Garage Building in the UP of Michigan, Part 3

Day two started out at 8 degrees below zero, but like the previous day there was no wind. It seemed to warm up rather quickly this day and was able to ditch the Carharts by 10 o'clock.

We started the morning with Tony and Jim Installing the garage door header and framing and sheathing the front wall. Tim helped me stack and mark the 2x8's to get them ready to cut into rafters. The roof was a gable roof with a two foot overhang on the back gable and a two foot overhang on the side walls. The overhang on the front of the garage was 4 feet at the ridge and tapered back to 2 feet at the side fascia.

To get my rafter lengths, I used what I like to call my "bible". My "bible" is the rafter table book, "The Full Length Roof Framer", by A. F. J. Riechers. All I have to do is go to the 7/12 pitch span tables and look up the span of the building, outside of wall to outside of wall, and this gives me the length of the rafter from the ridge to the back of the birdsmouth. Add four more feet to the span and I have the length of the rafter plus the overhang before deducting for the ridge and fascia.

As I finished cutting the roof, Tony and Jim finished the header and front wall and straightened and braced all the walls, getting them ready for the ceiling joists and rafters.

Tony and I nailed the ceiling joists to the tops of the walls with Tim and Jim handing them up to us. Because Tim wanted attic storage, the joists were 2x10, 24 feet long, 16 inches on center. Once all the joists were up, we ran two courses of OSB from front to back for a platform to frame the roof. We framed the roof with Tony and Jim working the walls while I worked the ridge. Tim handed up the rafters as we needed them.

We didn't quite get as far as I would have liked this day, but under the conditions we did okay. Each day we would stop and go inside to warm up and have a hot lunch.
Because we had only eight hours of daylight, we did about 7 hours of work, allowing for an hour lunch.

Day 3: Overhangs, Fascia, Plywood

Mike Merisko

www.sawkerfs.com