Today begins the most intense and dangerous phase of the entire project...and of course the weather is terrible. Fortunately I knew it would rain (because I've been looking at the weather forecast obsessively) and built a temporary roof over us.
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| Our temporary roof |
Today we're doing the equivalent of open heart surgery: we're ripping open 1/2 of the entire roof at the corner; cutting out the structural support of the hip rafter (corner roof beam); removing all the rafters attached to the hip rafter; and inserting a new steel channel on each side.
These channels are around 4 meters (12ft) long and are probably the heaviest items we've had to deal with so far. Because things have been going well with Jimmy and our two Romanian day laborers, I decided to do this work ourselves rather than hire the Polish crew, who had become somewhat difficult to deal with--and quite expensive. I was nervous about doing this, but have been starting to feel much more confident about what we have been able to accomplish ourselves. I guess this will be the ultimate test!
The reason we're going through all of this is to be able to remove a structural wall that's supporting the hip rafter at the midpoint. The hip rafter is the corner beam that all the other rafters are attached to - it's like the spine. In order to open up the living area and remove this final wall, we need to be able to compensate for the wall's support once it's gone. To do this, our engineer specified two heavy steel channels that will sandwich the original wooden beam. The steel will provide the necessary stiffness, but there has been a significant amount of grumbling from the guys that this is over-engineered. In this case I do agree with them, and I had tried to get the engineer to change the design, but he refused. So we were left without a choice, and we've had to build the bridge in the living room and will spend the next few days doing what will probably be the riskiest work of the entire project.
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| Removing the first few slates at the corner |
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| Almost enough removed to start work on the steel |
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| Cutting the post that supports the hip rafter! |
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| The view from inside the flat |
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| Separating the rafters from the hip rafter to make space for the steel |
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| Inserting the 1st piece piece of steel |
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| Getting it to fit - not much space to work with |
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| The 1st piece of steel in place |
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| Inserting the 2nd piece of steel |
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| Setting the clips that will hold the steel in place |
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| Both beams in place |
Today we were lucky. Everything went much better than expected, and considering the risks involved, I'm feeling relieved and more confident that we can finish this phase without incident.
