October 13 & 15 - Finally Some New Stuff

Finishing the Top of the Firewall -
I was pretty sure that no more words would be spent on rocking the firewall, but Thursday night presented some of the best acrobatics since the trusses went up and earned Loren the Peak Performer award for the evening.

With each picture being worth approximately 1,000 words, I am well overspent for this post already.

Power -

We have electricity now coming from the local neighborhood power company and are no longer reliant on gas powered generators or long cords coming from neighbor Pete's house. With the startup of electrical service comes the all important meter. I was impressed that after several hours, with saws in frequent use. the meter was still showing zero. Maybe the first few days are free. Or maybe as a church we get free power. Or maybe I do not have a clue about reading meters.

 Phillip Loukusa is the licensed electrician who connected all the stuff up. I plugged in the fancy truss mounted chandeliers to make sure that the electrons were indeed flowing.

Bob quickly shut down the generator and connected the cords to the brand new outlets.

One perhaps unforeseen consequence of having real power the return to work after lunch signal is now missing. With the generators running all morning, the lunch break was wonderfully quiet. After lunch, the generator would start up and the workers knew some eager beaver had spoiled the mid day respite and signaled time to return to work. Now with real power, it may be up to Sam's booming voice to reanimate the crew.










Speaking of lunch, Brian demonstrated his culinary skills by grilling hamburgers for the crew. He was ably assisted by his family that came to enjoy some dad time and scramble atop the piles of roofing shingles. I was invited to come see their 'city', and once there was allowed to take a picture while they posed with their creation.

Cara (did I get the name right?) was not too enthused about scaling the shingle stacks but she was there helping dad with the food service and cleanup. I have now seen Brian scaling trusses, pouring concrete in walls, preparing for HVAC installation and now flipping burgers. But with the name Brian, can he truly be a Jack of all trades? So confusing.












Volunteers from MLLC -

Kristoff (Kristoph?) and Justin Anderson from the Minneapolis congregation came out to spend their Saturday up on the roof top. Thank you very much, guys, your efforts are greatly appreciated. The brothers are shown along with Justin Tolkkinen in the photo below.

So, there they were, three young men up on the roof securing the sheeting. Justin, Kristoff and Justin. Sounded more like a law firm than a group of nail benders to me. But the collars definitely were not white.

The south half of the roof is fully sheeted, including the front entryway. Sam and Glen had to hustle getting the eaves boxed in to keep ahead of the speedy sheeting nailers. 

The engineer specified that the plywood sheets nailed over the entryway trusses have a nail every two and one half inches around the edge of every sheet and four inches apart in the field, that is into the trusses underlying the center of the sheets. Some were speculating that the engineer owns stock in the nail manufacturing industry. Well, like the large concrete footings that help gravity keep the roof down, the fastener specification relates to keeping the plywood from blowing away in a high wind.

Starting the Shingling -

While the work was progressing into the afternoon. Bill picked up a case of shingles. No medical attention was required.

Up on the rooftop Kevin and Bob attached a metal thingy to the roof. Kevin then took up his turn at church cleaning, sweeping away the dirt that had collected under the 2x4 cleat they had just removed.

Here Bob with his tape measure and Kevin with his broom look like they may be beginning a most unusual joust, but no it is just work as usual. 

Ken lends a hand helping to roll out the first layer of roofing material.

















Add a few shingles and behold, a finished patch of roof. Now, just repeat this process approximately four or five thousand times and the roof is finished.