Monday, January 25, 2010

up

There's been a lot of Up lately at the building site. Lots of On Top of Things and Climbing and Sloping Surfaces. I have discovered that this is not my favorite part of the building process. Before building my own house I had no idea I had an issue with heights... but, it turns out I do.

So, how do I deal with it? Well, I climb around on things anyway. And, I use a rope and harness more frequently than some of my colleagues do, but I don't apologize for that. And, while we're being truthful here, sometimes I ask other people to do things that are high in the air when I could do them myself... but they need something to do anyway, right?

Today, I suppressed my fear of heights and got out of my comfort zone — and outside the walls we've built 25 feet in the air — and built some scaffolding. Soon we will be installing the solar panels on our roof and we need scaffolding to do it. How did I build scaffolding having never done this before, you wonder? Well, first off I had a helper from Craigslist — how did people ever do anything before Craigslist???

1. We cut holes in the sheathing over the window openings.
2. We stuck 4 very long 2x6s on end out the windows.
3. We solidly nailed another 2x6 to the framing in the room across the top of the 2x6s sticking out the window.
4. We nailed 2x4s over top of the boards sticking out the window at the window opening.
5. Just for good measure, we nailed another 2x6 to the framing across the 2x6s out the windows.
6. We sent some 4 long 2x4's out the window and nailed them across the top of the 2x6s for support. Next we'll put some 1 1/8" plywood planks on top of that for a place to stand and work.

I can hear you asking "Where are the pictures of all this?" Well, due to technical difficulties I'll have to add the pictures to this post tomorrow. So sorry!

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OK, technical difficulties resolved.

Here is the finished scaffolding from the outside (please forgive the poor quality of this phone camera image):

{can you see the scaffolding poking out from the tower way up there?}

And here's what the scaffolding looks like looking out from inside:


Here is the scaffolding in action:

1 comment:

  1. I don't think I'm afraid of heights either but this would do it!

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