Nothing happened last week. No point in recounting the many reasons that steel day was postponed, but it happened today and it was quite a show. This is a story that we will tell in pictures and their captions.
Picture 1 – The crane arrives. However, there is not much space next to the house and much of it is already filled with building materials, so finding enough room for the crane in a spot where it could level itself was a challenge.Picture 2 – Part of the solution was simply to move around the stacks of building materials — Easy with a crane!Picture 3 – While the crane was getting into position, the steel guys were busy prepping the site. Here one man is adjusting the nuts on a set of bolts that will hold the post at the front corner of the house. Adjusting these nuts allows them to sets the height of the post.
Picture 5 – Here another man is removing the plywood form from a section of concrete with bolts in it that will hold a wall bracket to which a beam will be connected.
Picture 6 – Here the plywood is off.
Picture 7 – Meanwhile, the truck carrying the beams has arrived and the process begins of unloading the beams so that the truck can leave.
Picture 8 – From the bed of the truck, the beams had to be hoisted through the trees over the driveway.
Picture 9 – The beams were swung to a staging area in what will be the great room of the house and the deck.Picture 10 – There were 6 beams and a post delivered. Here you can see several of them. The one ending closest to the camera is bigger than the rest: 12″ high rather than 10″ and much heavier gauge. It will create the main support in the ceiling of the great room.Picture 11 – Remember the plywood that they were removing on a set of wall bolts. Here are those bolts with the bracket attached to them. The man is using a grinder to cut off the extra bolt length, since it will interfere with the placement of the beam.Picture 12 – With the beam swung into place, first a pry bar and then bolts were used to hold it in place.Picture 13 – Here is the other end being lined up. This beam will support the east wall of the second floor. If that post looks too short it is. Whoops. A replacement will be delivered tomorrow.Picture 14 – Here is one end of that big beam for the great room being swung into place on its bracket.Picture 15 – The other end of this beam sits on the concrete wall by the front door. There are two bolts coming up from the concrete, and the beam must be maneuvered so that the holes in it go down onto those bolts. The beam extends past the wall to support the cantilevered roof that extends past the house.Picture 16 – Tightening the bolts can get these guys into precarious positions.
Picture 17 – One of the amazing parts of this process is how easily they could fabricate these beams onsite. This beam needs holes in it for bolts coming up out of a different wall. Since it would have been difficult to measure the precise actual placement for these holes, they were made with a torch.
Picture 18- This is the hole.
Picture 19 – But that was only the start, they had to cut this beam to length. It took less than 5 minutes.Picture 20 – Once it is cut, they grind the melted steel off the end to smooth it.Picture 21 – Here they are swinging the newly fabricated beam into place. One end connects to the large great room beam. The beam then sits on the southern wall and extends out to support the cantilevered roof.Picture 22 – This gives an overview of the beams being put in place. The first beam placed is on the left side of the picture near the base of the crane. The next beam to the right is the main beam in the great room.Picture 22 – To get the beam on the left to line up, they had to cut off some of the flange on the already installed beam to which it was to connect.Picture 23 – Here you can see an issue created by the fact the the main beam is 12″ high and the others are only 10″ high. Since the walls in the southeast corner are all one height and the main beam sits on one of those walls, the other beams are two inches above the walls. Tomorrow they will need to fabricate a bracket to support it.
