Hexagon Roof

Yesterday Dan, Greg and I began construction on a hexagon end roof. To start off we measured the height, from the floor up to the top edge of the ridge board, which came to 2360mm. From this we made one plate at a length of 4720mm (twice the length of the height), which gave us the half span either side of the ridge centre line. The half span equalled the height because we decided to again do a 45 degree pitch roof as it saved alot of space in the small work area we had.

Then we came out from the edge of the ridge, running with the ridge, out 2360mm. From this we had a rectangle with sides 4720 and 2360.

As we had already determined from our experience with the truncated hip, when you put a plate 45 degrees across the corner of a plate and bring it in, the two new angles created are 135 degrees.

The above diagram then demonstrates how we figured out how to get even length sides ( B ) from our knowledge of the half span ( 2360 ) and its corresponding Tan angle of 67.5 degrees.

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Dorma Window Framing and Truncated Hips

Yesterday we finalised our construction of our dorma window. Dorma windows may seem rather simple but they require a hell of a lot of trimming and extra fiddly additions to make it stable and work properly. First of all we determined the overall height of the roof, then roughly how high we wanted the window to be. There wasn't any real limitations on this so we concluded that the top of the window should be about head height as it would be aesthetically pleasing. I then worked out the height of the small roof that would sit above the dorma window frame, 450(halfspan) which equals the height from the plate, then add 90mm (the height of the birdsmouth). The overall roof height was 540mm. Dan and I decided to start the dorma roof 300mm down from the top of the main roof and in the diagram on the previous post you can see that we also set the bottom back 300mm too, to make it look even.

To work out the height of the studs we were going to use we simply did the following simple subtraction equation, 2490 - 540 - 300 - 35 - 35 = 1580mm. We then cut all of our studs out of 90 x 35 to a length of 1580. We shot the studs into the bottom plate so that the last stud on the inside of the roof met up with its edge aligned with the underside of the rafter, this is so that everything met up nicely so it could be lined properly. After this we levelled our front and back studs and nailed them sideways into the rafters so that they remained level. Once this was done we measured some top plates to sit ontop of the studs and tie them all together. When the top plate was nailed on it tied everything together and provided our main part of the dorma window. We could then add our dorma roof and other trimmers to it.

The above picture shows our completed dorma window frame. The dorma window roof is 540mm high from the top plate of the dorma stud walls. The vertical studs are 1580mm high.

The photo above depicts our stud wall going back with the rake of the roof. As the roof was a 45 degree pitch the angled trimmer and the shortened stud were cut with 45 degree cuts. Later we concurred that we should have put an extra stud directly alongside the last whole length stud because it is a more important structural piece.

The picture above shows the actual side elevation view of our dorma window frame. It is a good contrast to the drawn up diagram in the previous blog post, where it shows some of the dimensions.

The picture on the top right shows the front of the dorma window. It has the two main rafters 900mm apart from each other with a horizontal fixing plate spanning between them. From this plate there is a small rafter that runs with the other main rafters, this way the roof can be sheeted and be structurally sound.

The picture on the left shows the valley of the dorma roof and its corresponding valley boards. The bottom of the valley board on the left is supported with a trimmer ontop of the plate.

The picture on the left shows the bottom plate for our truncated hip. A truncated hip is used when the wall plate has an angled section. The jack rafter for this truncated section continues down from the normal hip to the bottom plate. Two other hips, bisecting the angle of the wall plates, run up to meet the normal hip.

The picture above shows the following from left to right - centring rafter, left truncated hip, jack rafter, and the right truncated hip. The edge cuts on the truncated hips worked out to be 17.5 degrees, and logically the edge cut on the centring rafters and any creepers joining onto the truncated hips, worked out to be 17.5 degrees as well.

Dorma Window Construction

Today Dan and I continued on with our dorma window construction, which consisted of a 45 degree roof with an overall height of 2490 or 2455 not including the bottom plate. A 45 degree roof seemed rather simple in comparison to other pitches because the height always equals the half span of the roof. Because of this Dan and I thoroughly thought through each construction step and idea that came about so that we didn't overlook anything.

We constructed the main roof with the red roofing book as it was a fair bit easier to do so and building the dorma was the actual task, not the roof. One thing that both teams found annoying was that the edge cut for the rafters joining into the hips worked out to be 56 degrees but when we cut the rafters and tried to join them they were quite a significant amount out. So after some testing we just decided to simply go with a 45 degree edge cut, which fitted very nicely.

The diagram to the right shows the finished construction of the 45 degree roof that we had to work with. Notice that there is no jack rafter running up the middle to the crown end junction, this is so that the dorma window can be fitted easily. The two middle rafters are 900mm apart from one another, which was to be our dorma window opening. We used a 90mm birdsmouth cut, with the tail end totally removed. This provides a neat finish with no overhang.

Dan and I decided to put an opposing creeper to each side of the two middle creepers, so that they met up on the hip providing support to one another.

I enjoyed the construction of this 45 degree roof as i had always wondered what it would be like to make such a steeply pitched roof and i was wary of the ease at which things seemed to work. It was good to get even more practice at cutting rafters and hips without any supervision as i rarely cut them myself on the job site. Having two teams of 2 created a great rivalry between us and I enjoy the challenge of trying to build the roof faster than the other team.

Oblique end roof test

On friday we had to construct a small scale oblique end roof based on the brown paper drawing we had previously drawn up. Each of us had a different pitch, except for Dan and I because my drawing was out of square, it meant that my cuts wouldn't work properly. The pitch i was working at was 30 degrees. From the drawing we could align the bevel and then transfer the bevel onto the corresponding part of the roof, so for example you could get the hip bevel from the drawing and then use it to cut a hip.

We started off with a simple plate system of a roof that had an oblique end and then by using what we had learned about oblique roofs, marked out the half spans and also the positions of the long hip return and the short hip return, and finally on the end, the jack rafter position.

The short hip return (B) is exactly the same length as the Jack positioning (A).
First of all i cut the centring rafters and the other common rafters. I obtained their length by the simple equation of - (Halfspan / Cos(30)) - 12. For this i didn't want any overhang on my rafters so i made a 90mm birdsmouth, which would fit flush with the end of the plate.

Oblique Roofs

Over the past two days at Tafe we have been working on some advanced roofing booklets that Paul had handed out to each of us. So far in the booklets we have been learning about how to make precise cuts and measurements for oblique end roofs. An oblique end roof is a roof where there are two parallel walls but one stretches out further than the other, so the wall that joins between them is not at a 90 degree angle. Think of a parallelogram. The hips always bisect the angle of the two wall plates that it sits on, and the rafters are always perpendicular to the wall plate.

Where the short and long hips meet at the crown end junction with the ridge, the two hips are always 90 degrees apart. Because of this we can use pythagoras thereom to figure out other types of cuts on the expanded plumb cuts diagram. From the brown paper drawing we drew at Tafe, we can set bevels to all the different cuts nescessary such as the short hip plumb cut, long hip foot cut and the under purlin down cut.

By following the instructional booklet we received from paul, we made our own oblique roof cuts diagram with our own different pitch angle. I found this quite an involved drawing as you used previous triangles to help calculate the next triangle you were drawing in. One thing that was a bit difficult was that the triangles continually over lapped one another, so if you were to look at the finished diagram, it just looks like a jumble of triangles that don't mean anything. Other than this, the instructional booklet was very easy to follow and quite mind blowing because i always wondered how people worked out the underpurlin cuts and so on, and this diagram showed me one way of doing that.

After this we moved on to a calculations booklet where we had to find the lengths of the short hip and long hip and other parts of an oblique roof. All the different calculations stacking ontop of one another made it hard at times to concentrate on what you were actually trying to figure, because the length of one hypotenuse of a triangle was the length of an adjacent length you needed for another different triangle. I enjoyed these excersises because they were a logical challenge that i could work my way through. It also stretched my methods of using trigonometry too, which i consider the holy grail of roof carpentry because trig can solve most roofing problems.

One thing that was a real mind opener was learning that the square root of the (actual rafter length squared) + (the offset between the hip and rafter squared) = the actual length of the hip.

Hip and Valley Roofs 25th Friday

Over the course of this week we have been working on hip and valley roofs. A hip and valley roof is the standard roof type at the current time and is a rather logical and simple looking roof, although its simple look belies its involved construction. For the usual house, there is the main roof and minor roofs. The main roof is the largest and heighest part of the roof. Minor roofs can be formed by garages, alfrescos and rooms that stick out from the main rectangle shape of the house, these are not as high as the main roof.

On Monday we got straight into building a small roof ontop of a stud wall frame that was already built by some other class. I found it very interesting and as we all knew what to do, we could all get stuck in. We each had separate jobs to complete, which meant we all had something to do and there wasn't any errors due to lack of communication. I cut and shot in the two rows of hangers that went across the main room, whilst Rhys built another section of stud wall, Dan, Renno and Michael cut rafters. It gives me a great deal of satisfaction in having a job thats specifically my responsibility and finishing it with good results.

After this Dan and I began measuring and cutting the under rafter, a special rafter that helps frame and strengthen a box end gable. We made the gable with a 450mm overhang from the wall. To make the gable we had the last pair of rafters at about 360mm from the edge of the wall, two under rafters that met up at the ridge at the edge of the wall plate and then two rafters that hung in mid air, attached by trimmers.

Boxed Eaves Construction and Lining

Today we commenced construction of our external eaves on our small roof. We split up into two teams, Rhys was partnered with Greg, and Dan, Mike and I teamed up. Greg and Rhys worked on an exposed eave where the hardiflex was lined ontop of the rafters, to sit underneath the battens. The hardiflex also fitted into a rebate that was cut into the back of the tilt batten. Underneath they had to cut and fit a birdboard that was to fit up against the wall and run up to the bottom of the hardiflex. The birdboard seemed like a bit of a challenge as it had to fit nice and flush.
Dan, Mike and I worked on the other side of the house on a boxed eave. This consists of a tilt batten, a wooden facia board with a rebate cut 25mm up from the bottom to house the hardiflex, a wall plate that runs along the wall horizontally level with the facia groove and small trimmers that butt join into the wall plate and are nailed alongside each rafter. The trimmers are used to nail the hardiflex to. In the picture you can see the trimmers nailed horizintally into the wall plate and screwed alongside the rafters.

First of all we measured out 600mm from the wall along the two end rafters and marked a plumb line with a level. We then squared this level mark across the top of the rafter (35mm edge). Then we put in a nail on each line at each end and pulled a string line tightly across. We levelled vertically down from the string line on each rafter and then removed the string line. After this we cut with a circular saw all of the plumb lines.
The next stage was to use a small piece of the tilt batten to make a depth mark on an end rafter. By putting the tape measure perpendicular to the rafter and next to the vertical tilt batten piece, we could sight when the tilt batten was 35mm up from the rafter at an angle of 25 degrees. Once we had achieved this mark on each end rafter we could run a string line across them.
We also used a tape measure to mark 40mm in from the edge of the rafter, once again on each end rafter and ran a string line from each point using nails.
Once all of the rafters had been marked with the string line using a spirit level we then set the saw at 25 degrees and set it to roughly the right depth, we cut down the vertical plumb cut lines, whilst keeping the 25 degree circular saw plate flat on the rafter. Then we set the saw to 0 degrees and to the right depth and cut the horizontal marks. By hand sawing and chiselling we could neaten up the the check outs.
Next we simply screwed on the tilt batten into the checkouts. Then we placed the facia board up and checked whether any of the bottoms of the rafters had to be cut to free up the rebate cut into the facia board, which they had, but only by 10 or so millimetres. Once this was done we could then screw on the facia board, as seen in the picture below, flush with the checkout at the top.
Using a spirit level, we levelled across the from the top of the rebate to the wall and made marks on each consecutive stud, this was so we knew at what height to place the wall plate at. We then screwed on the wall plate.
After this we then measured each trimmer and cut it to length. By using a small piece of hardiflex as a measuring guage as such, we put the hardy into the rebate on the facia board, pulled down the trimmer ontop of it and then screwed the trimmer into the side of the rafter. This way the trimmers would hold the hardy down, and push it down against the bottom of the rebate so there was no gap and it was aesthetically pleasing. We then nailed in the trimmers into the wall plate.
Once this was done we could measure and cut our hardiflex to the right width and slide it into the rebate. We then held it tight into the rebate and hand nailed the hardy onto the trimmers underside.
With this done we then put our wooden lining on up against the wall and up against the underside of the wall plate. The hardy only covered 2/3 of the wall plate bottom, so by nailing on the wooden lining it covered the rough cut of the hardiflex and gave it a nice finish.
This concluded the construction of the boxed eave.
I thoroughly enjoyed doing the box eave as it was fairly involved with sawing, nailing and screwing, and also involved problem solving figuring out how to accurately measure the checkouts by using string lines. It kept us three busy so our conversations only concerned the work at hand, but it was also easy work so it kept us enthused. It also gave us a great sense of pride once we had completed the eave because it had been a product of our knowledge and hand skills without the help of Paul. I certainly enjoy the hands on work and from what i gather so do the other blokes. It also is a great team building excersise and i can feel things flowing very well when Dan, Mike and I work together.

Red Roofing Book and Hip Valley Roofs

So far this week we have been working on simple hip - valley roofs. By using the red roofing book we did an excersise where we had to cut out two opposing common rafters at a specified angle. The angle i received was 31 degrees and fortunately for me, in the book it was listed as 30 degrees and 58 minutes, which is very close to 31 degrees. The rise worked out to be 600mm over every 1000mm run. This way to cut my plumb cut to join onto the ridge i measure down 100mm on the rafter, and then 60mm across the rafter, perpendicular to the 100mm mark. By joining these two lines together, i had made a 31 degree angle. Using the half span and multiplying it by the rafter constant i came up with a rafter length measurement, which was around 1911mm. I hooked the tape on the long end of the plumb cut and ran the tape down the length of the rafter and marked 1911. I then squared it off, and repeated the previous process of the 100mm and 60mm marks to make the plumb cut line. I then used a tape to run down the plumb cut line and marked 110mm and then squared that off perpendicularly. When this triangle is cut out, it creates a notch out of the rafter that allows the rafter to sit on the wall plate. This notch is called the birdsmouth, and because of the 110mm measurement we used to obtain the depth at which it was cut, it is called more specifically, a 110mm birdsmouth.
We also cut a whole bunch of common rafters, two jack rafters and a ridge to length and began nailing them in position ontop of our small stud wall house we had built and used previously. Dan then used the red roofing book to calculate the length of the hip and luckily the hip fitted perfectly, generally hips are just hand measured as sometimes a non-square room can make the red roofing calculations of the hip length wrong.

Wednesday Hanging the Door in the Jamb.

Wednesday. Today we started the day by continuing on with our jambs and doors. It was Michael and my turn to hang the doors after Rhys and Greg had done theirs yesterday. First of we inspected the doors Rhys and Greg had hung yesterday to see how they had gone. Rhys and Greg had somehow managed to install their doors roughly 20mm down from the top of the head when it was supposed to be 2mm, which we all found odd but also helped Michael and myself to look for and ensure that our doors were 2mm down from the header. Also Paul pointed out that the "wind" (whether the two jambs when sited across their lengths vertically, were perfectly parallel with each other or if they differed) was out on their doors as well as the rest of our doors were too. Mine was a significant amount out of wind. I tried by hammering the stiles, to reduce the wind, but only managed to reduce it by half.
I then moved on to positioning the door in the jamb, and to my dismay, found the door didn't fit at all. So then i had to plane it down by about 3mm to get it to fit in place so then i could observe where the door needed to be run down with the planer, to make it fit nice and flush with the stile that was going to have the hinges on it. I managed to plane the door down nice and level along the hinge side and when i placed the door into position it fitted very flush, almost perfect up the entirity of the doors length.
I then placed a 20 cent coin between the top of the door and the head, to give the 2mm spacing requirement, and then wedge the door up. I now had the door flush with the hinge stile and 2mm away from the head. After that I then marked the positions of the top of the hinges on the door and stile with a pencil and tape measure.
When i viewed how in line the other side of the door was in comparison to the other stile, i was pissed to see that the gap went from 10mm at the bottom to 1mm at the top. I measured the width of the door and found that it was 810mm wide at the bottom and fuckn 815mm at the top. After receiving some instruction from Paul, i marked where the gap was 6mm, and then marked in 5mm (because there was already a gap of 1mm at the top) at the top of the door. I used a spirit level to mark a line between the two lines and then gently planed, then belt sanded down the door to the line. Although i understand the door still wouldn't have been perfectly 6mm away from the stile through the entire length of the door, it was still alot closer than it was previously, and was much easier to do other than running the entire door down so it was 810mm wide and then moving the packers out on the stile.
I then began to mark out, with stanley knife, the outline of the hinges where the lines i had drawn previously were. With these lines in place on the door and hinge stile, i then began to chisel out the timber. The pine was so fuckn hard to chisel out neatly and was quite frustrating as i wanted that perfect finish i had seen in the video on Monday but i relaxed and just dealt with the fact that the pine was shit.
Once the door and stile were chiselled out to the spacing and depth of the hinge, i then screwed on the hinges, still joint together by the pins, onto the stile, making sure they were fitting flush with the rebate and then the edge of the stile. This was the easiest part of the entire project. I then placed the door into position next to the stile, and whilst wrestling the door to stay into position by means of maneuvering a wedge with my foot underneath it, holding the hinge perfectly in place and holding the screw with one hand, i used the other hand to screw it together. After completing all three hinges, and closing the door i Paul and discovered that the hinges weren't exactly in position, which made the door not have an even 2mm gap up the side of the hinge stile, which also threw out the nice 2mm gap i had along the top of the door and header.
Although challenging i learnt quite a bit about installing a door into the jamb and how to correct a few problems with making with the door flush and square with the jamb.

Monday

Monday. On Monday we watched three videos on how to install (hang) a door frame and door. The door frame is called a jamb and consists of two vertical pieces (stiles) and a top piece called a head. The oustide of the frame, once installed is framed with an architrave, which neatly finishes up the border of the door and wall lining. One side of the jamb that is to have the hinges fitted onto it, is levelled using a straight edge and a spirit level. Once it is nicely levelled, an assortment of different thickness packers is used to neatly fill out and support the stile against the stud of the wall frame. The head is also secured level, thus giving a perfect 90 degree corner and level side to work off when hanging the door.
The video involved all the nescessary steps in hanging a door, i found it very thorough and the video clips used were well shot and accompanied the voice over nicely. The voice over was spoken smoothly and at an even pace allowing easy following by the listener, which made it easy for me to draw up small diagrams and write notes as i watched. I felt i learnt quite a bit about hanging a door from these videos and upon watching them again i feel even more knowledge would sink in. The music was hell gay hahaha.
After this we researched information on how to hang a door on the internet. At times we have struggled to find adequate information on the net but this time i found the research exercise very worthwhile. There were quite a few sites that had easy to follow, step by step instructions accompanied by informative diagrams and/or pictures. By reading through different sites i learnt that there are numerous different ways in how to hang a door. Some of the sites showed some key points of hanging a door that the video tape we watched previously, didn't have such as checking whether the floor was level as it affected the gap at the top of the door.
We then began making our jambs and installing them into the stud wall frame of our small house that we had built previously. I really enjoyed installing the jamb in our small house as its outside and the boys and i feel a great sense of pride and accomplishment in our final product we had constructed. This made for a good atmosphere to install our jambs in.
Installing the jambs was quite a difficult task and required quite a bit of problem solving. Using the packers to pack out the sides of the jambs against the stud walls was hard and as you packed and checked the level, sometimes packing accurately would throw out another part along the length of the stile. Other information on how i made and installed the jamb is in our construction sequence that i wrote.
I found Monday to be a great start to the week, in the morning, due to a phone call from Bernie, Paul was away for 15mins or so, so we had time to catch up with we were doing outside of work. But also i felt the Paul had a great set out of tasks for the day that kept everyone focused and enthused in what they were doing. The practical is an excellent balance during the day to the computer work and watching the videos.

11/04/08

Today we concluded our construction of our monolithic concrete slab formwork. This involved cutting particle boards to three courses high (257mm), cutting strong backs for the formwork, digging a trench for the footings 350mm wide and also hammering in pickets to support the formwork. We also made a small area, by shovelling sand and levelling, which sloped up from the footings trench on an angle of 45 degrees, and eventually reached a pad height that was 100mm below our string lines. This is because the slab was 100mm thick.
By the start of this morning we had half of our formwork up with our trenches dug out and pickets in place, all we had to do was level of our horizontal braces across the pickets and nail them in, then put our last long stretch of formwork ply onto them. The very edge of the formwork ply that was to come into contact with the concrete had to be 160mm away from the string line and we attained this by marking 140mm in from the edge of the horizontal braces and lining that up with the string line.
We got the right level on the pickets for where the top of the horizontal braces would be nailed at by using the dumpy level to mark a uniform height on the pickets. This way the formwork ply would sit at the right level height with the string line.
To finally finish off our formwork ply we had to hammer in a few extra pickets, because our pickets were 2inch by 1inch wood, they would come out of the ground. Once this was done it was strong enough to stand on and so Paul could pass us. After this we dismantled the formwork and also our hurdles trying our best to salvage the longer lengths of timber and also the pickets Daniel cut.
After smoko we then started our test on external cladding. I didn't study for this test and may have failed but i am optimistic that i may have scraped through. I found learning about external cladding a little difficult as there were so many types and each was hard to research on the net because of useless internet sites littering the web. Also i had not previously discovered a site that listed in black and white the standards for fixing certain types of cladding to stud walls, which also made it difficult.
After lunch we then did a calculations test on figuring out the lineal metres of timber cladding required to cover a rectangular room and also how many cement fibre sheets we would need to cover the same room. We then had to figure out how much both types of cladding would cost based on our earlier calculations. I found this test rather easy and also enjoyable as i like to nut out mathematics problems.

Research assignment and Setting out

Yesterday we started off the day with a research assignment on formwork ply and concrete. Formwork ply was very hard to research as there was only sites that wanted to sell the formwork ply and they didn't give a very detailed descriptions on usage, storage and installation processes. I found researching concrete rather interesting, especially looking up reinforcing and the ways in which steel rods in concrete make the concrete stronger. Concrete and steel have the same temperature expansion rate so there is little if any internal stresses, and the alkalinity of concrete due to the lime, slows and even stops steel rusting. Concrete has great compression strength and the steel adds great tensile strength to the concrete allowing arch ways and horizontal beams of reinforced concrete to be utilised.
After this we then moved on to setting out a full scale, albeit, small house plan in the very back area of the Tafe campus, next to the horticulture section. On the first day we managed to assess what tools we needed and carried them out to the site, what timber we would require for stumps and hurldes, and also what house plan we were going to use.
To start off with we measured 90mm off of the existing fence line there and ran a string line parallel with it all the way to the back fence. We then measured 7m in from the back fence, along the string line we just put in place, and then 2m perpendicular inwards from the 7m point and placed a stump. This stump represented the corner of the house. Then we measured exactly 13070mm from that stump, running 2m parallel from the string line, and placed another stump.
As the back existing fence was not 90 degrees with our string line we had to use another method to obtain the two other corner points of the house.
What we did was use pythagoras thereom and used the diagonal or hypotenuse lines and the horizontal lines to form a triangular point of two measurements. The square root of (13070 squared + 16150 squared) = 20776. So we ran a tape off of one existing stump that we knew was right, at a 90 degree angle (roughly) at a distance of 16150, and then ran another tape from the existing corner stump at a distance of 20776. We then moved the two tape measure lines until both the measurements, 20776 and 16150 met each other, and then we banged in a stump. We repeated this process again but using the two existing stumps in the other way. This worked out perfectly and as i was the one who came up with the idea, i felt rather pleased and satisfied with myself.

22/02/08

Today we started off the day we started off learning about the Ramset explosive power tools. I learnt that there are two main different types, the direct and indirect tools. The direct firing fires a single shot and must be reloaded each shot, it hits a cartridge and then the cartridge hits the pin or shank located inside the barrel. The indirect uses "magazines" of cartridges that are pulled through as the gun is "cocked". The cartridge is hit with a pin and explodes but it then pushes a piston, which transfers the force to the pin or shank with contact force.
When we used the ramset i expected it to be quite loud just like a real gun, but to my disapointment it was quite quiet. The handling force that is returned is pretty forceful though. It was interesting to learn about misfires and how it is standard procedure to hold the gun against the object, in the firing position for 10 to 15 seconds until removing it from the object. This way if misfires have a delayed explosion from the cartridge no damage is done to the operator or persons around the operator. It seemed like a practical and efficient alternative to tek screwing the timber plates onto the U-beams, but if you use pins it doesn't get enough grip on the steel.
After this we did an assessment on the sub floor, and although i didn't study i felt confident that i did very well on the test. I enjoyed doing the sub floor and because things were being taught to me verbally as we were physically building the floor i learnt and retained it with ease. I am certain i will have defeated Greg on the test and yet he studied and is still there right now, thankyou and good day sir mwahaha.

Practical External Cladding

This morning, as a group, finished off the take off excersise number 6. As i was already half way through it didn't take long. After this we moved on to making a height stick, used to represent the layers of cladding going up the wall. On one side we marked out lines for 185mm cedar cladding that gave us 160mm coverage with a 25mm overlap, which as Mike found out was the standard coverage overlap. On the other side we worked out how many panels of pine cladding would be required and the equation i used to figure it out was as below:
152mm total panel width
152 - 25 (overlap coverage) = 127
2520 (height of the wall to be covered) / 127 = 19.84
Round up to 20 panels to cover the wall.
2520 / 20 = 126
so 126 coverage with each board with a (152 - 126) = 26mm overlap.
After this we moved onto actually putting on the cladding. Behind the cedar and pine cladding we placed on a water proof lining that is coloured blue to stop reflection of light, and also acts as an insulater. On a framed timber wall it must perferated so that the walls can breathe, stopping moisture build up due to condensation.
Mike and Greg worked on the pine cladding over the plastic lining, Dan and Rhys worked on the cedar cladding whilst Greg and I worked on lining the back wall with sheets of hardiflex.
This required us to put in trimmers behind where the sheets were going to join as per AS1684 guidelines. Cutting and installing the sheets was relatively easy and fixed them with clout nails. We first of all got the overall span between the two corner pieces of timber, halved it and marked a line. We then placed the tape length of 600mm on the mark and then marked 1200mm and 0mm, for the width of the middle sheet. That way we would have even sized sheets either side of the full sheet, which worked out to 1000mm.
Around the corner of the house we applied 3 sheets with vertical joins in them. First of all we put on a sheet on the bottom and fully nailed it. We marked 20mm from the top of the sheet down, and we then put on the Alcoil over the top of the sheet, with the bottom of the Alcoil lining up with our 20mm line that we marked. We pulled it tight and nailed it down with clouts.
After this we put on the next sheet above it, pressing it down to the top of the bottom sheet, which made the Alcoil bend outwards. Once this was done we nailed in the top sheet. After the Alcoil had been placed in we are going to placed a batten over the top of the join.

External Cladding

Today we researched timber cladding, hardiflex sheeting, cement fibre cladding and also a cladding of our own personal choice, for which i chose stone cladding. I read about all four of the claddings above and wrote out a bit about each one. Although what a i researched wasn't exactly what Paul was looking for i felt i learnt the basics on each one.
I enjoyed researching the timber cladding because it is a technique and product used extensively throughout australia and i could picture the types of effects this cladding type can offer. In hindsight i should have researched asbestos lining as well, as it was used in conjunction with the timber cladding in the 60's and 70's before brick houses started to take off.
I also enjoyed learning about the stone cladding as i consider it to be a very eyecatching and creative type of cladding. Searching for the info on this was quite difficult as the majority of sites just wanted to sell me the product instead of informing me about it, but through some cycling through web sites i managed to find some info about the types of glues used, how much and what types of stone cladding you can buy and also a newly invented and patented metal clip used to install stone cladding.
After this we did price listings in the cladding and sheeting work book. As i do enjoy mathematics and problem solving i was able to fly through the take offs. As i have stated in earlier blogs this week, i like the time to just sit down and work through things by myself without people talking, instructing me or telling me to hurry up and this was a perfect oppurtunity to do so. I completed all 6 of the take offs, including number 6 which was quite extensive.
The timber cladding section was quite easy and it worked well because it was only maths so we all should end up with the same answer. But with the sheeting it was up to individual choice on what arrangement of sheets they would use to cover different areas of the walls and this led to many different answers that could be considered correct.

Erecting of the Stud Walls

On friday we continued on with our construction of our stud wall frames. The majority of them were completed so only a few had to be finished off. Initially we were working in teams of three but as we progressed we found it easier to work by ourselves on each wall and occassionally seeking help from anyone nearby, generally to hold studs perfectly on lines and to help take twists out of studs. I continued on with the centre wall that divides the two bedrooms from the lounge area. This wall frame had two doors in it and 3 intersections with our walls.
I had initially started nailing in the studs from left to right but found that the plates were marked out for 35mm studs instead of 45mm, so i had to start from the middle studs and work outwards, marking out the stud positions as i went.
In the middle of the frame i had 5 studs all sitting flush against each other, two vertical, one horizontal and another two vertical on the other side. The stud that was nailed on horizontally was done so because it was where the wall between the two bedrooms joined onto the wall fram i was doing. This T-section join is located in the AS1684 booklet that we received.
The two door ways located in the wall were 900 wide by 2100 high. I decided to go with only the single jamb stud with a head trimmer butt joining across the top of the doorway height. This meant that there was only one centrally lined jack stud required for above the head trimmer. On of the doors, as a required excersise, i notched out into the jamb studs of the doorway 15mm to house the head trimmer. Later on though i found out that the required notching was a max of 10mm, but i still feel that the 15mm notch in a 45mm piece of timber should still be quite strong.
I saw that Mike was having quite difficult time housing his notches out when the jamb studs were already assembled into the wall frame so i decided to make the notches whilst the jamb studs were still separate. I placed them in a vice and then measured up (2100 - 35 = ) 2065 and marked a line, then i measured up another 45mm from that line and marked the wood. I then used my combination square to mark a depth line of 15mm on the depth of the wood. I used a tenon saw to cut out the lines i had made, roughly chiselled with a normal 25mm chisel and then finished the housing joint off with a granny's tooth planer. Using the granny's tooth was easy as to achieve a uniform depth, and i find using one quite enjoyable because of its easy and accurate use.
I shot the newly notched jamb studs into place along with the common studs onto the top and bottom plates. Then i measured the head trimmers and jack studs. Once cut i shot them in, finding that the granny's tooth notch i had made was perfect fit. During the measuring i was taking for the head trimmers i noticed that the two jamb studs i had notched into were unfortunately twisted. So Daniel and i took quite some time to try and straighten them up by cutting and fixing 3 noggings between the twisted stud and the next common stud. Two of the noggings were wedged in and also push up against the plate, creating a strong corner section to hold the timber square. This made it quite evident at the nescessity of choosing the best pieces of timber for such important studs like the doorway jamb studs.

After we had completed the frame walls we then began to erect the walls ontop of the sub floor. It only required 2 people to lift the standard smaller walls but at one stage we used all 6 of us to lift a long wall section. The first wall we put up we aligned with the chalk lines we had previously made, then levelled it using a spirit level and then shot a diagonal bracer in. This way we could keep the wall plumb whilst we positioned and nailed the perpendicular wall to it.
At corner intersections we used clamps to hold the walls together. Once we were happy that we had correctly aligned the walls with the chalk lines on the sub floors and that the joining walls were flush with one another, we nailed them together, making sure that it was sufficiently nailed to prevent the walls from coming apart.

After all of the larger wall frame sections were fixed in position, we then commenced measuring and marking out the smaller walls located in the bathroom section, which included an angled wall. We then put in string lines around the top and bottom plates to make sure the walls were perfectly in line. Whilst we had some people making these new walls, the others would be making dogs legs bracers and be aligning the wall with the string line. Using diagonally positioned temporary bracers we made the walls square with one another before nailing in the metal and wooden bracers, and also before we fixed in the dogs legs bracers.

At one point it took a bit of work to push the top of the wall out to make the walls perfectly plumb. I was applying weight to a 3.1m long joist that was wedged between the top of the stud, that we wanted to push the top out of, and the bottom plate of an adjacent wall. Rhys and Greg removed a nogging that was blocking the horizontal movement of the top of the wall, and then used a rope to effectively clamp the two end studs closer together. We used a spirit level to check if the wall had become plumb yet and when it was plumb we shot in a temporary brace to hold it square. so we could fix in the metal bracers.

Brown Paper Drawing of AS1684

Yesterday we spent the whole day completing our brown paper drawings of several different intersections of stud walls. We split the drawing in to thirds lengthwise and the first two thirds were split into thirds heightwise. The last third was split into a two thirds section and a one third section, so all up we had 8 different drawings.
The first column had three plan views of a corner junction, a T-junction and a a drawing that combined them both. The drawing that combined both had 10mm gyprock lining on the inside of the house and 6mm hardiflex sheeting on the outside. These drawings were pretty easy and looked quite boring.
The next three drawings in the second column had three different lintal arrangements, one with the lintal flush with the top plate, one with the lintal flush ontop of the sill trimmer, and a window without a lintal at all. Lintals are only nescessary when there is a load over the top of the window, and generally lintals are only needed if the window or door stretch is over 900mm.
The last two pictures in the third column were drawn in isometric style on an angle of 30 degrees. The top one was a picture describing how to fix two pieces of timber together to form a structural beam, where two screws must be placed at each end of the beam and each screw there after was a single screw staggered with the previous screw, at no more distance than two times the depth of the timber being used.
The last picture was three studs ontop of a single bottom plate, with each stud having different types of notches in it including 1350 max spacing for the noggings, a diagram of the crippling technique with cleats either side and notches for a diagonal timber bracing. These isometric drawings were a challenging brain teaser as i used vertical and horizontal lines to get the angle perfect at each point of the drawing. I thoroughly enjoyed having the chance to just get stuck into the drawing and completing it as it is a testament to the effort and thought i put into it.

Hardies sheet flooring and Stud wall plating

Today we got outside and commenced marking out, measuring and cutting out of our bottom plates to fit ontop of the sheet flooring we had put down the last two weeks we were here. We measured in 90mm from all ends of the of joists on the extremity of the building. We then pinged lines between each corresponding 90mm marker with the chalk line. This way we knew and could visualise where our bottom plates would be placed.

After this we then decided which plates to run through to the end of the building and which plates were butt jointed into those plates. We are placing in a double plate also known as a ribbon plate.

Once we had cut all our 90 x 35 plates we then moved onto cutting out and fixing the hardies compressed 19mm cement sheets in the bathroom area. We used a diamond blade circular saw hooked up to a diamond blade, we were informed by Paul that simple P1 dust masks were suitable for cement but not suitable for asbestos. Cutting with this saw was a new experience for myself and using it was quite different to a normal circular saw in its feel cutting through the hardies sheet. We fixed these down by pre drilling and then screwing onto the joists. Each joint in the flooring was staggered with the next according to the Australian Standards.

Around the perimeter of the strip floored area in bedroom 3 we cut packers out of chipboard to increase the height of the plate to the same level as the plates on the sheet flooring.

Monday 11th Australian standards for Stud Wall Framing

Today we stayed in the classroom to learn the basics of stud wall framing. We received a print out of the Australian standards for wall framing and learnt a few things about them such as the main components of a stud wall, which are jamb, jack and common studs, noggings, top and bottom plates, lintels, sill trimmers and bracers. We then proceeded to do cutting lists based on some simple house plans. Figuring out the studs is what i consider to be the most time consuming aspect of the cutting list, with plates and noggings relatively easy parts. For example all the spaces between windows and doors, which are just straight up and down studs running from top plate to bottom plate, must be first figured out. Then that total length must be divided by the stud spacing requirement either 600mm for single stories or 450mm for the lower level of a two story house.
We also set upour drawing boards by outlining the border and putting in the margin on the right hand side, which had our names, the scale and the project in it.

Joists and Sheet Flooring

This morning we got stuck in and worked quite effectively, nailing in the rest of the joists onto the bearers. We achieved this by aligning the ends of the joists along the string line we had set up the day before. As we already had in the double must joists at either end of the building we measured in incriments of 450mm and marked the bearers, this way we could place the joists on and nail them in at 450 centres. The hand nailing, i found, was quite easy and enjoyable, and also good practice. We nailed either end of the joists at 450 and then measured out the middle spacings of the joists, that way we could take out any bending in the joists and make them all parallel with each other.
After this we moved on to putting on the sheet flooring. The sheet flooring was 22mm particle board with tongue and groove fittings. We put a 3.6m x 1.2m sheet on the corner and made sure it was square with the sting line, that we previously used to aling the ends of the joists. We screwed it on only using 4 screws so that we can easily dismantle later. With the other sheets we staggered the joints in the particle boards for greater strength, with one end of a sheet budding up against the other, with both sheets having the same contact with the supporting joist. So we had 22.5mm contact on the end of the 45mm joist.

Nailing in the bearers and then nailing them in again.

Today we started out continuing building our small house plan. We cut the rest of the bearers, including the two bearers that had to be joined with a vertical scarf joint over the top of a stump. We then set up the string line again so that we could push out the stumps to line up perfectly with the perimeter of the house. The bearers were secured to the stumps by hammering 75mm bullet head nails skewed in from either side.
After all the bearers were done and lined up correctly with the string line we then moved onto cutting and fixing some of our joists. The distance between the outside bearers on both sides, was shorter than the real measurement of 4.3m, so we had to let our joists hang over the edge of the bearers just a little bit.
We rushed ahead and nailed a few joists on to the bearers with one end flush with one bearer and overhanging on the other, but this turned out to be wrong, as both sides needed to overhang a small bit so it would fit the 4.3m dimension. So we had to remove the joists and then denail them, which set us back some time.
When starting again with the joists, we lined up the edge of the joist with the string line by using a spirit level vertically. When it was in the correct position we marked it with a pencil and then nailed them in. We nailed the must joists in at the two far ends of the house perfectly in line with the string lines. We then put in some 35mm packers between the load bearing joists, and nailed them all together.
Greg reynolds and Mike left after smoko because they were ill so we then moved onto our brown paper drawings of the layout of a subfloor, which included stumps, a bearer, joists, wall plates, sole plates, strip flooring and sheet flooring. It also had a brick wall stump. The diagram was done to AS1864 Australian building standards.
I enjoyed having the time to just relax, listen to the radio, talk to greg, paul and rhys, whilst completing our drawings. It was fun but also very productive and i've almost completed my drawing, all we need to do now is to draw in the metal stump that we have just searched up on the net.
How cool is AS1684, it rocks balls! AS1684, the building bible, but without Jesus.

Stumping

Today we kicked off straight away with the stumps that we had initially started yesterday. We put in 26 stumps in the ground. We started off by placing one stump in at the perfect height and made it out datum point for the laser level, that way later we could use the laser level to make the other stumps the same height. Our datum stump was 148mm above our string line level.

Greg and I teamed up to put in the stumps because it made it quite a bit easier to get a good level position with the stump. Everytime we put a stump in the ground we made sure the 148mm mark was either equal with or above the string line. When it was above the string line level we simply marked it with the laser level to saw off later. We had a 20mm tolerance with regards to getting the stump close to the string line, and in hindsight it was probably a little too much.

Once all the stumps were in we got the laser level and the staff and marked each stump with the datum height. When we had marked all the stumps we then used a combination square to square off the lines for cutting later. This was a pretty simple and easy process and was done fairly quickly.

After this we set up two circular saws and began cutting along the square lines we had drew in previously. The base plate was not square with the blade, eventhough it read 0 degrees, the saws had been damaged so were out. We used simple squares and squared up the blade with the base plate. Once we had this sorted out we could then actually saw correctly. To cut the stumps to the right height it involved getting down on your knees and using the saw to cut horizontally. Also the pencil lines did not show up very well on the CCA H4 treated pine so this made it hard to make accurate cuts.

We then moved onto the bearers, and with our small plan there weren't too many. We set them up on the drop saw while using a rolling stand because the lengths of timber were quite long. We cut the bearers out of 100 x 75mm rough sawn. We mounted and hammered in a couple of the smaller bearers by hand. We also noticed that one of the bearers had a bow in it so we corrected that and there was another bearer that had a substantial twist in it. We didn't get around to nailing it so we'll just have to wait and see how it will turn out tomorrow.

All in all i enjoyed today because we had a chance to just get stuck in perform to the best of our abilities. Paul gave us less supervision so we were able to nut out problems just amongst our group, which i feel is a better way to learn and also helps us develop a kind of specific group dynamic. We also got to talk about a whole heap of different subjects whilst we working to keep ourselves amused.

Today we primarily worked in the class room, working on a house plan. We did a materials and construction costing sheet based on a small 3 bed room house plan. To start off we drew a rough sketch of the house plan up on the white board with a few dimensions attached. This way all of us could see the whiteboard and any mistakes made could be easily erased as we moved along.
First of all we started off with the bearers. Keeping in mind that the bearers could only span 1750 maximum, we began placing in the "must" bearers. The "must" bearers are the ones that run along the edge of the house and also underneath all walls, this is because the weight needs to be directly run down to the stumps.
Once we had the must bearers in, we then segmented the house into different sections or rooms, and divided the space between the parallel must bearers by 1750. So say a room had a width of 3890, we would simply do 3890 / 1750 = 2.22, you then round it up to 3. Then the room would have two must bearers with three bearers spread evenly between them.
Once we had these wemoved onto stumps. Stumps had a maximum span of 1450. We put in the "must" stumps which were ones directly under walls and around the perimeter of the house. You then get the length of the bearer and divide it by 1450 and then multiply that by how many bearers of the same length there were. We followed this method throughout the house by using the segmentation idea used in the bearers.
Then we moved onto the soleplates, which is quite simple because the number of stumps is known and there is a sole plate for each stump. Each stump had to be 300mm length minimum.
All stumps and sole plates have to be H4 CCA treated pine.
We then moved onto joists, which followed the same method as the beares but needed to be 450 maximum span.

Sub Flooring and Levelling Work Books

Today we stayed in the class throughout the duration of the day as it was quite hot outside, and it was better to get some paper work out of the way. During the morning we started on the setting out and levelling work book, basically filling in missing words. The book talked about different types of levelling devices such as the spirit level, dumpy level and laser levels.
Next we moved onto Australian building standards for sub floors. This talked about the different types of joining bearers over the top of studs, such as butt joints and vertical scarf joints. Also i learnt about cantilevering with the studs where a stud can be placed 25% of the maximum stud span, in from the edge of the structure. Joists that sit ontop of the bearers, running perpendicular, can also be housed out but only a quarter of the entire width of the joist.
I learnt that floors have to have 10mm spacings around the edge next to the wall, to allow for expansion of the wooden floor in different weather conditions. Two joists must be placed directly underneath where a wall will placed, to make it stronger, but the inside joist must have at least 12mm of overhang so that the floor can sit on the joist around the entire edge of the room.
I found the excersise when we were set three problems solving the lengths of timber we would need to adequately make a small room, quite fun as we could just sit down and nut it out ourselves but also be able to talk to each other about how we figured the problem out and what answers we came up with. Most of this time was quiet and just cruised along nicely.

Revenge of the Setting out of the Building Perimeter

In a galaxy far far away....
Paul joins up with the rebel outfit of the Dale Alcock all star apprentices and attempts to flout the evil plans of the despicable House plan from hell. During the running battles of the North oval battle field, Renna went missing and the team was left fledgling under the might of slaughterous string lines. Also Paul, Mike and Greg were struck down by back pain and could not fight off the amassing wooden stakes army. Rob and Rhys had to regather the teams falling morale for one last revenge against the setting out the building perimeter.
First of all today we headed out in the morning to the North oval. Before we left, we gathered the tools we would need to adequately set out string lines to a building plan. The tools we had were Rip saws, claw hammers, sledge hammers, spirit levels, dumpy levels, a staff, cordless drills, roof carpentry squares and string lines. We also collected 3 stacks of 1" x 2" x 2.4 to make the hurdles.
First of all we picked a main starting point, which we hammered in a small picket into the ground, placed a nail in the middle of the picket, and then placed the tripod directly over the top of the nail using a plumb bob hanging from beneath the dumpy level. We initially had the dumpy level at 0 degrees so that we could simply rotate the dumpy level 62 degrees to guage our other boundary line. So after we had done these two steps we had two boundary lines, one which was going to be our straight edge for the house foundation, and another at 62 degrees from the straight edge.
We then measured 7 metres directly perpendicular to the 62 degree line, and then ran our 8.390 measurement square to the straight line, until it met up with the parallel line to the 62 degree line. This is too hard to describe without a diagram and a detailed step by step description.
To set up our two main lines perfectly at a right angle to one another, we employed the 345 technique, which is simply using the lengths 3 metres and 4 metres down each length of string, and then using the pythagoras thereom to see if our diagonal between those two points made 5 metres. So 3m across one line, 4m across the other, and if the lines are square then the diagonal length between them should be 5 metres.
When we roughly had our starting pickets in the ground, which were only roughly staked in, we placed our hurdles around each corner roughly 500mm away from the rough stakes. After we had 4 corners of hurdles in we used the staff and the dumpy level to mark out our level on each on the sides of the vertical hurdle pickets. Each picket had a different height marked on it, but when all viewed together they were all perfectly level because the ground had a slight decline to the left.
When we measured the length (12470) and the width (8390), we measured at roughly where the lines intersected one another, which in the end turned out the wrong way to do it, because the strings would stretch and move throwing our measurements out. This caused a bit of frustration amongst the group, but was easily solved when we measured from fixed screws on the hurdles, as they did not move and we could get some accurate parallel lines happening.

At the end, once we were satisfied that we had two parallel lines measuring 8390 and two other parallel lines measuring 12470, that made a large rectangle, we measured the two diagonals to see if our rectangle was square. I calculated on a calculator, using pythagoras, that the diagonals should measure 15030, and with a little tweaking our diagonals measured the same.

I enjoyed todays excersise as it was a challenging one, but it felt like we had a few too many people involved doing the same job, so when a couple of people were figuring something out, some one else would already be doing the job and do it wrong. We also didn't have a set leader, so the person doing the calculations and making the problem solving decisions was continually changing. This meant that the way we going about the project kept changing so mistakes were over looked, so then we had to back track occassionally. During this project things did become frustrating and tense but it was good to see no one throwing in the towel or losing it and bringing the rest of the team down haha although it would've been funny.

Dumpy Level Distance Measurement, Dumpy Level Rise and Fall Graphing

Today we started off by taking the dumpy levels out and measuring several different points around the entire perimeter of the Tafe college. Each point was roughly 60 metres away from the previous point. In all there were around 17 different points. To measure each point we set up the dumpy level inbetween two points and sighted the datum point, which was to be our neutral level, also written as 10 000.
We then kept the dumpy level, on the same point and simply turned the dumpy level around roughly 180 degrees to face the next point. We measured the next point on the staff as well. Once we had measured the first point, after the datum, we moved the entire level and tri pod, and set it up inbetween the next two points (marked on the ground). So we had the level set up around 30 metres from the last point and 30 metres away from the next point.
By amounting 34 different measurements, we then began to work out how much difference was between each set of two measurements, so the height of the point in front of the tripod minus the height of the point behind the tripod.
After we had completed this we then moved on to graphing our figures and our work can be seen on the graphs Greg, Mike and I have. We chose to graph the rise and fall of the terrain based around the 10 000 scheme, so first off we had two measurements that when equated came up with -860, so we did 10 000 - 860, which equalled 9 140. So we marked a dot on the graph at 10 000 and then one at 9 140, and joined them together. We repeated this process using a calculator and came up with a line graph that showed the change in height of the terrain.

We also showed on our graph how far away each point was away from the datum point, and came up with a heighest point being around 2.5 metres above the datum point.

After this we learnt how to estimate quite accurately how far away the staff was from the dumpy level by only using the dumpy level. All you have to do is sight what height the top stadia is at and then subtract the bottom stadia height. Once you have this then you multiply it by ten and it will give you a rather accurate measurement of how far away the staff is from the dumpy level.

Leveling Using Dumpy Levels and Laser Levels

Today we commenced our TAFE for 2008 and started the day off with doing some research o different types of levels. As i progressed through my research i discovered i was doing the same level as Rhys so i changed to a different type of level called the Theodolite. As i read it became clear that this piece of equipment is very complicated and also very accurate, measuring within a second (a minute measurement of an angle).
The Theodolite consists of a telescope mounted on a vertical axis and also a horizontal axis. This means that the telescope can be moved not only a horizontal plane but also a vertical one so you can figure angles of rise and fall by simply reading the guages near the adjusting knobs. This gives it a significant advantage over other simpler dumpy levels.

Later on after we had presented what we had learned about each different type of level we had each researched we moved to the outside parking lot and began talking about and using the Dumpy levels and also the Laser Level. We learnt about setting the tripod rougly level, then proceeding to screw the actual level ontop of the tripod. Then we would adjust the three adjustment screws and by sighting the bull's eye spirit level, accurately make the level, level haha.
We then started staking in a few wooden poles. We made two of them level from a particular point by placing the staff ontop of the wooden pole, reading the height that was visible, then placing the staff ontop of the other pole and hammering the pole until the level showed the same height.
After we then moved the entire tripod and dumpy level to a different location, made it level again and then sighted the two poles again, with the staff ontop. The staff showed a different eight, but as long as the other pole showed the same height, then we knew that the dumpy level was accurate. It turned out though, that in our three different locations, we were coming up with different variations in height, proving that the dumpy level was most probably not accurate.