More Like Blomega
Cause wind. It came through with a vengeance on Sunday, like me building a garage was some kind of affront, or challenge.
These are bundles of rigid foam insulation panels. Each bundle weighs at least 80 lbs. The one on the right got blown about 40’.
Everything is fine, though I did add some bracing to the west wall of the garage, just in case. The wind up on the hill is no joke. Whether it’s coming up from the valley or down to the river it’s almost constant. This is GREAT when it comes to making hay. But, can make things tricky when doing, say, anything else.
The last week has been a big push to get the garage roof system framed, sheathed and covered before the big rain last night. I’m proud to say I was coming down my ladder for the last time as the first drops started coming down yesterday evening. As it got dark, I set up shop lights in the new garage and started setting up sawhorses and work benches. That’ll be my base of operations as I shift back over to framing the house walls and roof.
It was crazy after the walls were up to realize that the garage is almost as big as the house we just sold—feels a whole lot smaller when it doesn’t have rooms.
Part of the reason I decided to put up the garage first was so that I’d have that covered, protected space to work in as the weather turns. The other reason was so I could get some practice on a more basic and forgiving structure. To be fair, the house is nothing crazy; we designed it to be simple and use materials efficiently. Both house and garage are perfect squares, with 32’ and 24’ sides respectively. The big difference is that the house is going to be an air-sealed assembly, as I talked about in the last post. The garage, not so much.
If you can make your building dimensions multiples of 2’, you’re in great shape. Multiples of 4’, you’re aces. We went with multiples of 8’ and so far I’ve only made like 3 cuts. Most sheet goods (plywood, OSB, foam board, drywall, etc) come in 4’ x 8’ panels. By making our building size compatible with material dimensions, the only scrap plywood we have is what we cut out of windows and doors. This saves $$$ and time.
My hope is to have the rest of of the garage walls sheathed and wrapped by tomorrow, so that I can shift back to the house and be lifting up walls by the weekend. It’s about to get REAL.
So far, so busy…