Looks kinda naked, doesn’t it? Well, topless anyway ;-) The next step is the roof trusses. The trusses were delivered on November 28th. Brian was stubborn at first and insisted that the two of us could get the 20 foot wide by 10 foot high and really heavy trusses up off the ground and onto the tops of the walls ourselves. But after taking two days to get two trusses up onto the walls with a not-so-great winching system, he realized this wasn’t the best plan of action. So on Decembr 4th, in came the calavary – or crane company ;-)
The crane operator asked if we had more people to help. Brian told him nope, it was just the two of us. The crane operator said a job like this would take at least three or four people. Brian told him too bad, this is all we’ve got! We must have looked like a pretty sad truss crew – I thought the guy was going to give up and leave, but we forged ahead with our little crew. We may have been small, but we were mighty!
Here goes the first truss…
And the first truss is in place!
The first truss was a challenge, mainly because there was really nothing to attach it to and because there wasn’t really anywhere for Brian to walk around up there. At one point I thought he was going to have a heart attack and plunge to his death, but he survived :-)
There goes truss number two…
And then there were four trusses…
From this point, things started to move faster and smoother. My job was to tie a rope to each truss and then hold the end of the rope and walk along the side of the garage to help guide the truss into place. Then I climbed up a ladder to undo the rope and put in pieces of wood as spacers between each truss. No pics of this part of the process, we were on a roll! Meanwhile, Brian was getting the trusses into place and bracing together.
We all got into a groove, with the crane operator hooking the cable to the truss, me doing my rope thing, the crane lifting the truss up onto the walls, and Brian doing the bracing. Eventually we were doing one truss every 5-1/2 minutes. I think the crane operator was impressed – and surprised!
Go Brian!
Last truss, woooohoooo!
Four hours after we started, we were all done :-) The trusses still need to be leveled and properly positioned and permanently braced, but they’re all off the ground and on the walls and relatively secure. And no catastrophes or injuries :-)
Some artsy truss shots….
A garage with a view :-)
Now it’s starting to look like a real garage! Except the roof isn’t quite finished, the peaks still have to go on top of the trusses. But before we can put on the peaks, we have to get some sheathing done…
Click the links below to check out the rest of the garage progress…
Build journal – The garage begins (a little late!)
Build journal – The garage foundation
Build journal – Garage framing
Thanks for sharing this with us! Some really amazing features.
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