January 8, 2011

Roof Construction: Open Heart Surgery - Day 2

Today we continued with our open heart surgery on the roof. It's Saturday so we are required to stop at 2pm today...a lot to do with limited time...

Yesterday we opened up the lower portion of the roof's corner and installed the bottom two steel channels. Today, we're opening up the rest of the roof which means that 1/2 of the entire roof will be open to the sky. These next few days will be the greatest exposure of the flat to the elements. Once the roof is open, we'll have to measure the remaining lengths for the top two steel pieces, cut the steel and install them to reinforce the hip rafter and splice them together.

This sounds much easier than it is--for starters we have only one shot to get the correct cuts in the steel and cannot make any mistakes. So we ended up cutting small bits a time to get the correct angles and geometry. We ended up going back and forth half a dozen times before it finally fit, but at least we got it. Because it took so much time to cut the one piece, we'll have to cut and install the final piece of steel on Monday.

Interior view in the morning
The upper half of the roof slates removed - you can now see through the roof!
The ends of the lower two pieces of steel
Interior montage - half of the roof open
Cutting ends of one of the upper steel pieces (this happened 6 times)
Finished end
Bringing the steel onto the bridge (this also happened 6 times)
Lifting it into place (this also happened 6 times)

Once the steel is correctly in place, tightening the splice (connection)
Fastening bolts at the splice
Looking out from the open roof
2pm - covered-up and finished for the day