Somewhere in between the New Years Eve party and sleeping in the next day, we did manage to finish putting up the trusses. We spent the following weekend scabbing on foot foot pieces of 2x6 to the ends of each truss to create a nice eave and match the rest of the house. Cutting the birds eye "notch" in each board wasn't too bad after doing a few with the circular saw. The real challenge were the board for the two corners. I had to make two for each corner to effectively "sandwich" the truss. This wouldn't be so bad, except that I used a special Simpson hurricane tie made for a 90 degree corner, so in addition to the birds eye, each board had to be notched in order to slide over the top of the hurricane tie.
What a pain in the ass! Betting there is a much better way to do this. Either way, its now done and we have eaves all the way around.
This past weekend, we tackled "over framing" the roof of the existing house. This is more commonly referred to as "valley framing," but I'm not sure that terminology applies here since we didn't frame any valleys, and instead extended the line of the roof on the house out to where the trusses begin. The end result *should* (please god) be that the roof will be one big long section with no obvious giveaways that we ever did an addition at all.
We started be stripping the shingles off of the section we intended to frame over. Once we were down to the wood substrate (1x6 redwood decking) placed two 2x6 boards along the inside of each hip and nailed them to each intersecting rafter. The purpose of the "spreader" board is to 1. give you something substantial to nail to, and 2. spread the weight of the rafters you attach to it (and the roofing above) along as much of the roof as possible.
We then cut a long 2x6 to length and ran it from the existing roof ridge to the ridge of the closest truss on the addition, tacking it to the board with a nail. That ridge board received four vertical supports which run down to the 2x6 we nailed down to the decking (with an existing rafter directly below it).
Once the ridge was nice and stable, we started cutting and attaching rafters from the ridge to the 2x6 boards we laid down along the hip. We needed a compound cut for each rafter, which is where two angles (other than 90 degrees) come into play in one cut. In this case, it was something close to a 150 degree cut with an 18 degree cut on the side. Since I had 14 of these to do, and my miter saw adjust to the extreme angle I needed, I figured out the angles I needed for the cut, then made a jig so I could easily and accurately make the required cuts. I don't have a picture of the jig, but it was just a few scraps of 2x wood screwed to a scrap of OSB in a configuration that worked.
Since we are over framing with 2x4 wood (mainly to keep the weight down) we also put some spreader boards down so we could run vertical supports to the longer rafters. Once they were all in place, I nailed in some lateral supports and began worrying about how to get the OSB up and nailed to the roof.
I always figured sheathing the roof would be hard work, but that I would cross that bridge when it was time. Well - It is time! Now, I've been doing the work up on the roof, and part of what took me so long was my fear of heights. I hate hate HATE climbing down ladders, and this project has been no exception. I also don't do well when I have to get close to the edge of a roof. Well, there have been plenty of times I've had to get right up to the edge to get stuff done. Between my fear of height and my partners arthritis, the two of us make a piss poor roof sheathing team.
So while we're eating lunch on Sunday, fretting about how to get the roof sheathing done, my dad stops by. I share our concern with him and he suggests I hire "Maurice" who is a guy he has used for years to do all kinds of work at his house, office, etc. I asked Maurice to stop by and he said he would do all the sheathing and for a very reasonable price (25% of what the roofing company wanted) since I'm supplying the materials. He'll be by on Wednesday to get it done.
Hurray! We can't wait to have a roof and get started on the inside!
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