South and East walls completed

Yesterday we got the South and East walls completed.
The building is MUCH stiffer now than when we first started.

So I'm feeling a lot more confident about the whole thing.
I'd like to put a lid on it this weekend, but the forecast is calling for high winds on Saturday.

If that holds up, I'll just prep out for a Tuesday/Wednesday roofing event.

South Wall nearing completion. Ezra's RV worked great as a makeshift scaffold for the main door.

South wall completed except for trimming upper edges

Prepped to begin East wall

Trimming around door (R-19 Insulation)

A come-along being used to pull the walls straight before putting up wall panels

Inside shot looking South

East wall nearing completion

East Wall completed

North and West walls completed

Today my son and I were able to complete the North and West walls.
All done except for three locations where the screws weren't quite long enough to bite into the metal framing. I'll have to pick up some longer screws next time I'm in town.

In the meantime, I put a dab of silicone over the hole to temporarily seal it.

The wind wasn't so bad today so we only had to stop for a few hours.

Tomorrow should be even calmer, but now that we'll be working on the leeward side (a little sailing lingo there) of the building it'll be less of a concern anyway.

Not many pictures, too busy working.

Insulation and Sidewalls

The insulation arrived Monday morning at 7:00 as promised!

It was a pretty easy job to simply roll everything out of the box truck then shake it out according to the layout schedule.

Once we figured out where everything was supposed to go, we started working on getting the walls in place.

Weather looks good all week, the wind played havoc with us yesterday. We had to take a four hour break until the wind settled down.

Everything is going well so far. It's a little bit of a learning curve, but it gets sorted out by the fifth panel or so. The hardest part is getting the insulation tight on the inside to make it look nice. I think we're doing an "OK" job so far.

Service Door & Base flange

No pics, but I did get the service door frame installed and got most of the base flange bolted down to the concrete. I also got the sheet angle installed on the upper ends of the rafter edges. This will provide a surface for the end sheets to attach to.

I did end up like 50' short on the sheet angle, so I've got to get some made locally to accommodate.

Insulation is scheduled to arrive Monday or Tuesday, so the walls should be up next week.

Purlins & Girts Done

After getting that South frame screwed down, I spent the rest of the day going up and down on the scissor lift taking pieces of metal to their assigned positions. By the end of the day I got all the Purlins and Girts in place.

Tomorrow I'll use a come-a-long to make some small adjustments in the frame before running through all the bolts for the final tightening sequence.

So far, so good!

Some frames up!

Early this morning I went out to the Rental center to pick up a scissor lift.
I had to return the trailer after dropping off the lift at the house, but I wasn't quite know if the 500lb (227kg) weight limit would be enough to lift the frames. So, before returning the trailer I hooked up to the end wall and started bringing it up. It went up just fine, but then I realized I couldn't really go back down - and now I was stuck up at the top of the lift.

Not so smart...

Good thing I had my phone, I called my daughter (Heather) and asked her to wake up her little sister (Leanna) and send her outside to help. She came out and we worked together to move the frame around really slowly until we could get the bolt holes lined up. After she snugged up some foundation nuts, I was able to drop down a little bit and secure the end wall to the lift to keep it stabilized while I went back to town. Once that was done, I figured out how to climb down the raised lift so I could get back to town.

After returning, it was time for the next frame... Just one thing - it's almost twice the weight of end wall. Much closer to 700lbs (3189kg) but I'm optimistic and was hoping that whole "weight rating" thing on the scissor lift was just a safety precaution, but no such luck. The lift was not strong enough to raise the frame.

Well.... now what am I going to do?

Step 1: Get my body weight out of the lift and operate the controls from a ladder on the side of the lift.
Step 2: Use car jacks to push up on the outside corners of the frame to take some of the load off of the lift.
Step 3: Raise the scissor lift three or four inches (75-100mm).
Step 4: Repeat Steps 2 & 3 while making sure nothing is getting hung up or twisted in the process.

The first 9' (2.75m) or so is the hardest part. After that height the scissor lift mechanism has better mechanical advantage and can lift more weight which means I can now climb onto the platform and slowly raise the load.

And when I say slowly, I mean raise it ever so slightly - trying my best not to upset the balance then back up little bit, then raise a little bit, back up a little bit. The whole time I'm just waiting for the thing to tip over and come crashing down with me coming along for the ride! That's really nerve wracking, especially when you start getting up to the 20' (6m) height. Anyway, it took about 30 minutes of patience to get it raised into position and then another few minutes to get it bolted down and secured.

What a relief when I could finally relax the strain on scissor lift and confirm the frame was standing on it's own! Afterwards I spent some time putting up a few purlins to brace the structure before repeating the whole process on the second middle wall.

All three frames went well, now all I have to do is the south wall and it's half the weight.
I'm saving that one for tomorrow.

Time to relax!!

North Frame up. This picture was taken just before I left to return the trailer.

After getting back home I braced the vertical supports.

View from the platform - almost up

Taking a breather before moving around a bit to line up the foundation bolts.

Up and braced!  What a relief

Just starting to take the load of the second heavy frame

Ropes tied off to the corners to take the strain and keep it from sagging too much

Third (of four) frames up and braced

Frames all done

Yesterday after work I was able to finish up the last frame. It goes much better when you understand the instructions...  :)

So far we've put this whole building together with a Bosch 12v Impact Driver. It's not strong enough to tighten the bolts fully, but it does tighten things down plenty tight enough and it's so light and easy to use.  When the building is up, I have to square it up and re-tighten all the bolts anyway with the "turn of the nut" method.

Basically that is really tight PLUS 1/3 turn on the nut.
This actually stretches the bolt slightly and uses the elasticity of the metal to really clamp the mating surfaces together.

Inventory and layout

After work yesterday, my son and I started going through the materials to segregate and inventory the various beams, parts, clips, bolts & etc.

We started layout of the South wall (the wall with the 12'x12' garage door) and struggled for a couple hours to figure out the instructions. We found one of the long rafter pieces was drilled incorrectly and will need to be re-drilled to make it correct.

Some joints were disassembled and reassembled a couple times to get the correct clips in place.

I think we have it figured out now and should be able to finish bolting the rest of the frames together this evening.

Sidewall height

Laying out the pieces - trying to get all the holes matched up and labeled

Working on getting the South wall laid out and bolted together

It took a while, but we finally figured out that the circles on the drawings referred to another section of the manual that showed clip installation details

South wall finished and half of the next wall completed

Lookee! Lookee!

I anxiously waited all weekend just so I could call the shipping department Monday morning to check the status of this promised delivery.

9:30 - Ring, Ring, Ring - No answer... CRAP!

10:00 -  I got through and was told that the delivery was on it's way and was scheduled for 4:00 today. They even said they would call the driver and remind him to contact me when he was three hours away so I would have time to get things organized for delivery.
12:45 - I receive a call from Bacaland (A local landscape mulch factory about a half mile (.8 km) from my house - they were kind enough to let me offload on their premises using their forklifts).
The call was to tell me there was a truck idling in their parking lot and they thought it might be mine...

Seriously!?

Well, anyway - I'm fortunate enough to be working from home this week, but I had a meeting in 15 minutes! But at that moment I didn't have much of a choice and had to grab my keys and drive over there to take care of the payment, paperwork and offloading before getting back to the house and joining the meeting late. Fortunately, I had already informed management and others that this might happen and I might suddenly be "gone" for a while without prior notice.

At any rate, the offloading went very well, it took less than ten minutes to unload and move the materials to a safe location. After work, I rented a trailer and made five loads to get the load broken down and moved to the building location.

(I even got a beautiful Double Rainbow out of the deal!)

Later today I'll have to do lay out the pieces for inventory.