Wish I was that far along 

[ajbremer]

Hey you guys, I really appreciate the posts.

I guess the only real meaning of 'cost effective' is in the wallet of the beholder!

The 20' long I joist by the ILevel company (#230's) cost me $38 each, then add tax. If I could at all swing it, I would always choose engineered lumber over 2x's when they are feasible to use in a situation. They are strong but what I like most is, they are all exactly the same size. You can buy 2x's from different places and the width can differ and mess ya up.

If I could go back in time I would have used those I joists instead of 2X joists in my main floor. A great thing also is that they are much wider than a 2x. A 2x is 1-1/2" but the I joists that I'm using are 2-5/16" wide. Much easier to hit when your nailing your floor on. And another great thing is that they are lighter.

Go to www.ilevel.com to find out more information about different types of engineered lumber, they hava a lot of technical guides and when you call them they are very patient and helpful.

[Don_P]

Those are the plusses, the negatives are fire and water... get a lid on that box Al! 

[ajbremer]

Thanks Don,

I've known about the water part but never really thought about the fire.

Here's a pic of underneath the catwalk: (Pics coming soon)



And a few other pics of what I have done with the loft 3/4" flooring so far. Disregard that
board going across the middle, I put it there for extra bracing between the long walls:





In this last pic, you'll notice how the middle ridge beam post will help support the catwalk once I
nail it in place.

[MountainDon]

Engineered products and house fires are a bad mix. Trusses and i-joists burn up and collapse much quicker than solid 2x construction.  That is one reason sometimes quoted for the inclusion of fire suppression sprinkler systems in residences.   

[Don_P]

I thought about saying exactly the same thing MD and backed off, so let me modify that if you don't mind. lightweight engineered products do not perform well in fire, a small piece of wood burns faster than a big one. A big piece of wood, think heavy timbers, glulams and even to a large extent lvls, char and are then protected. I rented a shop one time that had already burned once. it was old mill type heavy timber construction and they determined there was still enough strength left.

It is a decision to think through. I know one firefighter who made it out on the carpet when the tji's collapsed under him, damn lucky. I know of another who dropped into the basement and didn't make it out. Never leave the underside exposed, protect it... I don't leave any structural 2x exposed for that matter. Open web floor joists form a horizontal chimney underfloor, cordon these off with type X or 3/4 ply to form smaller areas under there so fire cannot rip through. Don't think about the structure so much, I can build another, what you're really doing is buying the folks inside and those rushing in exit or rescue time. Not fun thoughts I know but its the things that need to be thought about when building well.

[ajbremer]

Thursday Morning - May 10th, 2012 Mid-Oklahoma

Wow, that is great fire information. I never thought that building for fire safety was so involved. I will now take the extra measures in order to have a safe build.

Are there different types of drywall, some fire resistant and some not? I could use them for the ceiling under the loft and catwalk.

Thanks again for letting me know that awesome information.

[ColchesterCabin]

Being a volunteer Firefighter for 13 years the fire exposure never crossed my mind. But I have been there and both MD and Don_P have a point. But overall AJ the build is looking awesome I can't wait to get my build in full swing. Waiting on the rain to dry up a bit to pour concrete and I can't do that on a weekend. Hopefully pour concrete next week sometime.

Keep the pictures and updates coming...

[MountainDon]

Right Don_P, I was thinking of roof and floor trusses mainly as well as TJI with their webs of OSB. Floor trusses look like really great kindling arranged with lots of air space for oxygen.


AJ, Type X  gypsum board is fire rated and required for furnace rooms for example. It's 5/8" and heavy.

Our house has it applied in the roof trusses between the garage and the main structure. The rooms I've added are also sheeted off in the trusses.

[ajbremer]

Thursday Night - May 10th, 2012 Mid-Oklahoma

Had to get fast internet in my rural area. I might hit my head on this thing once
the front porch is on! No, I'll get it moved higher by then.
(Pic coming soon)

[JavaMan]

They let you self install???  Wow.

Last time I had to go with Satellite internet (ok, the only time I had to), they wouldn't let me self install.

How much is that running these days?  It wasn't cheap about 5 years ago when I had it.

[Redoverfarm]

Al I would be interested in the Monthly fee's as well.  They advertise free installation but don't elaborate on the fees. 

[JavaMan]

Well, the site I was on said 39.95/month ... but didn't say how much data you're allowed for that price.

[ajbremer]

Thanks JavaMan and Redoverfarm,

Sorry, I didn't mean to imply that I self installed this satellite.

This service is not cheap but I didn't care, I really need internet (fast speed).

This is from www.hughesnet.com and basically it's about $80 a month plus $10 for the equipment lease. The
$39.95 plan was the low plan, I went up from there. If I wanted to buy the equipment I would have had to
pay something like $350. I had to first give them $40 before they would come out and install it. It only
took the guy about an hour to install it. Of course this is a 2 year contract thingy also.

The cable for it runs under the house, on the ground, and then up into the 12x32 cabin where its modem is. From
there, the ethernet cable can directly be input into a computer (only one cable spot on modem) or it can go into a
wireless router and spread from there.

[Don_P]

Don't mean to drag us backwards but this was posted on another forum today on floors and fire, good read;
http://www.ul.com/global/eng/pages/offerings/industries/buildingmaterials/fire/fireservice/basementfires/

[ajbremer]

Thank you Don, yes that was a good read. I'm going to look at some of those videos later too.

[ajbremer]

Friday Night - May 11th, 2012 Mid-Oklahoma

Well, only got a few more sheets down on the loft but now there's only a couple more to go and I'm done with all of the loft sub-floor.

I really want to get my ridge beam up there now but I was concerned about it (them) getting wet and rained upon once there up. If I put them up there now, it'll still be 2 or 3 more weeks till the rafters and sheeting begin to go up there. So, what I did was I called the Microlam beam iLevel tech. guy and asked him if it would be a problem if the beams got wet in the rain up there. He's like, '...no problem, as long as they can dry.' Some of those beams are sold with a coat of protection over them in certain areas but I'm not sure if mine have it. Even without that coating it would be ok.

I also asked him if it would be wise to paint some kind of coating or weather sealant on the beams once there up there and he said it wouldn't hurt.

Therefore it looks like I'm going to give it a shot and get my beams up. I'll use some extra bracing on them also, at least until I get my rafters up.

I'll get more pictures up tomorrow, thanks everyone!

[Don_P]

Basically as long as they don't cup they are fine, the coating has a sheen where the uncoated are dull. Water getting down between them and cooking is what'll make them cup into a butterfly shape. Pick up a roll of self stick window flashing tape and run it along the top and it'll be good to go.

Now, I have not seen a good bracing job on a roof here yet, we've been lucky no one has been hit by a big wind while under construction. LONG diagonals forming an X or X's from ridge to very secure blocking on the floor once the ridge is up. Pin the crossing of the X. Make sure those braces do not interfere with rafter layout locations. The bracing stays up until the roof is sheathed. The braces can be spliced to make them long enough but lap the splices LONG.

Install a taught string along the middle of the top or bottom of the ridge and consult it often. Install rafters in opposing pairs or no more than a few per side befor balancing the other side. The goal here is don't build a snake into the ridge.

[ajbremer]

Saturday Morning - May 12th, 2012 Mid-Oklahoma

Thanks Don,

That's great information but I want to be sure I understand your bracing information completely. I made a picture of the X bracing, at least the way I understood it (I can be totally wrong). Please let me know if I'm on the right track.

Here:
(Pic coming soon)

[Don_P]

No, 90 degrees the other way, in line with the ridge. The rafters brace it great that way but the whole thing, ridge and all is unbraced in the direction of the ridge axis till it gets sheathed.
I've got the ridgeposts braced here, we've just set the ridge.  The tall post was plumbed not with a 4' level but by calculating the length of the brace, the third side of a right triangle. I made marks and nailed it when we were on our marks. Then the short little 4' level agreed, but at that length of post a 4' level is way to agreeable, you can be off inches at the top if you're not careful plumbing something tall.

After lunch that day we tore down the lifting tower in the middle. As we did that we moved one of the braces from it in and tied it to the ridge. You can pretty much see the X that formed. We banged our heads on that upstairs till we got it sheathed. And all my bracing here is too low, it should really be up just under or on the ridge, kill any post flex.

With yours I'd probably run 2x4's horizontally from post to post to post just below the pockets up top, set at correct ridge length. Just under those nail diagonal braces in the line of the ridge. Where the braces from posts cross each other pin them together and use a double stacked well nailed block at the floor to tie the bottom of the brace to. All of this is on one side of the posts if you are hoisting by hand, the ridge will ride on the clean side of the posts as you lift. When it is down in pocket nail the pocket, the post, to the ridge on both sides well and you've got it. What prompted the comment mostly is someone posted a pic recently of a couple of guys up top on a really poorly braced roof, you don't want a domino while you're up there.

We got hit by big winds on a job in the Black Hills. Tornados had been hitting in WY and were passing over, the hills wouldn't let them reform. We braced till it was scary to be up, I got the side wings tied well but didn't have time to safely get the main pitch. And then we sat in the pasture watching that big naked roof frame vibrate. The 2x12 rafters were shaking so hard they were almost touching. We were talking about how to pick up the pieces and figuring that we had enough to reorder materials and would get through this. That is when you're really counting on a very few nails.

[ajbremer]

Sunday Morning - May 13th, 2012 Mid-Oklahoma

Thank you Don_P. I'm going to have to reread what you last said because I want to be sure I totally understand the instructions.

The first order of business is for me to get those 2 beams up on the loft so they can be lifted up and into those ridge beam posts. I had to scratch my head for a little bit in order to come up with a method to lift the beams up and into the loft, I did it!

Yesterday I got a lot done, finished the loft floor and got one of those beams up in the loft in order to get it up in the posts. Here's the finished floor of the loft with Robin peaking out from the middle post. Oh ya, yes I did screw and glue those floor sheets down.



Now in this next picture, you'll see how I moved those 30 foot long Microlam 1.9 iLevel beams around. I used old 'empty' propane bottles and rolled it along.



Then when I got the first beam behind the house I lined it up and lifted each end by hand, one end on top of a scaffold ladder and the other end on top of a propane bottle. Well, every time I got a load of wood delivered from the lumber yard, they would wrap the boards with these really nice strong nylon straps and I always saved them thinking I would definitely use them later. They are not really as wide as I would like them but they are strong.

I attached those straps to each end of the board and tied it around a small piece of wood. Then I threw the piece of wood up and over the top of the wall and onto the loft. Then I got up on the loft and nailed 2 small pieces of wood across the top plate and then one piece of wood crosswise and on top of them, I did that at each end.  Then I simply wrapped the strap across my hand and pulled up the beam a little at a time. It wasn't easy! The weight of it almost was more than my feet could hold me. After I would pull one end up a few feet I would wrap the strap around the little boards and then go and do the same thing to the other side till finally the beam was all the way at the top. When the beam made it to the top, I grabbed one end and lifted it up and over the wall.





When the beam got near the top it became very hard to pull up. I could pull it up but I couldn't get myself back to the wall and wrap the strap around the board without it going back down. At that point I had my wife kneel by the wall with a c-clamp and when I had the beam at the very top she would clamp the strap to the board so I could walk back to it and wrap the excess strap around the board.





And then I was a happy camper!

[Don_P]

There ya go  . The biggest part of construction is outsmarting large uncooperative inanimate objects  On the floor we use pieces of pipe real often. Never thought about the propane tank trick outside, Thanks! We call it the egyptian log rolling technique and are always jealous of their ready supply of isrealites to bring that back log around.


I was making it too hard with a word picture, imagine the front wall isn't there and the braces are nailed to the posts or something solid down low. The red lines form the temporary truss I'm describing. Once the roof is sheathed the plywood does the same job and you can take these down.


Then install the blue post braces back to the wall to hold the posts vertical in that direction during the lift. You can remove these as the rafters replace them.

Now you are ready to lift. If you have healthy friends I've walked these up a ladder and set them fast, spotters have catch ropes up and over the top horizontal brace. That is quick but not very safe, the worst part is the up and into pocket.  Remember to lay a big scrap of 2x12 or similar across several joists down under your lifting tower legs if you do it that way to avoid punching through the floor. Nothing more embarrassing than a hole in the floor and a log in the basement... or so I've been told 

[ajbremer]

Monday Morning - May 14th, 2012 Mid-Oklahoma

Got a lot done yesterday. Got both beams up on top of the loft and one almost to the top.

I made what I call 'beam risers', just little boxes - some 4 foot high and others 2 foot high. I nailed these (temporarily) to the edge of the ridge beam posts for the beam to rest on. Then I lifted the beam up to the top of these risers. Once I had the beam on the first risers I then added more that were 2 feet higher and then lifted the beam on top of them. I was going to continue doing this for the first beam all the way till up, over, and in but then realized that it would make good scaffolding to get the 2nd beam up. I do understand that the beam is to weak laying flat like that for me to walk on. I'm just going to mess around with them at the stable riser positions.

I temporarily nailed the beam laying flat to the risers using 2 nails each. Today I'm going to 'X' brace and do the bracing methods that Don_P described before I hoist-up the 2nd beam to the top.

Ok, here's that 2nd beam lifted to the top of the wall by using those straps. From here I simply grabbed one end and lifted it up and onto the top of the wall.
(Pic coming soon)


Now the first beam has begun to be lifted onto the ladder and into the ready position. Now it's time to build my so called 'risers' and get them up there too.



I first built 3 - 4 foot risers (1 extra) and 1 - 5' 3" riser for the middle post.



Next I built 2 foot risers to set the 1st beam on them and those first risers.



Now the first beam is up on those risers. You'll also notice those long aluminum tubes that I have up there at the very top. I'm just using them as a safety measure to tie straps to the beam, in case it falls while I'm lifting it. Those tubes were an old part of the top of a chain link fence, their 15 - 18 feet long. They are weak but they'll work at the very end near the posts.



And at the end of the day I have my 2nd beam ready. Today is bracing day!



Oh ya, here's a picture of the beginning of the 2nd beam lift. You also get a view of the first beam up in its scaffolding position:
(Pic coming soon)

[ajbremer]

Monday Night - May 14th, 2012 Mid-Oklahoma

Worked a lot on bracing today. Did the 'X' bracing and rafter type bracing to the posts as suggested.