Finishing Weatherboards & Putting Up Building Wrap

Today we put our heads down, so that we could get the weatherboards all painted & finished so that they would be dry and ready when we get back from break.

Had to do a bit of re-shuffling, as one of the frames collapsed under the weight - important to keep an eye on that in the future. 

Whilst doing this, some of the team started on the building wrap & by the end of day we were all out doing this to get the job done.  We stayed back till all the wrap was on the building, so that it was all covered up over the break.  As the floor board has been exposed for quite a period of time, it was a priority to get this done, to give them a bit of protection from the elements.

To put on the building wrap, the roll was run horizontally along the building & pulled as taunt as possible.  Once tight enough, it was secured using a staple gun to all frame work that it was sitting on. 

For areas that were irregular shapes (eg. the gable end roof truss) a craft knife was used to cut away to match the edge.  Blue strapping was then run around the outside of this building wrap to hold it in place (which again, was secured with a staple gun). 

Not openings were cut out except for the main door entry, the rest of the building is fully enclosed.

Weatherboard Painting - Oh Yeah.

 After finishing off the ceiling battens, we cleared out the 'living room' space of the house to prepare the area to paint the weatherboards under cover. 
At this stage, we also got rid of all of the temporary braces within the house (except for the ones up against the walls).

Once the floor area was clear, it was covered by building paper & stapled down (to provide an extra measure to decrease the amount of stain getting on to the floor sheets.  

A frames were then stood up & braced with a length of timber down the bottom to make the structure more stable.  The frames were also attached to the wall frame for extra support.The frames were then stacked up with weatherboards ready to be painted.

It is important to do this as it primes the weatherboard & helps to protect it from elements such as water.  The most important area to cover with the stain is the edges & grooved section where the boards butt up against each other.  This is because

the edges are most likely to be exposed to outside elements & the grooved section is subject to capilary action.  Once a weatherboard was fully painted on both sides, it was stacked up on the rack, with small wooden spacer blocks placed between each board so that it allowed them to dry better & so as not to disturb the paint on each board as well. 

Whilst we were doing this, some of the crew started putting the building wrap up around the house. 

As we are off on break after tomorrow, this is a good thing to doto try and help protect the particle & ply board on the floor of the building as it will stop the outside elements from getting in & sitting on the floor for long periods of time whilst we are not there. 

Roof Done... On To Ceiling Battens

Arrived on site today to see the roofs are finally up on the houses, pretty awesome to see.  Outside cladding on & from interior of building you can see the building wrap that they laid down before putting it on!

On to ceiling battens today.  Has been a pretty long process & still a little bit left to do tomorrow.  Basically started off day by nailing off battens already laid out on previous days.  75's used with the battens, where two needed to be secured in where ever it crossed under the bottom chord of the trusses.  Once done, we carried on with laying out the rest of the battens.  

To do, the spacings were marked out on the opposite sides of the room that it will be spanning.  A chalk line was used to mark this same measurement on all the bottom chords.  This is a good thing to do, as it means that aligning the batten is a lot easier as you have a mark to follow (rather than doing just by the 'eye').  

Once all marked out, the battens were cut to length.  They had to be cut so that the no two joins were adjacent to each other.  

Where there was a join on the truss, the batten had to be cut so that it fell mid way through the thickness of the bottom chord & then was nailed in with two skewed nails.   

When nailing in the battens, a helpful trick was to pre nail the fixings partially so that when it was held in place, it was easier to drive in. 

Another way to reduce work load was to secure an additional nogging on top of the double top plate, so that there was  surface to nail from the bottom upwards (rather than skewed from the side).  

The ceiling battens were laid out at 400mm spacings and varied from room to room where they fell (so they do not run in one line throughout the house as a result).