Why does it take so long for me to install a stud frame ?

This time I had done all the stud fabrication at home, and even delivered the stud to site the previous day.

Lifting the stud in to place, on my own, using a variety of hoists takes me about 3 hours (not bad for lifting an 80 Kg object alone, without effort or injury).

Getting it in to exact postion and level takes another 2 hours and bolting it down takes another 3 hours.

However, reinstalling the roof with new reliefs cut in to go around the stud frames and screwing in small pieces of roofing to make it waterproof pretty much takes another whole day.

That seems to be the real problem and I can't see any way around it at the moment.

If I was a professional builder working at this all week then I would not even need the temporary roof.

Definitely creating a rod for my own back.

Anyway - first thing on Saturday morning I removed all the remaining panelling along the west internal wall to allow me to bolt the stud frames down on to the floor joist. This took me about an hour.

Next, I wanted to deal with a problem I had noticed on the first frame.

The process of insert noggings across the centre had forced it out by 10 mm.

This was mainly due to a slight twist in each stud that I had accidentally introduced by not rebating the plate trenches exactly square.

I discovered that the error disappeared when I compressed it with the sash clamp but sprang back as soon as it was removed.

I realised that I needed to run a strip of bracing across the middle to hold the compression in place.

In reality I discovered that I needed to run a braces on both faces to totally remove the error.

This took me another 2 hours.

Next I slid frame 2 in to position and hoisted it up using the winch up trolley first and then the sheet lifter.

When I had a close look at the arms of the sheet lifter I realised that there were all sorts of additional arms that could be removed to simplify the structure. I ended up with one simple cross bar at the head of the telescopic tubes.

I tied this on to the top plate of the frame while lifting with the sheet lifter.

After getting the frame vertical I pulled it sideways in to postion using a long sash clamp and drove nails in to the floor board to set up the run of its bottom edge.

I joined it to stud 1 using predrilled holes and hand nailing 75 mm framing nails across the contacting studs.

By now it was mid afternoon and bolting through took me right up to dark.

You really need two people for this operation - one of the bolts needed ten trips up and down the access steps before I had it right.

I had not intended to but I realised that I needed to stay overnight because the temporary roof was still off and rain was forecast for the afternoon of the following day.

I rang Linda up, told her of my forced change of plan and asked her if she could come out and help me the next day.

Sunday

I did not sleep well overnight but next morning I was outside by 7.00 am.

Unfortunately there was a light drizzle so I needed to spend about 45 minutes dragging a rather tattered old tarpaulin out from storage and rigging it across the existing structures so that I could replace the temporary roof without becoming soaked.

A bit of the problem was the fact that, in spite of the tarpaulin, rain was falling on the uncovered reaches of the roof and steadily running down and dripping on to the open section of the roof.

I had to wield a mop every 10 minutes to stop water running through in to the rooms below.

By the time that Linda had arrived I had managed to reinstall the roof sheets belonging against stud number 2.

This was very time consuming as I had to cut out reliefs to fit around the studs.

Linda arrived with much needed supplies of croissants and take away coffee.

I set her to work on all sorts of tasks and between us we completed the water proofing of the modified temporary roof.

I realised that time was running out and that I was too tired to install the 3rd stud frame so instead proceeded to reinstall some temporary roof sheeting that I had removed in anticipation of doing this install.

By now it was 4.00 pm and Linda needed to head home to feed the kangaroos.

I spent another hour putting tools away and eventually returned home by 5.30 pm.

I tried valiantly but I am very disappointed to report that I only managed to install a single frame.