Chapter 152...The Trusses Are Here

Today is the delivery day for our trusses.  We have no idea what time the trusses will arrive but we have been told that the driver has our phone number.  Mike and I decided to take a ride over to our old roller skating rink which is now an antiques store to kill some time.  Sure enough as soon as we get out to the car the driver calls us.  Good timing.  Unfortunately when we pass him he is in our home driveway and not at the store.  We tell him to back out and follow us to the store.


All 25 trusses being dropped.

Oops...it looks like they are going to tip over.  

After they are on the ground, Mike and I cut the straps and bring them inside the building.  We have to go back to the house and get the tools we need to start working.  In the meantime we don't want to leave the trusses outside.

Now you will see why Mike and I only went 15 feet wide with this building.  The trusses are 16.4 feet long.  In doing this Mike and I can handle doing this ourselves.  You all know we hate when we have to deal with "other" people on our worksites, lol.


With two ladders ready to go I help Mike get the first end truss up.  We line it up with the edge of the building and Mike starts nailing:

We work together getting each truss on top of the building.  Then we stand them using the lines we made the other day for the correct placement.  I hold the truss in place while Mike continues to nail.  Once we have a few trusses up Mike nails in a 2x4 to help stabilize the truss.  We call these 2x4's rat runs.

Mike nailing in another rat run to the top portion of the trusses:

You can see we have 2x4 rat runs running along the bottom of the trusses and also underneath the top of the trusses.  We will do this for the entire length of the building and they will be a permanent part of the building:

Almost half way done:

Since we got a late start today we only got about 3/4's finished but Mike did call in an order for the plywood for the roof:)

The next day we go back with our tools and get set up:

We are working our way to the other end of the building.  It's going to get tight here so we decide to put all the trusses up top and slide them one by one into place.  The trusses are top heavy and always make me nervous when they swing down.  I tend to fight the natural momentum of them and Mike tells me all the time to relax, lol.

The rest of the trusses are up and hanging upside down:

Mike stays on one ladder on one side while I am on the other ladder on the other side.  One by one we flip the truss up into place and Mike starts nailing.  Here I am getting ready to flip a truss:

Getting down the to the last of the rat runs:

All of the trusses are up.  That wasn't too bad.  If you keep your store/home narrow and have a low pitch it is much easier to install yourself.  The bigger you make things the more you need help and we Mike and I don't like help, lol.

Mike cuts off the extra rat runs that don't reach another truss:

Our next delivery.  We got plywood for the roof, clips to hold the plywood together and trim boards for the outside of the store:

Mike and I measure the board to be cut.  These boards cover the outside of the truss and will run the whole perimeter of the building.  This is called fascia board.
 

Mike nails one in place:

The front fascia boards are up:

After that we carry all of the plywood and the other boards inside the building.  Since concrete floors are always damp we lay out some junk wood to protect the good wood.  We don't want to lay the good wood right on the concrete floor.  It will warp.  Next we have to cover everything up because the rain is coming...again!!


Ready for the rain:

That's all for this story.  We did pretty good getting the trusses up and now we are ready to start the roof.  Our next story will be about getting the plywood on top of the trusses...ugh!! and getting the roof started.

I hope you enjoyed this story and I will write again soon.