Day 10 - Seven Trusses

One question had been on everyone’s minds since the project began, “How would the trusses be lifted into place?” It seemed an impossible task and given the timeframe of the project the trusses were being put up a few days earlier than they ideally would. After an hour or so was spent reinforcing the structure with additional diagonal and horizontal supports to protect the columns against lateral forces the team was ready to lift the first one into place. A lot of care was taken and the truss was lifted upside down and put in place without incident.

At this point a lot of head scratching and discussion took place, with all the adults offering their own mehods of rotating the trusses through 180 degrees so that they stood vertically the correct way around. Mr Smith considered all of these and then did it his own way anyway. The process required the clever application of forces and levers was required and although everyone wasn;t quite sure how it was going to work  a little bit of brute force and intelligence went a long way and the truss was where it needed to be.

After this the second and third went up without incident in about 1 hour each. By the time the fourth came along confidence was growing and everyone in the team became a little complacent. In the first place the truss was brought in a little too fast and applied the dreaded lateral forces to the top of the support columns, moving them visibly. When the truss was lifted up one of the poles was put in too soon and snapped as the truss spun around. This wasn’t a problem in itself, but when the truss reached vertical there was no pole to catch it and stop it going past vertical (this is the one that had snapped). It took a little of quick thinking to catch it and make it safe once again.

After this lunch was taken and upon return everything was done that bit more carefully; everyone had their jobs, knew what they were doing and the potential problems were known.

By the end of the day three more trusses were put up and secured, leaving six more for tomorrow. The building is still on target to be completed in two day’s time, but it is going to be really hard work as it really ought to take three. Nevertheless, the boys have achieved an extraordinary amount in the last 9 days and are in sight of completing it. (Although the Blog calls this day 10, in reality it is only day 9 as the first day was spent travelling.)