Raise the Walls

The walls were started after the sub floor was finished today. The crew took care to probe into the existing structure's second story to ensure the second floor would line up.  Of course, in a house over 150 years old the framing was not level. This discrepancy will be addressed later through other means.

The largest wall was built first. Everything was done on the sub floor, including exterior wrapping. The newly installed sub floor provided a good flat surface to ensure the inside of the wall will be nice and flat for the drywall. To raise the wall the crew used two ratcheting jacks. The bottom of the jack is nailed into the sub-floor with a small clearance for the rotation of the pivot point. The bottom pivot point of the wall is secured with thin straps that wrap from the inside floor of the structure under the wall then to the outside of the wall. The jack ratchets a bracket secured to the top of the wall on wire over a pulley at the tip of the rod. This setup maintains mechanical advantage throughout the procedure. Once in place, nailed on boards are eventually secured to ensure things remain in place.

Jacks are removed and boards now hold the wall in place temporarily.

Here is the exterior view.

The crew added a couple more walls and swept up. Here are some views.

 

  

Here are some pics of the new part of the basement. They will typically pour the slab after the roof is on and most of the structure is buttoned up.

This is the crawl space tunnel we were digging the other day.  I'm sure this hole has a future for me.