From the monthly archives:

December 2016

Solar Pathfinding

December 17, 2016

The last two days, I was working with my friend, Kurt. Kurt and his wife, Monica, helped out on the garage a little while back when I was putting in the Pex tubing for the hydronic heat. Kurt mentioned that Monica had a Solar Path Finder. I asked if I could borrow it, and sure […]

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Ben’s Garage: Winter Solar Access

December 14, 2016

The rough shell of the garage is now up! We got the roof boards and felt on just before the first major winter storm of the season. Since then, a cold front has moved through. While that DOES drop the temperature (single digits F. right now,) it also means CLEAR skies! It’s cold, but sunny! […]

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Ben’s Garage: Raise the Roof!

December 10, 2016

Today, we put the roof on the garage! Planning was interesting, because the big weather forecast was for a large snowstorm to be coming in. Fortunately, it shouldn’t start until near the end of the day. We weather was cold but clear as we got started – about 15 degrees F., but sunny. The first […]

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Raising the Trusses!

December 3, 2016

This past Saturday, we got the Trusses up. I was a little concerned about this. Each truss weighs over 200 pounds and is 31 feet long. We would need more than just my brother, my Dad, and I to do the job of lifting the trusses onto the roof, setting them in the proper place, […]

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Putting up the Beam

December 2, 2016

The next big step would be install a header across the south side of the garage. This wall is almost nothing but doors. In fact, there’s so little there to hold up the roof that we needed a structurally engineered beam to span the entire south side! This was done with a “micro-lam” beam. Essentially, […]

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