Hi,
It’s Madaraka weekend here. It celebrates a half-way stage in Kenya’s independence. And our building structural independence took a big step when we got all the roof stuff glued together. Here’s the story in brief.
Once the trusses were in place, we welded the purlins to them. Our purlins are long pieces, about 60′ of 38mm x 38mm x 3mm right angle steel that hold the roof structure together and to which the roof material is attached. In our case the material is 26 gauge mbati (metal), with a baked on coating. Its tough and looks nice.
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We spaced ours one meter apart and so had seven on each side of the big roof. Peter welded them on to the trusses and it all went pretty much like clockwork, if sometimes cuckoo-clockwork.
For the most part I’m going to let the pictures speak for themselves. They’re all grown up now anyway.
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This is the scaffolding that Opyio created for this job. Different from the scaffolding for masons when we were making the gables from stone rows. All of the lumber has been reconfigured about three three times in this construction and will wind up as free standing shelves in our container.
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This is where the two roof lines meet, and the valleys are formed. Special steel beams are welded at the proper angle here to create a structure to support the roof at this joining place.
Peter cut from 38mm square bar, about a million of these little hollow steel squares to weld to the purins when they were welded to the trusses. You can see here that these little guys are what keep the purlins supported firmly on the right angle that they need to form a flush surface to screw the mabti roof to. Is that at all clear?
A look at the valley beams where they connect to the big truss coming their way. This is where the roofs, one formed by the big trusses and one formed by the small trusses meet.
Peter welding purlins to the valley beams.
This is what we wound up with.
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I’ll let you know how we made out with the roof just as soon as I’m able.
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Until then, just remember,
“When this old world starts gettin’ you down,
there’s room enough for two…up on the roof.”
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David
Comments(4)-
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Bob says
May 30, 2009 at 8:27 amSo, what class at St. Joe’s was it that you learned all this stuff? No, not The Drifters’ quote, I know which class that was…Bob
Michael Edson says
May 31, 2009 at 7:03 amDavid,
It’s not like I have any commercial building experience, but good grief this is a very sound structure. You could park a truck on the roof of the building! Great work!
Mike
david says
May 31, 2009 at 11:07 pmBob,
Well, I think some of it was Riddlemoser’s Latin class. Somewhere between amo, amas…and agricola, agricolae. And the rest came during my experience as a second generation captain of the Ramblers. Big shoes to fill.
See you and Patti soon, love,
David
david says
May 31, 2009 at 11:15 pmHi Mike,
So that’s where the truck is!! I couldn’t find it anywhere. Now at least I want have t keep walking everywhere. And your commercial building experience is the same as mine, minus the mother of all invention and the on the job crash training course. Scary, no?
Love to you and Neena,
David
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