28/05/08

Yesterday we started our roof. We started off by setting up our scaffold and getting our joists on. We made sure the joists were couple with the already set out rafters. After all the joists were on we then cut a heap of trimmers. The trimmers are designed to go between the joists over the walls to lock the walls in and to provide support for the gyprock. Trimmers were also cut to go from the last joist to the wall plate this allows us to keep the joists back away from the hips and valleys. Once the trimmers were done we then measured in a hanger to go through the main room to support the joists. The hanger was nailed to an off cut of joist to get it at the right hieght then the joists were skew nailed to it. After the joists were all shot up we then used metal straps to strengthen the joist up more. the straps are made to be nailed to the joist and the hanger because skew nails wouldn't be strong enough to hold under wieght.

The next step after the cieling was to cut the rafters and we did that by using a bevel and the red roofing book to work out the lengths and cuts. First we started working out and cutting rafters for different angled pitches before cutting them all to suit a 25 degree pitch. Once a few commons were cut and one jack was done a few of us could start pitching while the rest cut more rafters. after there were enough rafters to hold the ridge up i jumped down and cut one of the hips using the red book to work out the length and angle of the cut. I had never used the red book to work out hip lengths before and was suprised by how close it was. Its a bit of a shame the rest didn't work out so well but we aren't finished yet.