Laminating Bearers

Finally done with the jack studs, our house has moved onto doing the bearers.  Other house is done with this and has braced as well, so they all came over to lend a hand.  Good team work - and its good to know that we got a bit more done today than if we had to go it alone.  

The laminating process is pretty full on, requiring accurate calculations to ascertain where the nails needed to go in order to make the bearers as strong as they can be at the joins.  

The measurements are dictated by the house plan, and nail placement is based on the thickness of the wood used for the bearers (as ours are a thickness of 45mm, this is multiplied by 6 giving us 270mm which is what the intervals of nails go at).  Nails have to be angled in to discourage the nails from popping out due to vibrations/movement of the house.  

It is really important that everything is flush, so this edge is selected and then the edge is always lined up with this side (whilst the other may be out). 

At the joins these also need to be butted up straight.  Learnt a great way to achieve this from Rich, which was to use the combination square to measure off from the already laminating timber and cutting off from there - that way its square to that piece and fits in bang on.

It's important that both pieces of wood are nailed close together so that it has its ultimate strength as the whole house will be sitting on it and there is no room for weaknesses.

Laminating is done as no timber can be created that runs the length of the house, and this is the way of achieving this affect.  We didn't quite get all the bearers done by end of day, but thankfully it won't take too much when we return from break to finish up.

Jack Studs & Bearers

On site for the whole day today, we got stuck into starting on the subflooring.  Had to re-do a lot of the work from yesterday because the dumpy level readings we had taken were inaccurate - sure learnt the lesson that you have to get this stuff right otherwise it affects your work from that point on.

We got stuck into preparing the jack studs for our foundations.  Learnt two different methods to do it from both Rich & Marty.  Marty laid a string line out at CG, & then measured from sole plate to stringline at intervals of 800mm to ascertain height of jack studs, which were then cut and attached then braced.  Rich showed us a more precise and accurate method using the dumpy level to give us a reading (as this takes away the sag you may get in the stringline).  We had fixed this height based on calculating particle board, bearer & joist measurements (as shown in above picture of Rich at the whiteboard).  Didn't quite get it done on one of the houses by the end of the day, whereas the other house was starting on prepping the bearer.  Oh well, always tomorrow!

Clearing Site & Prep for Profiling

Today we spent the afternoon cleaning up our work site.  Loads of rubbish laying around to be disposed of, also sorting through timber around the place and throwing out what wasn't reusable and de-nailing those that were.  Most of these lengths were cut into pegs to lay out for profiling & to put in sole plate for the in-step of the building as this was not pre done.  When doing this, the plate needs to be pegged in securely with no movement, and the sole plate should be firm on the ground (compacted down) so that there is no sinking once load of the building is added.  

Also did the profiling of the site (as we did last week on the field), to work out our FFL and also the Building Line (BL).    A lot more time was spent on bracing here as we have to be more wary of the loads being placed on these.  In addition to what we did on the field, we also put up center profile for FFL with bracing.  Today we really learnt the importance of getting the dumpy leveled before use & also reading the correct stadia line - getting this wrong will throw all measurements out for FFL, jack stud heights, height to boundary aspects.

Did our first tool box meeting as well to discuss hazards and safety aspects to be aware of (with tools being use, or to do with site directly). 

Hilti Licence & Profiling

It was a massive day yesterday.  Morning started with going over Hilti info for powder actuated tools.  Once exam was out of way we headed out to practical to do profiling. 

Pretty full on calculations required - now I know why we learnt algebra in school!!  Nice to see how something on paper, comes to life.  Used the dumpy levels to measure off FFL using the datum on site.  Was good to do practical use of this, cause it was difficult to understand when just talking about it.  Leveling of dumpy pretty straightforward, and took a while to get used to the dials for focusing and moving.  You have to be really careful not to move the legs for the whole of the time you are measuring, otherwise it throws all the other measurements out - talk about pressure.  

Learnt some good tricks off Marty to keep stringline hooked on nail... both self knotting & double nailing into place.  Also found out how to calculate where to move string line so that measurements are accurate for building line more practically, rather than guessing & hoping! 

A quick break took us to the site to have a go using a hilti tool with a representative from the company.  Learnt how to load the chargers & fasteners, and of course, squeeze the trigger on the gun.

Really cool day.

Tutorial & Workshop

A low key day today.  Tutorial on paragraphing in the morning, to help with assignments due next week.  Got some good time to catch up on Buit 4540 so that was good.

Spent the afternoon in the workshop, finally made a start on my saw stool... haven't really done much except for mark out and cut to size the top section, & also prep the legs (rough sawn timber but through the planer & thicknesser.  Will tackle marking out and cutting joins next time I get a chance in the workshop.

Site Safe

Day spent in class today.  Started Buit 4542: Foundations, Sub Flooring, Flooring & Decking.  

Afternoon was spent with Colin for site safe course, in order to get building construction passports.  Actually a really good course, & especially helpful towards 4540 due next week in regards to the health & safety section!

Learnt loads about statistics, which helps to put things into perspective - there certainly is no room for complacent behavior on site, if you value your life.  Course touched on responsibilities of parties involved, how to identify hazards, what leads to hazards & how we can eliminate, isolate & minimise them.

At the end of the day we always can come up with excuses for poor work practices, but none of them are really valid if it causes injury or death.  

The most pivotal thing i took away from this course was a saying that was mentioned, which was: 'Don't expect to change, if you're not prepared to be a part of it'.  

In other words, you can't make things safer for you, if you are not prepared to put safer practices into play yourself.