Roof Nearly Done!

In order to expedite getting the siding stained (first coat on all six sides), it required a much larger drying space than setting a few boards on the steps of our A-frame ladders.

And, after less time than it would have taken to keep hand painting even half the remaining boards, our boards arrived, ready to head over to the build site. Also pictured here (shoved into the right side of the truck bed) are the steel tubes that we'll be using instead of wood for our loft joists.

But despite the progress on getting siding painted, the real push recently has been trying to get the roof done before the first snow. Here goes the first main panel!

It looks pretty good from the ground, minus that little bit of fascia that still needs to be painted :)

View from the roof with our help "hemming" the next panel to prepare it for installation.

After a few panels, we started to get the hang of things...

...even though occasionally our battens were hilariously off of square (see how the batten starts off right where it should be at the eave, then retreats below the panel within a few feet).

And then there were the ladybugs. So. Many. Ladybugs. They didn't really impede progress, but it was a bit bothersome to have them fly into your face while standing more than 10 feet in the air on a ladder or the roof.

There were probably hundreds of the little bugs, and they loved all the tiny little nooks and dark spaces, like here between two studs where a family of them decided to camp out.

Still, we continued to make progress, getting about halfway by Monday.

As we approached the end, I had to stand on the panels directly, though I tried to keep my weight over the battens since standing in the middle of a panel would flex (though hopefully not permanently bend) it by the height of the battens (3/4 of an inch).

And then, the last main panel was on.

From the ground, it looks pretty good. Now, all we need to do is put in rake wall and peak trim, and the roof will be complete. This was Tuesday afternoon, and within minutes of that last panel going up, it started to rain, stopping our progress. On the bright side though, we got to hear the sound of rain on our metal roof from inside: something we've both been looking forward to (and it didn't disappoint!)

Build Days 30-31: The Roof Arrives! (But Progress Slows)

So, bad news first: something (wind, I guess?) pushed the entire tiny house off the jack stands it was up on. That means the whole thing fell, probably quite suddenly (we weren't there at the time), more than a foot and a half to the ground. Three of the jack stands fell on their side, but one remained standing, and punched through the floor, as shown (this used to be a nice, smooth sheet of aluminium). Fortunately, the rocks we set behind the wheels apparently stopped the whole thing from rolling away!

Everything inside was a mess and had fallen all over the place. This picture, which captures some of the mess, is actually after a good bit of cleanup.

This is one of the culprit jack stands that apparently failed.

And here is our replacement solution: piers built out of cinder blocks (and concrete paving stones for the slightly finer height adjustment) under each corner. It seems unlikely that these could tip over the way the jack stands did.

The good news, now, is that our roof finally arrived (six weeks after ordering it, despite the original quote of one week lead time). We opted to bring it out with a rented home depot truck, which was cheaper than the last mile delivery fee from the supplier, and also let us get started right away.

The gray strip here is the "cleat", the first piece of the roof. The "eave trim" piece hooks over the cleat.

And here is the eave trim up in place over the cleat. This piece was probably one of the most challenging pieces to attach so far: it took three hours of trying and trying again. I think we attached the cleat a bit too high, which made everything slightly out of alignment. As we proceed (and for anyone else doing one of these hidden fastener roofs), a better way to ensure alignment is probably to slide the trim piece over the cleat while on the ground, then lift them both as a unit into the correct position, mark where that puts the cleat, take it all down and separate the two pieces, and finally attach them one at a time as we did above. Except that carefully marking the cleat position this way should hopefully make everything align exactly right. Since we have to perform a nearly identical process on the rake walls and peak, hopefully the experience we've gained will make the work on those sides faster and less frustrating!

Build Days 27 to 29: More Exterior Progress

More painting of the siding. This was starting to feel like this task would take forever, but now we have 20 or so boards done, and the rest shipped off to family with a paint sprayer and a promise to paint them for us. We really appreciate it!

Much of the inside of the house has turned into drying space for the siding. And storage for tools, and materials. Actually, it's a little scary how little space is left with some stuff stored inside!

More progress one the utility box.

It's now up to pretty much the same level of completion as the rest of the house.

This didn't come out as clearly as I hoped, but what you're supposed to see here is tons of condensation on the windows (and the fascia, and everything, really). That's how the house is every morning now, as it's falling below freezing at night now. I really wish the roof-with-1-week-lead-time-that's-now-on-week-six we ordered would arrive. The overarching goal for timeline on the house was exterior completion before the first snowfall, and if we don't get that roof on soon, I'm not sure we will make it.

This weekend, we started on the Roxul rigid board insulation on the exterior. It adds an additional R8 to the wall assembly, and provides some cover for the thermal path of least resistance/thermal bridge of the wall studs. I have no doubt we'll appreciate the extra insulation when living in JR House during Rochester winters.

Very like the Gutex on the roof, the Roxul gets sandwiched with battens, though in vertical configuration on a wall, they're called "furring".

Since those furring strips are secured through four layers and nearly as many inches to reach the studs (thank you German manufacturers for making massive screws not readily available in the US), it's pretty important, but not easy, to ensure those screws hit dead on the center of each stud. This picture shows how we used a level to ensure the furring board stays directly over the stud down its whole length.

The Roxul actually went up pretty quick: we got the entire south wall done this weekend.

And just at the end of the day on Sunday, we started Roxul on the east wall and figured out exactly where we wanted to place the furring strips to provide a good nailing surface to both the corner trim and the siding.

Build Days Through 26: Fascia, Utility Box, and Mini-Projects

It's been a while since the last update, though progress has slowed so there hasn't been much to show. This is due to a confluence of factors: first, that the roof we ordered has been delayed again and again. Originally, it was slated to arrive in a week, but now it looks like it might arrive in six (so, by the middle of October). Second, we're deliberately slowing down to try and save up some more money...we've spent about $20,000 and really only paid for a bit over half of that (the rest is on a promotional 0% APR card, but credit cards are a different story). And last, much of what we have been doing lately are small tasks that are important, but don't look all that interesting in pictures (such as "we fixed this one nail over here which missed the stud" or "we vacuumed the house and organized our tools and materials").

We did finally pick up the exterior siding: 1250 linear feet of "novelty lap" eastern pine. It will take approximately forever, but we intend to stain all six sides of every piece before attaching, then then put a second coat on the exposed side once up.

Starting the blue fascia boards.

Whenever I paint, people feel the impulse to remind me that I should be painting the target object, not myself. This day was no different...

...but I did get the boards blue while I was at it.

We also started the long process of staining the siding "redwood" color.

Even with a couple paving stones stacked up, climbing up into the house was not terribly easy, so we picked up some short pre-cut stringers and added some scrap.

And viola, temporary steps.

This also took far longer that I would have liked, but we did finally get all the battens fastened to the roof.

We cut the Gutex to the 5/12 pitch on the peak side before lifting it up in place, but the eave side we left overhanging by more than was needed, so we had to trim it. As that meant cutting through more than 6" of depth, the only tool we could think to use was the saws-all. That made for a bit of a wavy cut, but it was good enough for our purposes.

Starting to attach the fascia boards.

South wall fascia complete, moving on to the other sides.

As another side project while waiting on the roof to arrive, we started building the "utility box", which will be storage space for our solar system's batteries, and as much else as we can fit.

After two layers of 3/4" OSB for a floor (we wanted some extra strength since I expect those batteries to come in north of 700 pounds), we built a tiny version of the house frame, with the same 5/12 pitch.

Here's the box as seen from the South, to give some scale. It's not that big, but the extra space will be welcome.