Garage Building in the UP of Michigan, Part Two

Woke up Saturday morning thinking it was gonna be warmer than the night before. I couldn't have been more wrong! The temperature that morning was 11 below zero! Fortunately I anticipated cold weather and packed my Carhart coveralls, long underwear, my insulated boots and spare gloves. What we had going for us was the fact that there was no wind. Don't think we could have built the garage if we would have had wind chills of 20 degrees below zero or more.

There was a good foot of snow on the ground but the 22x24 slab was already cleared of snow. All the lumber was there and was covered to keep it free of snow. It was stacked in the order we were going to use it except for the ceiling joists which were on the bottom and had to be dug out to be cut before being nailed in place.

When building a detached garage, I sometimes like to build the walls, stand them up, and then sheath them. I plumb the framing and let the plywood or OSB lock it in when its nailed on. Because of the snow piled around the slab we weren't able to do this.

After laying out the treated sill plates for the anchor bolts and drilling them out with a 5/8" spade bit, I marked our stud layout on them. I started the wall layout on the side walls from the front of the garage on 16" centers. The one sidewall had a 36" service door in it so I marked it for a 38" rough opening, then laid out my 16" centers. The back and front walls would be laid out from the center of the wall. Later, my gable studs will follow this layout and put a stud right under the ridge board.

Because of the snow, we would have to build the walls on the slab, just like you would when building a house. After they were framed, we squared the walls by measuring them corner to corner, racking the frame till both measurements were the same. We also wanted to keep our bottom plate straight. We did this by keeping the plate edge on the line we snapped for the sill plate, checking to make sure we stayed on it as we nailed the OSB on the frames.

While Tony and Jim (one of the locals and friend of Tim) framed and sheeted the walls, Tim and I dug out the 2x10 by 24' ceiling joists so they could be cut to length and have the roof pitch cut put on them.

As Tony and Jim finished framing, sheeting and wrapping a wall with Tyvek, we would all help stand it up. We laid 2x4 cutoffs flat on the slab near the anchor bolts. We raised the wall onto the 2x4's and lined up the 5/8" holes in the sill plate with the anchor bolts. With minimal lifting and persuading with a sledge hammer, we removed the 2x4's one by one as the holes fell over the bolts. We tapped the wall in place to our chalk lines with the sledge and bolted it down. We held the wall up with a-frames since the ground was too frozen to drive stakes into it.

While everybody was busy with the walls, I cut the ceiling joists to length and put the pitch cut on them. This cut is so they don't stick up above the rafters and get in the way of the plywood sheathing.

After I finished cutting the joists, Tim and I pulled out the two 18 foot, 12" microlams that would be used for the garage door header. I checked the opening in the concrete for the opening and it was 16 feet on the money. I wanted to put double cripples under the header so I cut the microlams to 16'6".

The first day we got the side and back walls up, the joists ready and the garage header ready. It was cold but as long as you were working you kept warm. I was able to takeoff my Carharts by noon as it had "warmed" up to the teens.

Tomorrow day 2

Mike Merisko
www.sawkerfs.com