Roof Trusses and Exterior Posts, Kitchen Wall

 November 23, 2014 Sunday

We found a framing contractor to work with us to put up the roof trusses and do the exterior and interior framing.  For the exterior framing there are 3 areas that need to be built out before the trusses can be installed. This included the Car port to the North, the Back Door entrance to the South and the Patio to the West. The Posts and Beams in these areas are load bearing and part of the look that we wanted for the house.  The posts and beams are 10"x 10" Douglas Fir.  Each beam is attached to the house with a metal plate that was custom made for the location.  Doug had these made here in Hillsboro.  He painted them a brown to protect them from rusting.

Inside the house the shear wall that will support the stairs and be the kitchen wall  was installed by the framing crew. They also installed the upstairs floor joists and built the stairs.  Pictures below.

Then the Roof Trusses were delivered on 11/21/2014.  Over the next two days the trusses for the main portion of the house were installed.  When I drove home Friday (11/21/14) morning I could see the carport trusses from the highway. That was very exciting. Setting the Roof Trusses took the better part of 2 days.  The Clear stories that we have on the top of the roof were a driving factor. The Clear stories have supporting box around them to support the weight of the Clear story and the weight of partial trusses supported by the box. On either side of the Clear story is  girder truss to carry and transfer the roof load. The distance between the girder trusses  had to be precise as the connecting girder truss was premade. Day one all of the Carport trusses were set and all of the large girder trusses were set.  On the morning of the second day we checked the positions of the larger girder trusses in the main living area. The crew had measured to the outside of the girder instead to the inside, this made everything off by  6 inches. These trusses needed to be moved. By end of the second day with a second crane truck we had  both of Clear stories boxed in and most of the main house trusses up.