Getting Ready for Shingles and Dry-In
This week began with building the back porch. As with the front porch this begins with attaching a nailer to the
exterior log wall. This nailer will support the porch ceiling joists.
With the nailer in place its time to install the porch support posts. Before they can be installed we make a cut
out for the ledger board that will support the floor joists. This board will be flush with the outside of the support
post.
This is how our posts are attached to the concrete support posts. Because our concrete contractor didn't know
exactly how the porch would be attached he sank four "J" bolts into the concrete pillars one at each corner. In
our case we used a 2 foot pressure treated 2x8 which was then bolted to the concrete. Prior to bolting this board
down a metal bracket was attached. The porch post is then attached to the bracket.
With all the posts in place it was time to install the porch support beams. First a pocket had to be chiseled in the
exterior log wall to accept one of the beams. Here you see the "boss" working on this pocket.
Here's the pocket finished. Most of the material was removed using a plumbers bit and the edges and corners
were then cleaned up with the chisel.
Here is how the beam fits into the wall. We used lag bolts through the wall from the inside to permanently
attach this post to the house. Later the lag bolt holes will have plugs installed and sanded so they will be almost
invisible. In our case this beam intersects the house in the laundry room which will have a lowered ceiling due to
plumbing for the upstairs bathroom so installing plugs won't be necessary.
The rest of the posts were lagged into the support posts just as we had done on the front porch.
The beams we used on the back porch were much longer than the front. On the front porch we used one beam
between each post. Here you see a 20' beam being readied for installation. Although these beams aren't
extremely heavy when they get this long they do get a little awkward to work with.
It takes two people to lift these beams into place.
After a little bit of work it's finally in place. Thank God.
Next on the agenda was the rafters and ceiling supports. The horizontal 2x6 will support the tongue and groove
ceiling while the angled (in this case 3/12 pitch) rafter will support the porch roof.
Unlike the front porch the back porch has an end that doesn't blend into the house. This requires a sheeted wall
between the ceiling and the roof. This will eventually be sheeted with log siding as will the rest of the sheeting
on the house and garage.
With the end wall completed it was time to install the porch fascia. The only trick to this is when two fascia
boards come together they are installed using overlapping 45 degree cuts. This method of joining fascia isn't
difficult to do and the joint looks much cleaner that way.
The back porch is now ready for sheeting.
Sometimes it just pays to hire professionals. These guys are used to sheeting roofs and the two of them did in
about 5 hours what it would have taken us three or four days to do. With all the complicated angles that had to
be cut for the sheeting to fit correctly it was well worth a few hundred bucks to let these guys do the job.
This guy weighs about 110 lbs. soaking wet and he had no trouble handling 4x8 sheets of 5/8" OSB.
The entire front porch was completed by lunch and the back porch just a couple hours later.
We had planned to pay these guys for a full day because we expected the sheeting to take that long. When they
were finished I asked them if they would like to finish out the day by helping install doors and windows. Here is
our front door installed. I still have to install the top buck and trim but we are very happy with our choice.
Kuhns Brothers Log Homes provides top quality doors and windows in their kits. In our case we chose
Thermatru exterior doors with cut glass windows.
The kitchen door is exactly the same as the front door but just swings the opposite direction when opened.
With three of us it was a pretty simple job to install the windows. Some of these are pretty large windows and
we were glad to have the help.
Two of us lifted the windows into position from the outside while one person on the inside leveled the window
and held it in place while it was nailed to the bucks.
Here is the great room. No problem with ventilation here.
Both windows on the front of the main section of the house are large triple units. When inventorying the
windows that had been shipped we discovered one of these missing. A quick call to Kuhns Brothers and the
problem was solved. The company ordered a new one from a local supplier and we should have it in less than
two weeks. As I said earlier Kuhns Brothers supplies top quality doors and windows. Every window in this
house is an Andersen and all have high altitude glass installed.
That's it for another week. We are now pretty much ready for shingles.
I have to run the plumbing vents, heating flue and bathroom vents
through the roof before the shingles are installed but our roofing
company will be around in just a few days to dry us in. YeeHaw! Next
week we'll continue installing windows and doors in the garage and if
we have time we'll install fire code sheetrock in the stud walls between
the house and garage.


Check back soon.