Week 18: February 21-27

 

Week 18, I did a little work in and outside of the shed. Here I've put collar ties in place. These boards prevent the walls from spreading, which they are inclined to do, due to the downward/outward force of the rafters. You can see the angled cut, allowing the board to flush up with the outside edge of the top plate (framing).

The collar ties are spread 4 feet apart. Because the shed is only 12 feet long, only two collar ties are needed.

 

In this picture I've moved onto putting the drip edge back in place. Before taking it off (it was previously fitted in place), I numbered each part in the order it would be reassembled. Some work did need to be done to get the pieces fitted well together.

 

Here I am cutting shingles and starting the first course. Using a piece of plywood and a straightedge, I cut the first course of shingles (which are 3-tabs), removing the tabs. These were placed along the entirety of the first course, and then we placed architectural shingles over the starter course, flushing the architectural starter course with the 3-tab starter course.

Nailing the shingles in place, we were careful to offset our second course of shingles by 10", the third by 20", and the fourth by 30". This ensures that our nailing schedule never comes into conflict with any other nails. All nailing is 1" in from both sides, and then a third of a full course length in from each end, another nail is driven along the nailing line. (Each shingle tab has a visible chalk line, for nailing.)

 

Here I have five courses of shingles up.

 

Every couple of courses, we like to snap a chalk line. This ensures that we are still running courses that are true, not skewed, or running off course.

 

Here we are putting the ridge vent in place. First we snapped chalk lines, half the width of the ridge vent, down from the peak of the drip edge (where it meets at the ridge.), on both sides. This allows us to line up the ridge vent, along it's entire run.

And here we are nailing the vent in place, with galvanized nails.

Week 17: February 14-20

Week 17 is a short week, Monday was President's Day, so there was no school, which means no work. On Wednesday we came back and started putting up staging so the roof of our sheds would be more accessible.

After the staging was up, we swept off the deck thoroughly, measured up from the eaves 17 1/2" (the width of the Grace Ice and Water Shield, minus a 1/2" that extends down over the eaves. This aids in water run-off), and snapped a chalk line for referencing.

Here we are applying the Grace Ice and Water Shield. This is primarily for practice, as there is no practical application to putting material on a building with no true thermal envelope. Without heat, there is minimal risk of ice dam buildup. Heat is required to melt ice that would settle on the roof, allowing it to flow down to a lower, cooler point. There it would refreeze, having potential to cause major damage to the roof and underlying members (and insulation.).

Here we have felt underlayment down, getting ready to install our shingles. The nails are specially equipped with orange washers, which prevent the nails from being sunk to deeply, and more effectively pin the roof wrap in place.

And here in this last picture, you can see the felt overlapping the Grace Ice and Water Shield. Everything on the roof is worked from the eaves up, so as to make sure all materials overlap the previous lower material. This ensures that all water run off will be directed down and off the building in an efficient manner.

Week 16 February 7-13

Week 16 and I officially finished with my portion of the hip and valley mock-up. The hip rafter (left center) and the valley rafter (immediately to the right) were my area of focus. I started with the left side of the hip rafter, calculating the longest hip jack rafter and then moving down to the shortest hip jack. After those two were finished, I moved over to the right side, starting with the longest hip jack rafter on the bottom, and then moving onto the hip valley cripple. By working from the biggest member to the smallest, we were attempting to conserve material. If a mistake with a larger member was made, there would possibly be an opportunity to re-purpose it into a smaller member.

The line length of all rafter members are calculated using the run under the rafter, times the unit length. Achieving unit length is done by adding the rise squared times the common run squared (for a common rafter, e.g.: 8^2 + 12^2 = C^2), and finding the square root of the resulting number. For a hip or valley rafter, unit length is found in a similar fashion, only the run is determined as 16.97 in all mathematical calculations (17 on the framing square, due to the it's lack of precision.). The hip run is squared and added to the squared rise, as previously described.

After completing the hip/valley mock-up, I moved back to working on our shed. The soffits were completed, so we installed the facia over the rafter tails. There is a 1/4" reveal on the bottom.

Here is a close-up of the rake facia and eave facia meeting. We allowed the rake facia to run long until all parts were in place, and then the excess was sawed off with a handsaw. This had to be done carefully, so as to not scratch, or scuff the facia. It is finished trim work, which will have minimal touch-ups.

Here we are getting ready to assemble the returns internal pieces. The pencil mark above indicates where the extended piece of the return will be ripped to.

All four pieces kreg drilled, pocket screws and glue standing by...

A piece of the return in place.

An above image of the kreg drilled piece.

The left side

After most of the return pieces were assembled, we started work on the drip edge. The pieces are aligned and cut by hand, the rake edge comes down over the eave edge, to allow water to run off.

The drip edge pinned in place.

Week 15: January 31-February 6

Week 15 and we're dividing our time this week between the sheds, and our mock hip and valley roof system. Starting this week out we, were wrapping up our trim on the roofs. The soffits were put into place last week, and this week we were focusing on getting our facia up over the ladders on each side of the building. The facia on each side was Kreg drilled, one screw hole in the center of one board, two Kreg screw holes just on either side of that center screw hole, but in the second board. The boards were clamped together and glued to help keep the boards as one unit. We then used square head pocket screws to anchor the boards together. Once the facia was assembled, we put it in place over the ladder assembly and nailed it in place with 7d galvanized nails.

During the remainder of the week, I predominately worked on the mockup hip/valley roof system. This photo is of the valley rafter I put in place, fitting up against the intersecting ridge boards.

A second view of the valley rafter meeting the two ridge boards.

Here you can see the inverted and extroverted V shape face cuts on the tail end of the hip and valley rafters (The hip rafter tail is all the way to the left, the valley in the right hand corner.) The hip rafter tail has a face cut on both sides, creating a outward pointing V. The Valley rafter tail has an inverted V. When these rafters are put in place, the idea is that the tail angles will all be on one plane, making it possible to put facia up, without any interference from any protrusions or mis-alignments. 

A better look at the inverted V cut on the end of the valley rafter

The alignment of the (starting at 12 o' clock and going clockwise) top valley rafter, the intersecting ridge board, valley rafter, main ridge board, valley rafter, intersecting ridge board, valley rafter and main ridge board again.

Lastly, a more overall view of the hip and valley rafters, with a common rafter to the far right. The hip rafter meets the intersecting ridgeboard and common rafter (to the far left). In the middle the valley rafter intersects with the intersecting ridge board and the main ridge board. The common rafter to the right, butts up against the end of the main ridge board, and other hip rafters will be cut to come in at an angle to them.