Shiloh

Yesterday we had the privilege and pleasure of raising our ridgepole. It marks a major milestone for us. On Saturday we had put in the final ridge pole support log. The problem was it began raining so hard we couldn’t finish bolting it in place. We began the morning doing some preparations including finishing the installation of this rpsl.

Once preparations on the ground were complete we moved to final preparation of the the three ridge pole support logs. We had purposely cut the logs too long and it was necessary to cut them to the proper height. Since the ridgepole tapers it was necessary to determine the diameter of the ridgepole at the three points where it would be supported by the RPSLs. Then we could calculate the exact height needed for each RPSL and measure and cut  . . .

Next comes the ridgepole . . .

Now we move it into place:

Up it goes.

Still going . .

It took about 30 – 45 minutes to actually get the ridgepole into place. Even with the help of someone on each side of the house, it took more than one try to get things lined up. I had to drive the forklift within two feet of the house to get the ridgepole in place and I could not see anything from the seat of the lift.

And finally we had moonrise!

Here’s the view from about 30 feet up:

While not the easiest part of the building process, requiring a lot of planning, it is definitely one of the most satisfying parts. To see this very important piece of the puzzle go into place gives you a great deal of satisfaction. While it wasn’t strictly required there was a lot of worry on my part. If this didn’t go right we could end up with a roof that isn’t correct. Fortunately it went almost exactly as planned. That is a big relief on my part.

We had some great help from some soon-to-be LHBA members. They are taking the class next month and have great plans for their future. We really appreciate their help and hope to see them again in the near future.

No, we haven’t gone on a cruise. It would be nice though!

It’s just that our house now looks like a sailing ship from the 1800′s. Well, sort of like a sailing ship. Let me explain

In the past several weeks we worked on the walls completing the 17th course. On Friday we began the process of placing our ridgepole support logs (rpsl). This entailed taking a 30 ft long log with a 16″ diameter butt and placing it on 12″ piece of rebar sticking up from a pier block. Oh, and you had to lift the log over a 18.5 foot high wall just to make it fun. Once over the wall, it is lowered down where you can’t see it. While I had great help with my dad and wife, relaying hand signals from someone inside the walls, to someone outside the walls to the driver of the forklift makes it extremely difficult. In fact, at one point we had the second rpsl “jump off” the rebar in the foundation because I was lowering the rpsl not realizing it was not going straight down but away from wall. It’s a bit disconcerting when the front of your forklift rocks down and the back end wants to lift up off the ground.

I wish we had videoed the event. It would probably be worth a few laughs down the road. We put two of the three rpsls in place – one on Friday and one on Sunday. Both cleared the top of the wall by at most 12 inches. It was probably closer to 6 inches. Here is the second one going over:

The end result is the “sailing ship” I was talking about:

With one more rpsl and the final course of logs (the 18th) to place we are closing in on being able to cap things off with the ridgepole. There is an, admittedly small, glimmer of hope that we might place the ridgepole Sunday.

Work continues on the walls, but last weekend we took a slight detour in order to cut a new ridgepole. When we cut the trees for the house we choose and marked five trees that were larger for the caplogs and the ridgepole. They needed to be longer for the roof overhang so we had them cut 45 feet long.

Well, one of the five that I marked didn’t get cut to the right length and one of the trees was marked unacceptable by the timber inspector. That left us with three logs. Two of them were more curved than we would like so for the last three or four weeks we have been discussing cutting one or two new trees off the property.

Last weekend we decided to cut one tree for a new ridgepole. We found one less than a 100 yards from the log staging area. In order to get the log back to the building area I had to be able to get the forklift to the area which was possible with this tree. The usable section needed to be at least 45 feet long. Estimates were made and there was even some discussion of using the forklift to tape measure the tree. Even so, it looked like it was at high enough. Dad fired up the Husqvarna and we cut down the tree bringing up a HUGE cloud of pine pollen. Good thing we weren’t allergic.

Two surprises, even though the butt of the tree was only an inch bigger than our biggest log, the ring count showed the tree was 101 years old! The trees we cut off the lot last October were 25 years old, so this one was over four times as old! The much tighter growth rings make the log stronger so this is not a bad thing.

Here is a picture showing the rings:

The second surprise was that the usable portion of the tree was EXACTLY 45 feet long. While our estimate was good enough, it would be much safer next time to actually measure and make sure it is long enough. After some limb trimming work and a bit of tricky forklift driving (and log hauling) and we had the trunk of the tree in the log staging area. Two days of off-and-on peeling and we had our beautiful new ridgepole. Here are some pictures from the peeling process:

She makes it look so easy, but trust me – it’s hard!

Here is dad squaring up the end of the ridgepole:

Our ridgepole is now ready to be treated so it doesn’t get insects. Hopefully we will putting it in its final home in a week or two.

This weekend it didn’t seem like we achieved much. Being a man down (Dad was out of town) it was a lot slower. Even so, we almost finished a complete course. Even more importantly, we had made some adjustments to the 10th course that worked out as needed. This was because when we measured on the ninth course it was a little off square. It turns out that we made the correct changes and our “box” is now exactly square. It’s a good thing, this course will be where the second-floor joists are attached. In terms of height to the top of each corner – three corners are within a 1/4″ of each. Unfortunately the fourth corner is about two inches lower than the other three. We realized, after the fact, why it happened. Should be something we can fix in the next few courses.

All in all, I’m pretty happy with it. Considering we are 12 feet off the ground at this point, building with 1500 pound logs that never seem to go together quite right…two inches in a single corner is O.K. We can fix it as we go up.  As a friend told me recently “You’re building a battleship, not a Swiss watch.” Which is quite true. I am no longer concerned about messing up the house if I hit it with the forklift…I’m worried about messing up the forklift.

In the following picture, if you look closely on the right side of the house you can see the 2×4 we use to measure wall height. The top of the 2×4 is just over 13 feet high . . . just to give you some perspective of how high it is now.

The following pictures is of our friends the girder and girder support log. Rebar on the bottom and the top of the girder support log. In the following picture you can see one of the ends of the girder. There are three pieces of rebar in each end if I recall correctly.

And finally, to give you some more perspective. Here is a picture of the best log home builder in the world standing next to some of the lower logs.

Since the last post we have continued to press forward with building the walls. When we reached the ninth course last weekend it was time to put in the girder. This will be used to hold up the second floor. Because of this, it’s pretty important that it is put in right. We used an log that was approximately eight feet long to support it. This log is called the girder support log (gsl). The girder itself, in our case, is approximately 32 feet long. It slid into place just as it grew dark last Sunday. Now that it is in place we can continue on placing the wall logs.

I don’t have any pictures yet of the girder. In the meantime, here are a couple of new pictures.

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The weather has been very cooperative lately. It’s looking like this weekend is going to be nice as well. Time to start on the 10th course!!