Posts Tagged ‘truss replacement’
Cutting Away
There’s no turning back now. The guys started cutting away the rotting logs of the truss yesterday under the hot rays of mid-sixty-degree sunshine up in the Hayward area.
The view of this cross-section shows the degree to which the log was disintegrating. They also uncovered the bees’ nest I knew was there. Good thing there were no bees present at this time of year.
We won’t be around to see them install the replacement truss components because we need to head home this morning. Alas, that gives us an excuse to return as soon as we can arrange additional coverage for the horses.
We have a new project to undertake because they also cut off the bottom of rotting logs on the front of “cabin 3,” located just behind and to the side of the main house. It was decided the best finish there would be to fill the voids with faux river rock, which is something they don’t do.
DIY much? It just so happens that Cyndie and I have an excess of faux river rock stored in the hay shed at home. As a matter of fact, some of the plastered facades of our home have fallen off and need to be re-cemented. That’s a project we have been ignoring for lack of experience.
Now we have double the reason to learn how to do this repair ourselves. The next time we come up here, I guess we will be hauling a load of one-sided manufactured stones and bags of mortar mix. In the meantime, we better study up on proper materials, tools, and techniques.
It will be tough to decide whether we should practice on our own house in order to do a better job up here, or the other way around. I could see it going either way.
My choice will lean heavily toward which option appears to be the easiest of the two. I’m hoping that answer will be revealed after we discover all the factors involved in the process.
In reality, cutting away the rotting pieces was the easiest part of this whole project.
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Icy Adventures
We don’t usually spend much time up at the lake when the ice is about to vanish from the water’s surface. I find it very entertaining. Temperatures dropped far enough below freezing Sunday night that water to the shore, which was liquid when we arrived, had refrozen solid by yesterday morning.
As the sun climbed to a mid-morning angle, the lake began making a percussive symphony of booming and cracking sounds in response.
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There is an almost mystical energy unleashed by the intensity of natural forces pressing in multiple directions as the frozen surface reacts to wind, sun, gravity, the mixing of heat and cold, and the resistance of rocks and sand on the shore. When a fracture reverberates throughout the expanse of acres of ice, rumbling and echoing for almost a minute afterward, it can be felt in your physical core.
I notice my pulse speed up when it happens, and hear myself making sounds of appreciation that don’t actually form words.
The guys –brothers, Jedediah and Caleb– showed up to work on the rotting truss and were quickly introduced to Asher and some of Cyndie’s fresh-baked scones.
They installed extra (temporary) support to the deck and the bottom chord of the truss itself in preparation for assembling scaffolding for the job. After further analysis and some outside consultation, the decision was made to change to a “hammer truss” design for the replacement.
I’m looking forward to what they come up with. It should be easier to build and will eliminate at least one of the key points that was trapping water and triggering the rot. It will change the appearance of the front of the house and may take a little getting used to at first, but I am open to the possibility it may end up being more appealing in the end.
It will certainly open up overhead space on the deck and produce a more spacious feeling.
As the warm afternoon eliminated most of the new ice that had formed the night before, Cyndie and I let Asher have some fun along the shoreline.
He had a blast breaking ice and chewing some of the chunks. Falling into the water as sections of ice gave out beneath his weight didn’t seem to bother him one bit.
Icy cold doesn’t seem to startle him either.
It looked like so much fun, I needed to keep reminding myself I couldn’t step out to join him in the shoes I was wearing. That, and the fact that icy cold would absolutely make an impression on my feet.
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Relative Something 