Above 1200 Sq/FT Vel's 40x60 Garage

[velillen01]

I figure it is time I start a thread on my garage build. I actually started a few months ago but wanted to wait till there was some progress really being done.

A bit of history I suppose....my wife and I moved just before the world "fell apart" so to speak. It was a dumb luck sort of thing both in us moving to where we did and also in my wife finding her job. She had gotten on of those recruitment postcards for jobs in the mail that showcased Big Sky, MT. We both got a bit excited as thats an amazing area. Upon calling the recruiter....of course that wasnt the case. The job was actually for a place in Eastern, MT out in farm country. Just a bit of a difference. But the recruiter told of us a place in Wyoming that we might be interested in. So we went and checked it out and wife interviewed and all that stuff and was offered the job. That was in December of 2019. We came back out house shopping in early Feb 2020. We were lucky and found our house which sits on 4.5 acres just a few minutes outside of town. To the front of our house is a farm field and the back is a vast Bureau of Land Management area. We were lucky that the previous owners we not in a rush to move out and ended up staying till Early/Mid July. We moved in mid August. Thankfully it worked out and we were able to move a lot of stuff into the garage at the new place over a month or so (it took us four trips to move everything). We were also lucky as I sold my house for a decent chunk of change. It went on the market right as the housing market started really "booming" again from everything.


But anyways part of moving had always been to have a garage for projects. A 2 car garage just doesnt cut it. It took some back and forth and compromises but the wife and I settled on a 40x60. We then decided to just go with 16ft walls, a 14'x14' garage door, add a mezzanine with two rooms at the back end of the garage with on room becoming the wife's crafting room, and eventually a lean-to off one side. Quite a large project for someone who has never built something so large! And thats where we started to learn how awesome small town living and places are. Our local lumber yard worked with us and got pretty much everything we needed ordered.

Being small town (although this seems to be a nationwide problem), there isnt a huge market for contractors. We had thought of having it built by someone but after trying three different people and all three basically saying "try next year we are booked already for this year" it become obvious I would be building this myself. This is again where its been nice to be able to go talk to the local lumber yard and ask questions on how to do things. Their primary sales guy ran his owning building company for years before selling it for the less stressful 9-5 type job.


But anyways lets get started!

 

[velillen01]

I got pretty lucky as the whole project almost didnt even get off the ground. Trying to find someone to pour the slab ended up being luck. Two of the people who came out basically said I might be able to get it poured end of Sept/beginning of Oct depending on the weather. Thankfully the third guy said he could get it done by August. It took them a bit to get things done but I wasnt complaining. They basically used my project as filler. So there were a few days of just one or two guys being there. Or an afternoon of the whole crew. But they got it poured over two days and it looks great. (4 months in an minimal cracks)

Its funny how flat an area looks until you start actually making it flat. The rear of the garage is ~6 inches above grade while the front ended up being close to 3ft above.

We decided to go ahead an do radiant heating wo i spent two days getting foam and the pex all laid out.

They poured the slab over two days. Splitting it into two 20x60 pours. Temperatures in the afternoon were low 90s. It took them all day to get each half "done" but only ~1-2 hours to pour. My concrete guy prefers using pumps for larger areas like mine.

And all done and poured.

I guess i didnt take any good pictures of it (was in abit of a rush) but I added foam to the exterior of the foundation. The concrete guy then brought in more dirt and made a "ramp" up to the pad. Bit of extra cost as neither of us realized how tall it would be but he made a fair offer to do the work. He also added dirt to the perimeter and sloped it away for water

 

[velillen01]

Soon after the pad was poured, the material was all delivered. But it was a bit of a road trip and then travel for my wife and I. My mom had entered a lottery to stay at Le Conte Lodge in the Great Smokey Mountains (Tennessee).

So I loaded up the dog and drove back to the Seattle area where my dad would dog sit and we would fly out to TN. Not many pictures from the trip but it was a great hike and awesome to stay at the lodge. We lucked out on weather and only had passing showers. Right after we left guess it was pretty heavy rain and thunderstorms

and yes I did take out the passenger seat and put his bed there for him.

And the only real good picture I took

And thats where Ill stop for now. More to come quite soon!

 

[velillen01]

Bit more for today...

Upon returning from vacation I had to tackle a big issue I had. How to raise 16' walls by my self. O did I mention that a vast majority of this build would be solo? I had plenty of people offer to help, but I like to work at my own pace and sort of do whatever I want that day. Working when I have others around just makes things more stressful for me.

We have a smaller CAT rental place in town. Small means they dont have a huge inventory of equipment to rent. And being middle of summer already construction was in full swing already. Couple that with companies that did have rentals out just rented the whole summer rather than risk not being able to get equipment again. So there was lots of idle equipment at jobsites. Frustrating but o well. Luckily skid steers came and went so I rented one with a set of forks.

A week rental to hopefully get all the walls up. The other issue would be the skid steer could only lift ~8-9 feet. Not enough for 16ft walls. So I built some stands and came up with a plan. I would lift the wall from the top plate and set it on the stands. At that point I could drive under the wall section and lift it from the 8ft horizontal braces. Once up in the air, it became the fun part of trying to line up the hanging wall section onto the J-Bolts. There was a lot of moving small amounts and getting in and out of the skid steer to look at things. Slow process but I got it done!

O yeah...this was also my first time using a skid steer so that didnt help.

Once I had a game plan of how to do things, the process went relatively smooth.

The "front" of the garage ended up being quite a pain in the ****. The first half with just the man door was easy enough. But trying to lift the garage door section proved difficult. I really had no good way to lift it. My first attempt went horrible and I ended up dropping it and ruining some of the framing as I wasnt lifting the load centered so the headers pulled things awkwardly. After fixing that mess up, I build temporary framing below the headers to use for lifting. Things went a lot smoother but for whatever reason this section still ended up being a pain to get to fit. Trying to maneuver the section and keep it from hitting the side wall and the other front wall sections. But I finally got it and got everything secure.

And sorry but no pictures of that! I was beat after that. That night was slightly windy (only 10-15mph) so I went out at 10pm to check on things. There was some movement but nothing I felt worried about.

The following night was a different story. We ended up getting some stronger winds in the 30-40mph range. Of course once it got dark out. I went out to check on things and well...turned into a lot of running around. The bracing that had been fine for 10-15mph was clearly not enough for stronger winds. The walls were bowing quite bad (a good 2-3' of deflection in the middle of the 60' walls and 1-2' on the 40ft walls. Some of it was my fault. I had braced the outside of the building but hadnt done anything on the inside. The outside wasnt enough and wasnt in the right places (id just sort of randomly put them up instead of bracing where the wall sections came together for instance). So that night was a good hour-hour and half running around and adding bracing. I also ended up taking my truck out to the back wall and hooking up my winch. I put tension on the line to help hold that wall from being able to bow any further inwards.

I wasnt really satisfied but I had done all I could in the dark and quickly. Thankfully everything stayed up right now there was basically no damage. The next day was spent straightening the walls out and adding a lot more bracing. I also added bracing inside in a framework. After that night everything was pretty dang solid and didnt have any more issues.

I did feel good in a weird way. One of the gas stations in town is being built and they had just set 10-15 trusses the day the 30-40mph winds came in. Well guess they didnt brace them very well cause come morning time they had all been blown over. Ruined all the trusses plus one end wall. Ended up being the talk of the town for a few days lol.



More to come probably tomorrow

 

[Bowtie4life]

Your garage is coming along nicely!!!

 

[kruizer66]

Looks good so far!

 

[velillen01]

So after our trip it was time to get the trusses up. I didnt get any pictures but I went ahead and put the first row of plywood sheathing all the way around the building just to help firm it up a bit. Then it was onto the trusses

Luckily my parents came out to help with them as theres no way I could have done it solo. I also was a bit limited on equipment choices. Would have loved to use a telehandler or something but there were none to rent. We ended up using a man lift as a sort of make shift "crane".

So the rented Scissor Lift and the tow-behind man lift arrived.

The tow-behind was actually a bit of a funny story. Ended up having to call the rental place twice and have a mechanic come out. The first time was just me not knowing the machine (first time using one) and after exiting the basket, it didnt have enough weight to keep the alarm sensor depressed so it would just beep really loud and not allow me to do anything. Easy enough fix. The tow-behind is electric and we had it plugged in the whole time. Well after ~2 hours of just getting things ready it was moving quite slow. As if the batteries were drained. Did a bit of quick diagnosing myself to make sure it wasnt something stupid and noticed the batteries were low (only reading around 5.3 volts and drawing down into the 4's if you tried to do anything). So the mechanic came back out and came to the same conclusion that the batteries werent charging. Turns out the charger was bad. The funny part is this happened to the renter before me and the mechanic was on vacation. The batteries were a few years old though so the other guys just assumed it was bad batteries and replacement them all. Guess they had enough of a charge in them to work just fine for the person. Thankfully rather than taking the machine out of servie the rental place left me with a battery charger for a 24v system and showed me how to hook it up properly. Then it was just a matter of running the charger whenever we could.

Once we started getting trusses up it was a bit slow and clunky. None of us had ever set trusses this large before. Let alone used a man lift to do it. It would end up taking us a solid 5 days to get all 31 trusses up.

Things went smooth overall up to this point. Thats where things got a bit interesting.

More to come in the next post!

 

[Bowtie4life]

Wow........that is a big job for sure! Great work and it is looking good!!!

 

[ScottW]

Great build and appreciate the pictures! Bringing back memories of about 25 years ago when we built my dad’s 40x40 shop. At 44’ tip to tip, longest trusses I had ever handled. Fortunately we had one guy who really knew what he was doing and he had us build a temporary internal wall end to end under the centerline of the trusses, that way when delivered they could be laid on top and all we had to do was stand them up and walk them to position. Maybe with your scissor trusses that wasn’t as feasible? We had a flat ceiling. I do appreciate you are learning to operate the various equipment at the same time.

 

[velillen01]

Great build and appreciate the pictures! Bringing back memories of about 25 years ago when we built my dad’s 40x40 shop. At 44’ tip to tip, longest trusses I had ever handled. Fortunately we had one guy who really knew what he was doing and he had us build a temporary internal wall end to end under the centerline of the trusses, that way when delivered they could be laid on top and all we had to do was stand them up and walk them to position. Maybe with your scissor trusses that wasn’t as feasible? We had a flat ceiling. I do appreciate you are learning to operate the various equipment at the same time.

The trusses were delivered on just a flat bed truck. Well the type they can tilt up and just drive forward and the slid off the back. Which I'll actually detail an issue we had with that in a bit. I would have gladly paid a crane service or rented machinery more suited for what we were doing but it came down to time and cost. I couldnt find a crane service who wasnt booked up and even then it was going to be a lot of money. I did seek out a truss attachment for a skidsteer but I only found one and it was ~5 hours away each way so just wasnt worth it.

As for the trusses....well I ordered most stuff well in advance of needing it, knowing its busy season and with labor and material shortages. This meant my trusses were delivered ~3 weeks before I was really ready for them. I though I had enough support under the trusses but the scissor trusses ended up "warping" a bit. The standard trusses were just fine. But the scissor ones fought us a bit to get back to being straight.

 

[velillen01]

So the last picture (the garage with the chicken coup) was where things took a interesting turn. Not on the garage thankfully though!

But my dad and I were working on getting bracing installed when I noticed a truck coming up our road. He pulls up in front of the house and its the Natural Gas company. So I go over and greet him. Well thats when we got some bad news. He was out there cause our month to month gas usage has spiked over twice what we used last month. He was out there to check the meter and make sure it wasnt broken. The meter was fine which left us the poor situation of that meaning we had a leak somewhere. So the gas tech shut off the gas and locked the meter.

The wife and my mom had smelled some gas where the line enters our house. It was kind of on and off though and we had added a connection for our natural gas bbq. So we kept checking that and tightening things slightly thinking maybe it was a small leak. So i mentioned that to the gas tech who was nice enough to grab his leak detector. He got it turned on and was ~2 feet from the line and it alarmed. So not good as that meant it wasnt just a small leak! He pinpointed it to something underground, which our union joint was half below ground and half above so we were hopeful it was just the union that failed.

So we started digging to see. It became quite interesting and clear it has been leaking for awhile. The dirt around the pipe was super hard and black. But we dug down and quickly discovered the black iron pipe had failed horribly.

All said and done here is the pipe

O and did I mention this was around 4pm on the Thursday before Labor Day week. So after discovering the issue and talking things over with my wife (and to some extent my parents), we decided we should just replace the whole line.

So Friday morning I ran to the Cat Rental store. Told them what had happened and they had me set up with a skid steer with a trenching attachment that was available that day. They actually had it delivered to my house about 45 minutes after I left. Plus they were nice and told me they would just plan to pick it up on Tuesday morning. Not bad for a one day rental...even though ended up not using it past Friday anyways but it was nice to not be in a time crunch.

Then came the interesting part. I ran around town to find everything I needed. Ace Hardware had ONE coupler for 1" gas line and only had a 100 foot roll of 1" pipe. I needed ~115 feet. They had the risers thankfully. Luckily another place in town had ~130ft section of pipe. So score! But nobody had a coupler in stock. Not even in the towns closer to us (even looking out 1.5 hours away). So well had enough stuff to least get started.

So we got it all trenched and just had a bit of clean up to do.

Now i was debating what to do about the second coupler. The only one I could find was 2.5 hours away. At that point my wife called a plumber after hours who was someone she knows. He was nice enough to drive back into town to look in his stash for a coupler. Which he didnt have but he did had one of the poly pipe welders (melters?). So we had him attach one of the risers to the poly pipe. So that problem was solved!

Saturday we got the pipe laid out and the risers installed. Took a few trips to Ace to grab new fittings. Went to pressure test things....and it failed. Slowly though. Turns out one of the old valves for the natural gas grill was leaking out of the valve stem. So another trip to Ace and we had a new valve. Pressure tested and it passed. The gas company tech came out, made me sign a bunch of forms and turned the gas back on.

Glad that gotten take care of!

 

[velillen01]

After fixing the gas line it was back to getting the trusses done. We had hit the point where the man lift wouldnt work being inside the garage, but was just a few feet from being able to reach from outside the garage.

We initially thought we could just bring the trusses in upside down, set them down and then flip them upright. But after trying it with one we didnt like how much bowing we saw even trying to lift from two points. Plus having to push up ~23ft wasnt the easiest.

So we decided to just get the bottoms set where we wanted them while having the man lift hold the truss at the awkward angle. Then my dad used the scissor lift and would "push" into the middle, top of the truss to get it set up right. While doing that i would use the man lift to keep the lifting straps with minimal slack in case something moved. Not going to lie but these were not fun trusses as it was slow and made us a bit nervous. Especially the first two as they had the furthest distance we had to move them to get them situated correctly. Luckily things went pretty smooth overall and it got easier with each truss. After 3-4 they were able to be set down normally.

Which then led to problem # 2. The last few trusses would not allow the use of the scissor lift inside.

My wife finally made an appearance to help at just the right time! (she had been working for the rest). We devised a plan where she would ride up with the truss in the basket. Once the truss was set, we would use the scissor lift to go under the truss and attach a ratchet strap in the middle as high up as I could reach. This would hold the truss in place temporarily.

Then I would lower the basket and my wife would reach down and remove the lifting straps.

Once the straps were free I would move the basket so she could secure the trusses in place.

This method actually worked pretty well. My wife definitely got the short end as the man lift isnt always the smoothest ride, especially when you arent in control of the movement. Even with telling her what I was going to try to do, the small movements led to some bouncing of the basket which isnt fun.

With all the trusses in place we got enough of the bracing up to feel comfortable for the night

 

[Bowtie4life]

Great job and it's good that you have some help from your wife.

 

[velillen01]

Great job and it's good that you have some help from your wife.

She tries to help as much as she can. But I dont work and she does so I mostly keep working on the garage to when she is at work. Then spend the time when she is off work doing stuff with her. keeps me from getting burned out working non stop too!

 

[BORING HOP YARD]

Very nice progress, nice to see your Wife involved, my Wife has to chip in every now and then.
Thanks for sharing!

 

[velillen01]

After getting all the trusses left, and after dealing with the gas line, I was left with only ~1.5 days on the rental.

So i got the facia installed and we decided to get the first row of plywood up. Which the first issue was...how do we get the plywood up there? The quickest solution...although a bit slow....was to just use a C-Clamp and clamp to the plywood so the throat of the C-Clamp was over the rail on the lift.

Then once I got close, I'd do my best to set the edge of the plywood down and un do the C-Clamp and just plop the sheet down.

Then once down, my dad would use the scissor lift from inside the garage and I'd would stay in the man lift. We worked together to get the sheets lined up and the nailed.

It took longer than it should have but at this point I was tired, as were my parents....especially my dad who tweaked his back a few days earlier. (he is also 70!)

but we got the vast majority of bracing done (still some minor pieces to install), the facia donw, and the first row of plywood done. Its starting to look like a garage!

 

[GreenIron]

Vel,
That'll be a fine building when complete. I'll be following along.

 

[Bowtie4life]

Yes.........great work on your garage. You will be so very proud of it once it's done and you can do some of your personal details to it.

 

[velillen01]

Thanks guys! Its been fun looking back since all that work was a month or so ago!

 

[velillen01]

After my parents left (the had other obligations), I took a good week off just to rest. Then it was back to work! I rented the man lift again and got to work getting the roof and walls fully sheeted.

Which presented an interesting problem. How to get the sheets up to the roof in a timely fashion. Sure the one sheet at a time method worked but it would be slow. I didnt take a picture but i found someone else who had run into this problem and built a platform of sorts to hold the plywood. It was simple in designed so i copied it. Basically just run two long 2x4's under the man lift basket. Then have two 2x4's that fit inside the basket. The basket already has holes in it, so just screw through the holes (so as to not damage the basket) and screw the 2x4's together. Then add a "kick plate" of sorts to the end of long 2x4's. That way I could just set the sheets on the extended 2x4 and lean them against the basket. Then just "plop" the sheets onto the roof.

It also worked great for getting the second row of wall sheathing on. Just place the sheet on the extended 2x4, get into position, then just lift and set the sheet on the previously installed sheet.

With that figured out I went to work. It went pretty smooth overall. Just a lot of manual labor for one person. I was glad we got the first row of plywood up already. It was also nice as the smoke from the forest fires had cleared up so I had some nice views while working.

But managed to get all the sheathing up on the roof and the walls.

I did have my first "accident" with the man lift though. While trying to get int positioned for the back wall, I backed it into the one bush/tree thing and one of the branches broke a tail light. Not bad but any means but enough to bother me. I did a quick look online and new one was only ~25 bucks for the whole unit. So i ran to the rental place and told them what happened and just wanted to check with them on what would be ok. Luckily they were more than accommodating and understanding. The mechanic double checked the part numbers for me just to make sure I got the right one. The part would arrive after I had returned the machine but they were nice enough to just make a deal that I get the part, bring it in, and the mechanic would replace it free of charge. Hard to beat that!

Unrelated to anything I had done, I had noticed one of the side marker lights was out and the cover for it was half missing. It was lucky that the bulb it took just happened to be the same type I just replaced in my car. I had swapped to LED in the car so the old bulbs still worked just fine. I also had an amber light cover from another trailer that was the right size. So I swapped in the "new" bulb and the new light cover. It also worked out well as when I returned the man lift I took in the extra bulbs (think i still had 3 or 4 of them) and gave them to the mechanic. They would use them and I would have just tossed them in the trash so felt good to have less waste.

and yeah Im sure some people would have just not bothered fixing it or anything but it bugged me. And Im still of the belief you break it, you buy it type stuff.

 

[velillen01]

After getting all the sheathing up, it was time to do some trenching. The plan was to run two separate trenches. One for electric and one for nat gas, water, and a conduit for internet.

The issue is there is a petroleum pipeline than runs perpendicular to where I needed to go. I was fortunate that the owners of that pipeline were super easy to work with. Their only real requirement was to stay 10ft away from the pipe prior to them being there. So we set up a date that worked for both of us and I rented a mini excavator. I actually rented the mini for a week and had it a few days before.

But things went smooth. It took a good half a day to get the trenching done under the pipeline. It was pretty simple, just dig out either side of the pipe line then we just punched a hole through under the line around ~36 inches below it. Once we had the lines ran all they wanted was for bags of concrete to be set on top.

The electrical trench was only ~36" (or deeper) in depth and tapered down to the ~7ft at the pipeline. The other trench was 6-7 feet the whole way (frost depth is 48")

Glad that was done. Who knows when Ill get power out there or finish getting gas/water/ect done but I dont really need those for awhile still.

While I had the mini I also tackled two other projected. The first to be filling in the trench from the house gas line. Being in a rush we only ever laid the line and never filled in the trench. So got that done. The second was to fix the shoddy power supply run to our other garage. And also run a nat gas line. Whoever had run power to that garage ran a single 20amp run using direct burial. And they only buried that line ~6" deep. Made removing it easy as I could just pull it up. So I went ahead and ran the gas line and the two risers and then ran conduit for a new 50amp run.

Then the wife and I headed out for a wedding and left my parents at our place to dog sit. Since they cant sit, they did a lot of work smoothing out the areas that were filled back in. Looks like I was never there!

 

[Z06Joe]

Very nice build.

 

[velillen01]

Thank you!

 

[velillen01]

While the wife and I were away for a wedding, it of course decided to be the first real rain and snow of the year. We live in "high desert" so getting a lot of rain is pretty uncommon. But over 2 days our area ended up getting over an inch of rain. And then a good 4-5 inches of snow.

That wouldnt normally be a problem except for all the holes (like the ridge vent) in the roof and walls (windows/doors). Ended up getting a lot of water inside the garage. And also found out the sill was sealed pretty well as it puddled pretty bad. My parents were nice enough to go in twice a day and sweep the water out to help it dry and keep it from pooling.

When my wife and I returned the area was still a muddy mess but dry, warmer weather was in the forecast.

I had scheduled a rental for a skidsteer with the plan to fill in the trenches since I didnt have time to do that prior to leaving. This is where the rental company stepped up again. That dry forecast changed to rain on the day my rental was supposed to start. The rental company called and asked if I wanted to delay the rental one day instead of being out in the rain. So i postponed a day, the rain never really came which was good.

Once the skidsteer arrived i got to work. It pretty quick overall. But I would fill the trench up half-three quarters of the way and then add the "warning buried X" tape and then fill it all the way up.

Got both trenches up to the garage covered

That only leaves the electrical where the new meter or whatever will go open (still cant get an electrician out) and also right by the house.

Its not perfect by any means. I plan to hire the same guy who poured my pad to come out with road base and smooth the area out. But the soil was still wet so every turn of the skidsteer created small ruts. Then of course there has been a lot of compaction in the trench area. Ive been driving the box truck over it every other day so which has left it compacted but a nice dip too.

 

[velillen01]

After the rain and filling the trench, I decided the next best course would be to get the building a bit more "water tight". Not that it would be perfect but better than it was!

The first thing was to "seal" the foam to the concrete and wood. Is it necessary? Probably not. But it was something recommended to me by one of the local builders who gave me some tips (he mostly does metal siding builds..be it pole barn or stick frame). Mostly just a way to keep dirt/water/whatever from falling between the foam and concrete and also adds just another layer to shed water away. So I picked up Zip Flashing. The first problem...everything was muddy and dirty. Most of it washed off with just a hose but the foam took a bit of scrubbing. Once it was cleaned the zip flashing went on. Its not perfect but itll work and once everything is back filled to the slab it wont be noticeable.

After the flashing I decided the next best area to tackle to keep water out would be the roof. So I picked up synthetic roofing felt and a **** ton of cap nails and went to work. Its roofing felt so no pictures. But managed to get it all installed in one way. Which in hindsight probably wasnt the best idea but rain was forecast for the following day so I really wanted to get it done. (of course the rain never came!) It went smooth but after hand nailing the ~2000 cap nails and the up and down I was sore!

Since the rain didnt come I decided to tackle the house wrap ASAP. I had to do it by my self and, honestly, it wasnt that bad. Just unrolled the first few feet and staples it in place then pulled the rest out and got it hung. Took a bit of time doing it solo and having to move the ladder but got it mostly all done. My ladder only has ~18ft of workable height so it wasnt tall enough to do the front and back walls all the way up. But it was enough to cover all the vast majority of seams (and the windows).

Before the second row was totally done i ran out of time. Finished it up the next morning.

It felt good to have the house mostly water resistant. of course we havent gotten any real moisture since then but thats the way things go

 

[aqr81]

That is a very nice build and very ambitious to do solo for the most part. I'll be following the progress and give you kudos for your hard work. It is really coming along and looks very nice.

Larry

 

[velillen01]

That is a very nice build and very ambitious to do solo for the most part. I'll be following the progress and give you kudos for your hard work. It is really coming along and looks very nice.

Larry

Thanks! Its kind of nice to do it solo. Work on what I want for how long I want each day. Course it would go a lot faster if there was help so its a bit of a trade off

 

[velillen01]

With the housewrap and roofing felt down I was back in the "what do i feel like doing today" way of working.

Which meant I wanted to install windows and doors.

The windows actually went pretty quick and simple. I had never installed windows before so quite pleased everything went smoothly. I was lucky that i didnt have to do much shimming or anything. Basically plop the window in the opening, a screw or two to hold it in place and then check the left/right spacing. Adjust for that and finish installing. I managed to get 4 of the 6 windows installed. The last two are the upper mezzanine windows so Ill either wait for the man lift rental again or see if the wife has some free time to help me.

With the windows done it was time to install the doors. We went with 36" wide, steel insulated doors. The local supply place I had been getting everything from could only get those for a ridiculous price....$900 bucks each. So we shopped around and found what we wanted at Lowes but in white. At a much more reasonable $175 per a door we went for that option and figured we would just paint them.

The install was simple enough. Bit of shimming to get everything right but wasnt to bad.

Then it was time to paint. I had cut off a piece of the window vinyl nailing piece and had the local place paint match it. Its always interesting how paint dries. The paint when wet had quite the purple tint to it but once dry matches the windows pretty dang close. The wagner paint sprayer made it quick and easy. Two coats on each door with a bit of extra paint Ill save for touch up.

Thats it for now. We are ALMOST caught up

 

[Bowtie4life]

Man.....you are moving along quite nicely. Very good work on everything that you have done so far.

 

[velillen01]

Something bit different. Lets talk tools. For the most part I havent had to buy anything major as of yet so thats a plus. But I have picked up a few things that have been nice to have around.

First up is this STKR Mechanical Carpenters Pencil. Ive used regular carpenter pencils before but this was a nice change just being able to always have it available. I will say my one complaint is that once you get down to the end of each "stick" of lead they like to just fall out. Works great till youve used up about 75% of each stick then got kind of meh.

Next up has been this Neiko branded Magnetic Pickup. Been great for picking up nails and things that fell of the roof. Of just in general. Well worth having

The next thing I found extremely helpful to have was C-Clamps. Ive kept an eye on amazon warehouse deals over the years and had some nice Wilton 10" and 8" C-Clamps (also 6" but didnt really use them). They were quite helpful it manipulating the 2x6's to where I needed them if there was any sort of bowing or whatever.

Up next I picked up one of the Irwin QuickClamp Heavy Duty. This came in handy when trying to get the spacing for trusses correct. The ability to spread things apart instead of just clamp together is great. The clamping force is also alot more than the standard quickclamps too.

Just dont drop one from ~20ft up onto your concrete pad!

And lasty, i picked up a new 48" level. I have had an old Stanley one for years. It works but one of the bubbles has been missing for a long time and I honestly thought it might be slightly bent. While browsing at Ace they had this Johnson 48" level on sale for $20 so i picked it up. A nice discovery just going "edge to edge" between the stanley and johnson showed the stanley was still flat and straight. I do like the Johnson level though. Its a bit heavier (but not to much) over the Stanley and the two horizontal bubbles are great.

Back to building in the next post though

 

[velillen01]

Finally starting to install metal! Up first I decided to tackle the Soffit. It ended up being a bit of a process as I had pieces from two different companies. I wanted to get a "double F" channel like you see RR Buildings use but the supplier doesnt offer them. Also the only soffits they offered were white in color. So I ended up ordering the soffits and F Channel from a different company. Thankfully the colors on the two were pretty much identical up close and from the ground isnt noticeable. The F Channel was a vinyl while the Soffits were aluminum.

First up was to figure out how to actually be able to reach everything. I would have purchased a roof standoff system but there were none locally and I didnt want to wait for one to ship. So I built one more or less.

With that figured out it was time to get the soffits going. Pretty simple, just a few different pieces to fit together. I did start with using a Staple Gun to just hole things in place and was going to use roofing nails to secure the panels. But that turned out to be quite a pain. The Soffit manufacturer instructions allowed the use of nails or staples so I ended up just sticking to staples.

The only real "issue" I ran up to was one I knew was there. The standard trusses were 2x4 while the Scissor Trusses were 2x6. I could have done the facia all in 2x6 but I had 2x4 material that would work so I went with that. That meant I just had to trim the ends of the 2x6's a bit so the soffits would fit. Wasnt bad to do at all.

It took a couple days (well half days) but both sides are done and look pretty good!

 

[velillen01]

After the soffits I moved on to getting some of the trim steel up. Its nice to see how things will look a bit better as more and more pieces go up.

I only did the J-Channel around the front door and put a few of the pieces of trim for the garage door on. I did get the bottom piece of trim installed all the way around the garage though.

After that I wanted to get house wrap up on the higher portions of the front and back I didnt do before. I decided for the front to unroll what I would need on the ground.

I think carried it up onto the roof and tried to staples it from the top and have it just hang down. It worked...ok. Lets just say I got it in place and its staples down now.

For the back I decided to leave the wrap on the roll and just unroll it as i went along the back roof.

That worked much better.

Still had to go back and add a bit more but the house wrap is now basically all done. All thats left is by the top of the garage door

 

[velillen01]

Up next is the roof. This is where things took a bit of time to figure out. Mostly in the "how do i get the steel up there" sort of way.

I initially thought I could just carry the pieces upright and lean them against the eave and then pull them up. Being that the sheets are ~23'6" in length that proved harder than it sounded. I just couldnt get it to stand up on my own.

My next idea was one I saw online. Basically build a ramp. And then be able to pull the sheets up.

Well that failed pretty quick lol. I tried sliding it up the ramp but the angle was just to steep causing the steel to bow way to much.

My third idea was to use some clamps and rope and pull the sheets up the ramp. So I tried with the sheet horizontal and two clamps on either side. It sort of worked but wasnt the best.

The fourth and last idea before I resorted to renting machinery was to just brute force the sheets up. This actually proved to not be that difficult. Basically just lay a sheet at the base of the ladder. Then grab the end of the sheet and just walk up the ladder while holding the end of the sheet and dragging it along. Once at the top of the ladder I could pull it straight and rest it against the eave.

From there is was easy enough to pull the sheet up onto the roof. Is it the most efficient method? No. But it worked!

The first day I only got 3 sheets up as I figured everything out. But the second day was quite productive and I got 12 more sheets installed and screwed down. That left one side 3/4 of the way done while leaving room to get the other sides sheets up.

The following day I only had a few hours in the evening so i got started on the other side of the roof. Another 5 sheets down and screwed. Feels good to be seeing things getting covered up for good!

And the last day i was able to work on things I got 12 more sheets up and installed.

And then I ran into some weather problems. Its been windy. Yesterday was 50+ mph gusts and then today had some lingering wind. Enough for me to not be up on the roof on my own.

I do still have the bottom ~4ft of each sheet that needs to get screwed down and I also need to fit the closure strip at the eave. But I will wait till I rent a man lift to get that done as it will be easier and quicker than trying to do it on a ladder.

 

[Mancino]

Looks great so far! I did the gable ends of the metal panels on my garage by myself, so I feel your pain there. Gotta say, I'm so jealous of the 40x60 footprint! I wanted to go that big, but the town gave me grief.

 

[velillen01]

Looks great so far! I did the gable ends of the metal panels on my garage by myself, so I feel your pain there. Gotta say, I'm so jealous of the 40x60 footprint! I wanted to go that big, but the town gave me grief.

The gable ends will be interesting if I end up doing them by myself! Im thinking I will tackle them when i rent the manlift just to be able to reach the trim and everything.

Im glad I dont have to deal with the city. Im county by just a few miles so theres no building permits or inspections required for anything but septic.

But dont worry the county assessors already came out to get info so they could get their money! I knew that would come eventually so not that worried and the assessor was a nice guy and lady. Its not like the garage is hidden as its pretty noticeable from the highway into and out of town.

 

[velillen01]

Since it was windy out I worked on the inside for a bit.

Got the "utility/storage" room framed. Its plenty big enough at 15'x13'6"

From there I went to work on getting the ledger board for the mezzanine up. Im using LVL's for the ledger and main beam. 12" x i believe 2". So not the easiest things to handle.

But it wasnt that bad really. First get it up onto the top of the ladder. Then muscle it up onto the framing. Then go to the other side and lift that end on top of the ladder.

From there i put a small 2x4 screwed in at the height I needed and just lifted the LVL up and set it on said 2x4. Position it exactly where I wanted it and then screw it in place. Used a bunch of structural screws and attached to every single stud.

I still have the 2 ~10ft long pieces to install but thats for another day. Im not sure how much will be done on the inside but it is a nice area to tackle when the weather prevents me from being outside.

 

[MacTexas]

As I was reading this I was asking my self if you had to get a building permit. You answered my question in your last post. You have built a 40 x 60 garage all by yourself. My hat is off to you.

 

[velillen01]

As I was reading this I was asking my self if you had to get a building permit. You answered my question in your last post. You have built a 40 x 60 garage all by yourself. My hat is off to you.

Being from a larger area originally, I definitely didnt believe the "no permits at all" thing till I had double checked! Its one thing for "random" people to tell you that but I did stop by both the building office and talked to the inspector to check.

And thank you! Though its not done yet!

 

[velillen01]

Well I had wanted to finish up the roof, but ran out of time with the weather and other things.

Now its time to head off on a road trip. Headed back east to spend Thanksgiving with my wife's side of the family (and my parents are flying out to join as well).

So be a good two weeks off between driving and time spent there.

 

[NickH]

The building is looking great! Have a safe trip.