Second Floor and Roof

Alright, it’s been a few months since the last house update. We have a second floor now, a roof, the grading around the house has been done, windows, doors and electric rough-in. This post will mostly be chronological pictures of the progress.

Before we started framing the second floor, we needed an actual floor. We ordered these LVLs to attach our floor joists to. Two 36′ lengths for the main house and three 12′ lengths for the mudroom. Somehow, Nathan managed to get these up there by himself. I was surprised to go up to the property and see them up there without any of my assistance.

These LVLs needed to be lifted into place, weighing about 250lbs each; Nathan managed to get them up there by himself

A different view of the second floor LVLs installed

Next were the floor joists, we had to put hangers into the LVL for each joist. We found out later on that it was a lot easier to pre-drill the holes. Unfortunately for Nathan, he hammered all of them in and bent a whole lot of nails in the process. Once the floor joists were in, we could put on the sub-floor for the second floor.

View of the downstairs with the second floor sub-floor installed

View of the sub-floor from the second floor

Once the second floor was up, we could start laying everything out for the second floor exterior walls. We had a hard time lifting the balcony wall portion due to the size and weight of the header for the balcony opening. I just couldn’t lift my share of the weight. We decided to put a counterweight on the wall to help us out. It worked like a charm and it was almost easy to lift with the counterweight. Lifting the second floor walls into place was a lot easier than the first floor as we didn’t have to lift the walls vertically to get them over the bolts in the concrete foundation.

Balcony wall with the counterweight attached to it

The remainder of the second floor walls went up fairly easily

Once the second floor walls were up, it was time to get the attic joists into place and start thinking about the roof.

Attic joists being put into place

Once all the attic joists were in place it was time to start the roof…

We spent about two months on the roof. Between putting the ridge beam up, all of the rafters, the lookouts, the sheathing and finally the metal roofing. Two months of being 20-some feet in the air was about the longest two months of my life. We originally planned to have a 9-12 roof pitch… but when I was on my tiptoes and couldn’t hold the ridge beam high enough, we had to rethink things and ultimately decided on a 7-12 roof pitch. In the end, I’m really glad that this is the pitch we went with, because it made putting the metal roof on a little bit safer and less intimidating.

Putting up the ridge beam for the roof, had horseshoe style seats for the beam to hold it in place

Once the pitch decided and the beam in place, we could start cutting out our rafters and installing them. This was mostly a one man job as they were awkward to put in place and any help I tried to give in lifting and placing them, I ended up being in the way. So Nathan worked on this piece on his own while I worked on lifting all the rafter boards to the second floor for cutting.

The first few rafters up

Rafter jig made out of OSB to make it quick and easy to make the angle cuts needed for the rafters

Nathan’s measuring setup for when he was alone

Clamping down a stop in order to be able to rest the rafter in place while nailing it to the ridge beam

The clamped piece of wood helping the rafter sit in it’s proper place

Rafters in place and rake walls completed; time to work on the lookouts/overhang; rake walls took some time with all the angle cuts needed

Nathan sitting atop the lookouts

Me laying across the ridge beam staining our gable ends; I was harnessed in

Installing the fascia on the eaves; another clamp and block setup to keep things in place

Finally, once the fascia was installed on the eaves, we could start getting the sheathing done on the roof.

First row of sheathing completed on the roof

Ice and water shield at the eaves to prevent ice damming

View of the ridge from the roof

With most of the sheathing up on the roof, we started putting the metal on the roof. We didn’t completely finish the sheathing before starting the metal because we wanted somewhere safe to tie in our harnesses and go on and off the roof from. So as we put the metal panels on, we sheathed what was necessary to do both sides. We installed the metal roof before finishing the sheathing on the second floor because the roof would be more affected by future inclement weather than the sheathing.

We did a standing seam roof. After completing the roof, our rep at our lumber store told us that every roofer in the area usually contracts out to a standing seam specialist because they are such a long job to do. The system we had in place was that Nathan would bend and cut a bunch of panels ready for when I was done work. I would be on the roof while he got the panel fold placed under the cleat in the hidden fastener installation. Once in place, I would walk the length of the panel and screw it into place. At our fastest, we could get about 6 panels done in an hour. The first half of the roof was pretty smooth sailing once we got in our groove. I did use up a majority of any time off I had from work doing this and I’ve been rationing the last two months.

First portion of the metal roofing installed

View of the installation from the top

Hidden fastener ridge cap, also a tedious task but looks great without any screws exposed

Halfway done the roof… time to stop to install the chimney

When we hit the spots where the chimney and plumbing vents needed to be installed, the roof install started going at a snail’s pace. We didn’t recover from it after these were finished either. The chimney installation took a bit of time in order to get the metal around the chimney flashing cut right. All the extra steps we needed to take for the chimney really slowed things down. In the end though, the chimney looks great!

Chimney install completed

I really like how the chimney looks and it often reflects the roof colour

After two long months of being up on the roof, it was finally completed. I was so relieved to have it done. By the end, when I left work I only had about an hour before the dew started settling in on the roof. As soon as the roof got the slightest bit wet, it was time to get off, harnessed in or not.

The high roof finally completed

While the roof was being installed, Nathan’s dad was in town and helped us get a good chunk of the second floor sheathing done while Nathan and I worked on the metal. Sometime during the metal roof installation, our excavators got our septic system and our grading done.

The mudroom roof waited a little longer to get done, but with how relatively low to the ground it was and still feeling relief from completing the high roof, we didn’t feel rushed to get it done. The mudroom roof ended up being a 4-12. The angle complements the 7-12 quite nicely. Due to the impact of the snow falling from the roof above, Nathan made the rafters quite bulky and doubled them up. We waited to sheath that portion of the second floor so that we could work from the inside instead of from the ground below.

Mudroom roof rafters installed

Lookouts completed

Our first snow and the sheathing on the mudroom roof completed

Sheathing completed on the mudroom roof

Metal roof on mudroom installation completed

View from the road of the two roofs completed