Friday, August 4th 2006
The roof is on!
It's done, we now have a roof on the back section. Installing the infamous beam went great; with the help of so many volunteers, noone had to exert themselves. We concluded it was a case of spontaneous levitation. Thanks to everybody! Girlfriends and kids made for a captive audience and they applauded heartily. Lunch, rasberry picking and swimming were popular and many stayed on to apply the last coat of mud before the electrical wiring goes into place. And as a matter of fact, the question on everyones lips is: "What color will the walls be when they're done?" Well, there isn't an answer to that yet, we need to visit the pigment distributor to make our choices and there are more pressing matters for the time being.
Sunday was a big day since the weather called for 70% chance of rain on Monday which was the day we'd picked to blow the cellulose insulation into the roof cavity. We had to do 2 days work in one: apply the paper, the plastic and the furring to the ceiling, then the 2"X4" on top of the trusses to provide ventilation space underneath the plywood. ALain's brothers showed up to help out and we managed to do the isulation right after dinner before it got dark.
Of course the weather was just fine on Monday but we took it easy anyway. The lousy weather arrived Tuesday night, we had a whole sound and light show, there was incessant lightning and a full scale deluge. The channel that evacuated the snow melt this spring in front of the house was overflowing like we'd never seen it before. We had to readjust the tarps a bit but we had no damages. In fact, it was only Thursday morning when driving into work and listening to the radio that I realized the strength of that storm. Today, three days later, there are still over 50,000 people without power; another good reason to be off grid. For once, no trees fell on our land but the river did rise 2 feet.
We closed the roof on Wednesday, we had to nail down the plywood and spread some intact billboards to provide waterproofing for the green roof. We still need to determine how best to ventilate the attic space. The air has to come in on the lowest part on the north side through the vegetation and where the snow will tend to accumulate and exit at the highest point just above the windows. We also have to decide how to best protect that opening from rain, snow and critters. We'd prefer using scavenged and/or cheap materials... A couple of tinsmiths that make beautiful things have offered their help. What good timing on their part and we'll appreciate any help they want to provide since our skills in that domain are definitely lacking if you look at the flashing for the windows we did last fall.
We also started drawing the plans for the stairs and choosing the wood for the threads and stringers. Yesterday, ALain cut the jig for the window struts. With the experience from last year, it was a lot faster this time around. The view will be amazing from our bed, we'll be able to do our stargazing with our heads on our pillows!