Setting the trusses in place was only part one of the job. After I left the other guys came back the following week and nailed on the plywood decking for the roof. Here is a picture of where they left it:
Looking pretty good, eh? having the plywood down goes a long way to making it look like an actual building, even more so than the trusses alone. I somehow got the idea that the plywood decking would help keep water off the floor in the event that it rained, but I was sorely mistaken. It did rain during our next visit, and the water from the roof just pooled and poured in at the edges of the plywood, thoroughly soaking the floor and everything on it. Nothing new though.
This picture shows the temporary scaffolding that the carpenters rigged up while putting on the plywood decking:
It's these kinds of "tricks of the trade" that we really don't know and couldn't know that let the pros finish so much faster. That and having all of the best tools.
We started out this visit with grand plans to finish putting on the sheathing on the exterior walls, wrapping the walls with the required vapor barrier (to keep moisture out of the walls), and install all the doors and windows. My sister met us there for the weekend and to the delight of everyone spent a lot of time with the boys, taking them swimming, to movies, and doing whatever else they could think of! We were thinking that this would give us plenty of time to finish our goals. Again, we were mistaken.
As it turns out, getting sheets of plywood 20-30 feet up in the air and nailed onto a wall is harder than it sounds.
I managed to complete the first couple of rows (above what we could reach from the ground) by sliding full sheets up the ladder, popping them into place and holding them up with one hand while hammering with the other. That was a pretty good system but we started to run into a problem. Our extension ladder apparently isn't tall enough to get all the way to the peak, and when standing near the top rung with the ladder fully extended, I couldn't get the plywood up into position without that terrible sickening feeling that everything was about to come crashing down (self included). We took a break to think and devised a method of hoisting the plywood up to upper regions using a c-clamp and some rope looped over the trusses like a makeshift pulley. I wish we'd thought of that earlier! This let us get the last two pieces up without so much ladder anxiety. This left just one little hole at the top. One little, impossible to get, nerve wracking hole.
In the end, we were able to close up the hole by bringing the extension ladder inside and setting it up against the wall (it does go to the peak when the feet are on the floor). We ran our rope through the hole and hoisting the piece up from the outside. We pulled it into position and then screwed it to the studs from the inside. I'm pretty sure that's not how the pros would do it, but the pros probably would not be attempting this with just a ladder and a rope.
End of the weekend, one wall done:
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