Day 30 - The "BEAM" Day

I am learning a lot about construction. This 24 ft beam we are installing is referred to as a Laminated Beam, and it is designed to support roof when you remove or should have a load bearing wall that support the roof joists. The outside wall the area between the old entry to the breakfast nook and kitchen were load bearing walls. They needed additional support. For this construction job we enlisted several family and friends to help us. The following are details of how we started our day to how we ended the day. It was a great experience with a surprise towards the end, but over all it was really good.

Starting of the day. Our middle girl decided to hang out with us today and she was a big help. We first stopped off at Slovacek's (one of my new favorite places in West) for coffee and energy drinks. My energy has started running low due to some medical issues I am having.

When we came to the house, the crew was ready for work. We had a ton of cars lined up and the beam was already brought up to the house on the tractor. Mark's uncles from Ennis doors brought all our new doors as well. I love my pantry door, I was really excited.

The first step of the day was removing all the of load bearing walls and set up temporary support.

While the guys were working on the temporary support. Our middle, my mother in law and I worked on removing Sheetrock from the old kitchen wall. My dad helped with running electrical wires all day.

At this point we were ready to bring in the beam, which was going to be a challenge. It weighs about 15 to 20 pounds per foot.

Here is where they are getting ready to place the beam on rollers and move it into the house.

They are starting to move it into the house. The rollers did not work as well as they thought, because the beam kept rolling off the rollers. But they finally got it to work.

 The beam if finally in the house, and they are moving it into place.

Once in the house, the guys were getting ready to place the beam onto the duct jacks. These jacks will lift the beam to a certain point until the guys could get it into place. The green thing with wheels in the picture is the duct jack.

They are placing the beam on the duct jack.

Our middle one and Mark's uncle was having a race with the duct jacks to see who could get there side up first, along with keeping it even as they move up. 

They are getting ready to set it in place.

Success!! The beam is in place, now just time to start nailing up.

Next they started to remove the temporary wall

Then I started working on pulling out nails from the old closet shelves and trim so we could reuse them. The guys give me a hard time about my pink and purple tools; however, they are not afraid to use them when I have something they don't. :)

The causality of doing work yourself, it is getting your finger caught in tools. 

The outside wall is gone. That is a picture of Mark's best friend sitting in the rafters.

Next was installing beam number 2 between the one we just installed and the kitchen wall. The one went much quicker than the big one. 

Both beams are finally up.

At lunch I made them all take a picture. The is everyone but one person, who had just left. I wish I would have capture everyone, but this is the majority of the crew.

Also at lunch, they unloaded all the new doors we ordered. I am so excited, love the pantry door.

After lunch they were ready to start work again. They asked what else could they do, and we pointed them to the kitchen where they started to remove more studs.

About at this point, Mark's uncle noticed (after having the insulation removed) a major problem. A large support was resting on the door frames we wanted to remove. You can see it in the following picture right even with the air duct on the beam behind where the air duct is hung. They were not comfortable with that support being on that frame.

Also from this picture, they did not have a laminate beam or major support going across right here.

They talked and debated about what Mark needed to do. It looked like we were coming to a stop for the day, until his uncles said they want to fix it today. So they gave Mark the supply list and sent him to the hardware store in West. I am so thankful they found this problem and correct it.

While we waited on supplies we took some time to write scriptures on the wall.

The work starts on fixing the problem in the kitchen supports. They knocked this out really fast, I was very impressed with Mark's uncles. I cannot say enough about the good work they did on fixing the problem.

The new support in place, all that is left is to connect the joists hangers to the support. 

Our middle one and I worked on trim for most of the day. We are trying to get the baseboards knocked out so we can finish up the bedrooms. My mom and mother in law helped as well.

About mid afternoon our close friends showed up to help us finished. As one crew left ones showed up, which was great timing. We mostly worked on removing the front cover of the fireplace so we could prep it for the new front.

Fireplace work:

Putting up joists hangers:

We did good with not having any major accidents during the day. Mark did shot a nail into his finger with a nail gun. I think he will survive, he has been hurt worse.