Towards a More Permanent Roof

It did not rain today, which meant we could use the last couple of hours of daylight to get a decent start on the roof for the chicken yard. We started by cutting the top off the new post.

Because of the location of the post for the fence, we had to set the new post inwards more than we liked. So we got a piece of hardware to make it easy to take a chunk of 4x4 and make a little cantilevered platform. Sure, it doesn't look sexy, but it's better than having to figure out how to cantilever an open roof framework in two directions.

One we'd done that, it was quick work to get the two main beams in place. You can sort of see here how we're letting one corner go unsupported for the time being; when we do the piece of roof over the back of the yard, we'll put a post in under that corner to support it.

We used wood that has already done a lot of work on site: it was formwork for the [future] greenhouse foundation and the chicken shed foundation. We didn't have tons of it, but we'll get half the roof done before we have to start digging into the other wood piles.

We had only one or two moments of having to stop and figure something out. We decided to build the roof in place rather than build it on the ground and lift it into place. For one thing, we decided we'd rather account for the un-squareness piece by piece. For another, it looked to be easier to move stuff around in pieces rather than in larger chunks.

We got three of the rafters in place before the sun started going down. We've got one more piece of formwork left, and then we need to split a 2x12 down to finish the job, so we called it a night. It already feels really nice under the roof; it will be much more pleasant to work in the yard with a higher roof that doesn't catch on the tines of the garden fork.

We're thinking we can finish the framing tomorrow evening. Assuming it doesn't rain.

Technorati Tags: carpentry, construction, shed

posted by ayse on 09/14/09