Building the future…

With cold weather continuing, adding the sheathing and roof would be key in creating an envelope to protect the inside from the elements.    Snow was in the forecast for Saturday, so we started early Friday morning.  We had mostly completed the framing, adding screws and a few of the bolts.  We were still waiting for a longer drill bit to come as we needed to drill through the 2×6 tubular steel frame to attach the walls with 5/8″ bolts to the trailer.

Reading through our notes from our workshop and the accompanying building manual to make sure we were all set for the next step, we realized we still had to add the hurricane straps.  People in Florida know all about these as without them, roofs tend to fly off in hurricane winds.  With us traveling 60-70 mph (110+ km/h) down the road, the same rules apply.  Of course these came with the material from Volstrukt, so it was just a matter of climbing around the ladder and adding them every 4′.   It still took a while, so we got a bit behind.  We ended the day with about half the walls up.

A word about the sheathing.  We chose to go with the lightweight, insulated, structural sheathing versus normal plywood.  Just as discussed in our framing choice post, we did this because of weight and structural integrity.  These sheets are very light, Julia and I can easily carry 4-5 sheets at a time, have a little bit of insulation value (R-3), and add tremendous structural strength as they are screwed in with a very high density of screws.

So we wake up Saturday morning to heavy snowfall.  It snowed until 1 pm, accumulating about 3 inches.  The rest of the day was spent blowing, sweeping, and cleaning off as much of the snow as possible.

It was now New Years Eve and we were more determined than ever to make progress.  And what a day it was.  We decided to add a fire pit to the work area so we did not have to go in and warm up and it also let us get rid of some of the scrap wood we had.

The day became the day of extremes as we worked 11 hours straight outside in 12 degree F (-12 C) weather and then finished off in the Sauna at 185 degrees F (85 C).  We are living the dream! 

Here is a short video on our progress of the day.

We are very excited about 2018.  Happy New Year to all.