Topped out -- just in time

(This post mirrored between my academic sustainability blog and my personal farm blog.)

Yesterday the last structural boards were fitted to the roof of the Womerlippi farmhouse's new extension, an experiment in passive solar construction.

I was too tired and upset from the heat and heavy work to take pictures at the time. Later, when I've had chance to recover, I'll take some shots.

(This link leads to the Facebook slideshow of the construction process.)

But that was a milestone. Now we have a building, and all we need to do is put roofing on and trim it out. Wiring, plumbing, even drywall, windows, doors and trim, these are all easy to do in comparison to heavy rough-cut lumber framing, especially when you're working by yourself. Even a short two by six rough-cut board, for a stud or a plate, weighs many pounds, never mind when you've joined a whole bunch of them together to make a wall frame section or rafter truss.

The foundation was particularly heavy labor, too.

Historically, carpenters from the British Isles held "topping out" ceremonies whenever this stage of a building was completed. I'm not going to cut down a small tree and pin it to my highest rafter and drink a bunch of beer with the building crew, as the old tradition goes.

Seems like a waste of a perfectly good baby tree. And the building crew is way too small to have a party.

That would be a rather lonely ceremony, especially as Aimee, like a true scientist, despises all such "superstition.".

But I am detecting that transitional feeling, when you move from one important phase of construction work to another. And it's a good feeling, of accomplishment and of having done the right thing at the right time.

Even so, I'm going to be very glad of the upcoming break from heavy labor. It's taken me about seven weeks (with a break for a few days for an academic workshop, and another several days to put together a crew and do an anemometer job), to get this building structure built. In that time I've definitely melted fat and built muscle, and I feel a lot fitter and stronger than I have for several years, but I'm also bruised, tired and achy. My body needs a rest.

In any case, the weather won't be cooperating with building plans for the foreseeable. The forecast is for high heat and humidity through Friday.

This is an unusually long heat wave for Maine, although those of us who have to keep up with climate data for a living were expecting a hot summer this year because we're close to the top of the curve in the 11-year solar cycle, so it comes as no real surprise.

Usually we can expect a few truly hot and humid days in a Maine summer. These short heat waves occur when the jet stream is well to the north of us and the circulation from high and low pressure systems (counter-clockwise around a low, clockwise around a high) introduces warm moist airflow from the south.

We began this current heat wave yesterday, and the weather systems are currently set up to continue to pour in warm moist air for several more days. We may easily break some heat records.

We talked about the likelihood of this heat wave occurring in GL 4003 Global Change class during the spring semester, and now here it comes.

The next thing will be a hurricane. I haven't begun checking the NOAA Hurricane Center web page regularly yet, but I will. The Atlantic hurricane season is really just getting started.

I used to spend a lot of time pontificating on this blog about when the penny would drop for Americans about climate change. I'm still not sure just how many hurricanes, tonadoes and heat waves it's going to take.

More than it should, that's for sure.

But I'm glad that I just completed the structural framing on a building that is way more heat-proof, hurricane proof, and tornado proof, as well as energy efficient and low-carbon, than the average Maine building.

I don't want to fit air conditioning, but I expect I could do so if I had to. With the amount of insulation planned for the building, air conditioning would be particularly efficient.

I'd rather have some proper Maine summer weather, with regular, prolonged blasts of cool, dry Canadian air, than air conditioning. I would be happy to suffer frost warnings in mid-to-late August, to be worried about whether my tomatoes are getting warm-enough nights, and so on. That would all be preferable.

But I may not get the choice.

Trussworthy?

Here's what I'm hoping is the last load of framing lumber, the hemlock material from Gerald Fowler's mill in Thorndike that we're using for the structure of our extension. This is the two by four inch stuff that makes the rafter trusses.

The nineteen-footers were very heavy and had to be built on the bench to get the proper measurements, then split into two halves, then manhandled up to the top plates and reassembled. I only actually fell down once, figuring all this out the hard way, but I have the bruises to prove it. It was just a short tumble, only four feet.

I have six more trusses to do and then I'll be done with framing this building. The sheathing will go on the roof, followed by Grace Ice and Water Shield, then the building wrap and windows and some detail at the soffets, and we'll be closed in, hopefully by next weekend.

It may then take a week or two to completely dry out before we can do any serious interior work. It's been moist this summer.

You can see the dogs looking out of the patio door, wondering what I'm doing down in the sheep pasture. Just a moment after this shot was taken, they both jumped out.

I'm sure they think that this is just some giant kennel I've built for their convenience.

But there is a nice view from that door.

Roof! Roof!

"Roof, roof!" was what the "epsilon semi-moron" elevator operator in Aldous Huxley's Brave New World sang out ecstatically as he dropped his alpha-ranked passengers off to get to their private aircraft at the end of the workday.

I'm not quite that happy, but I am pleased to have a bit of roof completed on this build. There's the small matter of just a teensy bit of shade for the workers (Plural? Hah! If I was, I'd start a union!), who can now work more comfortably in the hot sun forecast for tomorrow and Friday. I can now leave my tools out at night, and the woodwork in at least part of the extension will begin to dry out.

Unfortunately, I have another thirteen trusses to build before I can cover the rest of the building.

It took me a while to get the hang of Grace Ice and Water shield, a sticky bituminous roof "membrane" that does what roofing felt used to do, only better. (It sticks to nails, and doesn't require tacks or staples.) I'd never used it before. My first tries were abortive and I wasted twenty feet or so, at about a dollar a foot. I eventually got the hang of it.

The interior is now partitioned.

And some of the permanent receptacles are wired.

And I set up my tools to make life easier doing the remaining trusses.

As well as a twenty-foot long work bench, needed for the thirteen nineteen-foot trusses we must now build.

Our lambs seem none the worse for relative neglect this summer. The pigs went to the butcher's on Sunday. They'd eaten their way through two whole 1,000 pound loads of grain. We usually allow them three, but these were larger when we got them, and still had their testicles, and so were ready faster and with less feed than usual. I was glad to get them gone because that makes one less chore to do each day. Time is of the essence here. I'll be back to work before I know it, and I don't want to leave myself a lot of heavy work to do to finish the extension on the weekends during the fall semester.

A longer view of the whole build. Nearly done with the heavy work.

In God we truss

I've never built pitched roof rafter trusses before, only gambrel trusses, which are easier, I think.

But the basic engineering idea is easy enough to grasp -- make triangles that reduce the carrying beam portion of each truss to the allowable span. According to the American Wood Council, two by four hemlock has an allowable span of six feet without snow load, four feet with, so if we have a fifteen-foot total span, we would need to divide each truss into four sections.

I decided three sections, with a large center passage divided by a kingpost, which although not technically a triangle, will hold up the center of the bottom chord, making a flat ceiling joist. This also allows for two small crawl-able crawl spaces, where I'll need to run wires later.

Here's the detail of the rafter heel, with a solid four-foot triangle, as well as a smaller one right next door to make a vertical kneewall. These are joined by small squares and rectangles of plywood, all nail-gunned together with serrated 8-penny nail gun nails.

Using a custom-rigger 20-foot workbench and common measurements (of fifteen feet ten and a half inches wide and three feet eight inches high), it takes about forty minutes to make each one, but hanging them is hard to do by myself, because of the heat and humidity. The high today was nearly 90F and the dewpoint 70 F.

Accordingly, I was a little shaky and had to rest after lifting the first three into position. After eating a couple of sweet oranges and lying down for an hour, I went out and made another one, and was then able to put on the first little bit of roof sheathing.

We're using 7/16th OSB 24 inches on center with H-clips, which is not strong sheathing, but there will also be Grace Ice and Water Shield, then 1 x 4 purlins 16 inches on center, and a metal roof on top of all that.

There was a slight breeze on top of the roof, as well as the beginnings of shade inside the building, finally.

We are grateful for all such small mercies.

If we also get the forecast break in the humidity Monday, that will be another such blessing.

Almost sheathed

Here's the view of the extension from the south east, after today's very sweaty day spent putting up sheathing and insulation boards.

I managed about six hours total, until the 88 degree F heat and 70 degree dewpoint humidity got the better of me. Aimee's still out there, shopping weeds with a hoe, in the front garden where the sun hits square on. We'll see how long that lasts.

We could all use a break in the humidity. Where's Canada, and her cool dry air, when you need her?

Here's the view from the south, showing the proportions of the main part of the house (24 feet wide) and the extension (39 feet).

And from the rear, showing the awkward corner with the garage. This rather forlorn spot, now walled in on three-and-a-half sides, will probably finish up getting a little bit of metal roofing, to become a lean-to type storage space for lawnmowers and wotnot.

All set up for building rafter trusses, starting tomorrow. This workbench allows you to build a 16 footer. When we come to do the 19 footers, we'll need to turn a little more and use the whole length of the new living room, which is 24 feet. You can see the pencil marks on the vinyl siding where the end rafter truss will go. (If you can't see, click to enlarge.)

I'd begun to cut the vinyl with the 4/12 inch cordless circular saw (with the saw blade put in backwards, it cuts vinyl and insulation board a treat), but when my second 18V Lith-ion battery died, I took it as an omen and went in for a cooling shower.

Where I found Aimee making cheese, nearly a whole year after I bought her a book on hard-cheese making for a present. She said it took her that long to screw up the courage to do it because it was so complicated and too so long to do.

Apparently we won't be tasting this cheese for a while. It has to sit for a whole year!

Even so, I'm happy about this new wifely venture.

As the old song goes, what a friend we have in cheeses!

Starting to look like a house!

Here's the north side of our new extension, showing the first sheathing board now installed, under the stepladder. One down, 25 or so to go. You can also see the Amish-bought polyiso insulation boards -- the shiny foil-covered things to the right.

Here's a detail of a let-in cross brace. These are 4 by 1 planed pine material, which no-one would consider a particularly strong board, but they only have to work in tension and compression, and make a triangle with the studs, so they're actually enormously strong and will in fact keep the entire building from "racking" like a house of cards. Racking is when the entire building leans over. Here in Maine, where high winds, particularly in fall, and heavy snow loads are both natural hazards, you can see lots of "racked" buildings, all of which were insufficiently braced. Ordinarily in a modern building the 4 by 8 foot sheathing boards would do the work of bracing, but ours will be weakened by heavy insulation.

Speaking of which, here's a detail of the wall 'sandwich' showing the 1.5 inch polyisocyanite insulation under the 7/16ths OSB sheathing. The lighter colored framing on the left is just regular planed 2 by 4 stuff that we'll use on the inside for the interior walls, in this case the bathroom wall. It knocks together much more quickly than the full-width hemlock, but lacks the shear strength we want. I can't believe that people build whole houses with this stuff, but up until recently nearly all houses will built using "nominal" planed 2 by 4s, which are actually 1.5 by 3.5 inches.

This insulation has a reflective exterior which works by reflecting radiant heat loss back into the building. It needs an air gap to work well. Here, we'll have a slightly loose fiberglass pack in these walls, because standard R19 fiberglass batt is only 5.5 inches, not 6. That should allow the radiant heat property to work well. It takes 3.5 inch screws to get through all that foam and the outer sheathing, but once they bite into the hemlock, they're not going anywhere.

Unfortunately, the reflective surface also works very well in full sun while you're cutting the boards to size, so I'm wishing for either a cloudy day or some shade. It can get quite uncomfortable with the extra heat and sun-dazzle, working with this foam board.

The Ernie seal of approval. He's perhaps a little confused by the notion that there's a whole new 'inside" space arriving for him to chase Flame in.

Here's a detail of a corner "post"where three 2 by 6 hemlock studs come together to make a strong corner, plus you can clearly see the backside of a let-in cross brace. The joints have to be nice tightly fitted for the brace to work at full strength, no big gaps. Mine are all nice and solid, which, considering this is the only "real" bit of carpentry in the whole building, makes it seem like a shame to cover them up! I use my lightest circular saw and a nice sharp Sheffield-made (of course!) carbon-steel framing chisel that Aimee bought me for a Christmas gift one time.

Now that was a good gift. I already had a set of traditional framing chisels, but they were blacksmith-made here in the US, not real Sheffield steel. You can easily tell the difference. The cruder chisels can't be pushed through the wood as easily by hand as the Sheffield tools can. They're a pleasure to work with.

Flame explores the new space too.

Ernie eyes up one of his sheep from the new vantage point. The many south-facing windows and patio door overlook the main paddock, so he'll be able to supervise the sheep from a position of comfort!

Since I've been beavering away on the new building, Aimee has taken over my regular summer job of keeping the garden weed=free. Proper job! Just look at those nice clean rows.

In solitary

Here's our silly teenage ram Shaun locked away in the barn, the delinquent.

(His name is taken from Shaun the Sheep, a kid's cartoon in Britain, sometimes broadcast on PBS in the States. Not very original. I'm sure there are thousands of pet lambs named Shaun in the UK. But I like the show. It's right about my mental age.)

Our Shaun, also "a bit of a lad", just like the original, has been thrown in the slammer, for climbing fences, instigating large volume escapes, and generally being a pain in the rear end.

He's not at all happy about this, and in fact this would be a very cruel thing to do to any other sheep. Sheep are herd animals and will do just about anything to get back with their herd. We only separate ewes when they are sick, or old and crabby and being mean to lambs.

But rams are forced to live solitary lives, on account of the fact that sheep can breed for the greater portion of the year -- roughly September through May for our Corriedale/Romney crossbreds -- and so if you leave your ram in with your herd, you get early and late lambs. A late lamb killed our Tillie, just last week. Shaun had managed to breed her in late spring, but she was too old to give birth successfully and had to be put down, a great pity, since we loved our old Till. She was a very old sheep and probably would have gone one way or another sometime soon, but still.

Lambs born into a snowbank in the middle of a Maine winter don't survive either

So we always keep our ram away from the ewes during the first and last parts of breeding season.

In Shaun's case, he would have been separated anyway in just a few short weeks, as soon as the first ewe was seen in heat, but we did it early because the ewes were not getting enough grass. He's been climbing fences and barging through hot wire as if it wasn't there.

He's gotten very good at this fence-jumping, to the point where only serious tall, taught, sheep-wire fences can keep him in.

We only have one of those, around the main three-acre paddock we call the "Back Forty," our largest.  The rest are flimsy structures put up when we need them.

I'm building an extension, a serious bit o' building, concentrating hard on that job up to ten hours a day, and so I can't be dropping tools to go run after sheep that get out. Instead, more and more, I kept them locked up in this large paddock where the grass is thin but the fence strong. I fed them hay instead, creating another potential problem, using up our hay too quickly. We have 200 bales of fresh Amish hay in our hay loft, but that's supposed to last until February or March, when we start bringing in more hay from a different Amish farm.

So because of Shaun's misbehavior, the whole herd was essentially being punished. All sheep much prefer green grass to hay. And we were wasting $3.50, more or less, for every day that this situation continued.

The last straw was Sunday, when our neighbor had to drive down to tell me the ram was out and on our shared access road. Our phone has been acting up -- Aimee ordered a new one online -- and so neighbor Andrea wasn't able to get through on the phone, so she jumped in her car and drove down, bless her.

Of course I immediately dropped tools and got a bucket of grain, for which Shaun would usually be gaga, and follow you just about anywhere.

But he wasn't going that easy. He's a young ram, essentially a teenager, and is trying to figure out who's who in the pecking order, so he wasn't going to be lured in from his pleasureful wandering idyl for no stinkin' lousy cheap bucket of grain by some weak little human. I think I had a similar escapade one time with my own dad when I was about 17 or so, when I threw him a punch (missed) and he pushed me out of the front door and told me not to come back.

So, our neighbor was treated to the sight of me grabbing my ram by the neck, then when that didn't work, by the front leg, and wrestling him in to the barn.

(It's not recommended practice, but if a big sheep really is giving you trouble, grabbing a front or back leg is a good way to move it -- the sheep is off balance and has less strength on just three legs. They usually fight less this way than with a halter. A small sheep can just be picked up.)

My intent was just to confine him for the day so the ewes could continue to eat green grass, their favorite food, of which we have plenty due to the on-off rain and sun and warm humid nights we've been getting. But once he was in there, I thought otherwise and set the ram pen up for the duration. He'll be in here until October, when he can go back out with a selection of the ewes.

He's now reduced to bleating unhappily to himself, but he's easily ignored. He'll have to get used to it. Rams have to be separated. You can't take half measures with livestock.

The alternative is the butchers, for our Shaunie.

He does get a little extra grain, though. On the one hand I do feel sorry for him. On the other, I want him to fill out, to take on that finished Romney ram shape, with the heavy forequarters and the 250 pounds of rammy solidity that a full grown Romney ram carries.

We'll see him climb fences then. He won't even be able to get off the ground.