6-27-2020 Finishing Up

2020 PERGOLA PROJECT

June 5, 2020 Friday

We decided to get a 12 x 12' pergola kit that we could build to fit over my 6 x 8' greenhouse. Even with lots of shade cloth the poor plants often have well over 100 degrees to tolerate. 

Ray also wanted more places to put his solar panels, so we can fix 2 problems with one project.
We know already that working over the greenhouse means that we will not be able to measure diagonals, but the foundation is fairly square, so we will work from that until we have the girders in hand.

Before, lots of shade cloth. Scaffold ready to help

Working on the 4 holes for the posts.

Digging the 4 holes in lots of clay and rocks is not easy. Using old hand tools is easier than attaching the post hole digger to the tractor.

Delivery was delayed for 2 days but finally got here.

First look at the 14' long package- 950 pounds of pergola.

The wood is Canadian Red Cedar, kiln dried and surprisingly light. It was shipped from British Columbia.

Tony delivery driver very nice and helpful.
Backing into our driveway was not easy- he did well.

Big box- nice wood- will be used.

Truck with long girders and posts.

Shorter pieces of the construction in the back of the Leaf.

Front of the truck with smaller pieces.

Truck leaving after being tail to tail for the off-load.

June 6, Saturday

 I'm very happy with this arrangement. I have a whole lot of sanding and stain/finish application to do, and this will make it a pleasurable occupation. Color coordinated gloves and water container- what more could I ask for! Oh, and really nice music playing.

All of the wood is of super-excellent quality. The sanding is to roughen the surface because it is too smooth to accept the stain/finish. I had to mark them so I would not forget to sand each surface. After the random orbital sander with 100 grit sandpaper I went over it again by hand. I have to remind myself that this is not a band saw box that requires sanding to 600 grit.

Notice how these posts are made. It is called engineered construction and you can see in the zig-zag corners how stable they will be. It looks like they have been glued with a glue like Gorilla glue- a good glue.

June 7, Sunday

Stain and finish by Behr- very good stuff! Pleasure to work with. Water-based so easy to clean up. The color- perfection. Just what we wanted.

This was the first coat- needs 2 thin coats. The second coat went faster and used less finish. the color stayed about the same. 

It was difficult to apply the finish in the 90+ temps since it wanted to dry on the brush. Had to work fast to keep the wet-into-wet instructions.

Tomorrow I will turn them over and do the other sides.

June 9, Tuesday

Laying out the girders was going to help us a lot to determine the exact location of the footings and posts, but getting all 4 corners to be square at the same time is turning out to be quite a challenge. Since the heat index here is 112 now we will have to wait until dusk to try to figure out how to make it all square without being able to use diagonal measurements.

Greenhouse is in the way!

June 10, Wednesday

Lots of progress today! First we laid out the girders on a relatively flat area of lawn. Then we added some of the other rafters to see how that would look- lo and behold, it was square. 

Flat was important. Balancing it on supports around the greenhouse was not stable or secure. This worked much better. Sigh of relief.

We even tried one of the corner post bases to see how that looked- looked great.

We figured out a fail-safe method to support and align the post bases so they would be level and square and not fall into the wet concrete. Worked perfectly.

Ray working on the concrete mixing. We have an electric cement mixer but it is such a hassle to clean that we more often mix by hand.               

NOTE: Ray did all the hard work- I am in charge of precision and accuracy- this is a photo op.  

Misery and consternation! 2 bags should have done it, but we are a couple of coffee cans short. Never fear- we have resources. Ray went to Menke Depot (the barn) and mixed up some cement and sand to finish filling the form. Relief.

We can sight down the established post base to see that the next post hole looks pretty well located. We plan to put that one in tomorrow. Today took just 2 man/woman hours to do, but we are done for the day. We cannot work all day long like when we were in our 30s. 

Ray 77 and Donna 74- we can do this!

June 12th, Thursday

Day of disasters! Instead of easier than the first- it was much worse. We had to align with the first one and make the top of the sonotube level and at the correct height, and try to get the bracket as close as possible to the center of the form.

Took 4 hours of doing it wrong before we figured out with a few common-sense helps to get it all done at once. and then it was too hot to pour concrete. 

We finished up in the relative cool of the evening. Got it done!

You can see between the near brackets and the far brackets that the alignment is pretty good.

Two post bases set into 2 concrete footings. Oh joy!

June 12, Friday

Post #3 was easier to line up with the other post until we got to supporting the Simpson Strong-Tie post base with the shiny rods- the rods sunk into the soft, wet, cardboard of the form. Had to hurriedly jerry-rig some supports to keep it from sinking. Some 2x scrap boards and a couple of rocks and a lot of fiddling got it all aligned- again.

This is the position of the third post, on the left. We figure if we get it all aligned at this lower level it should make it easier when we get up 9' in the air.

Another alignment from post #1 to #3. Looks good from here- and the 144" is still good.

We are getting a little tired and considering taking a little break. This was my 8th day of working in the heat and we do not want to kill ourselves. We are not in a rush. Lots of time. We are not going anywhere anytime soon.

June 13, Saturday

#4 post base set in concrete footing. We finally got it right- after the first 3 struggles this one was much easier. That is what separates professionals from amateurs. The pros have done it many times before and know all the tricks of the trade. We amateurs have to learn it all- and learning is a series of trials and errors.

This is a good stopping point to let the concrete set up thoroughly, and to give us a break. We will need to sand and apply the stain/sealer next, and there are a lot of pieces to do. 

I should give the brand for this pergola so that you could look up about it on their web site: https://outdoorlivingtoday.com/product/pavilion-kits-cedar-pergolas/

Be sure to watch the video that shows how slick this kit goes together. We have not even gotten to that part yet.

More blog postings to follow when there are new photos of exciting developments. (Sanding and finishing are not exciting)

June 16, Tuesday

Lots of color and protective coating being applied to lots and lots more sticks. Still a lot to do before we can start to construct the 'ladders' that form the top of the pergola. Step by step, we will git' 'er done.

June 17-19, Wednesday-Friday

Ray working on the rafters and I'm working on some of the other smaller pieces. Lots of smaller pieces.

The pieces on the left have their second coat of finish. Those on the right have just the first coat of finish.

Here is a layout that will enable us to drill and connect the girders to the posts with the girders on top- and then flip each assembly over to place it on the other side where they need to be on the outside of the posts. Kinda like origami/puzzle.

Hallelujah- the last of the little pieces are sanded and just waiting for finish. This is not a process that can be rushed, although I have thoroughly gotten over worrying about making them look like a fine woodworking small box.

June 20-21, Saturday and Sunday

Lots of preparation and planning for the big step of 'raising the roof'. This is supposed to be a 3-man job, but I figured that with some luck we would be able to do it ourselves if we take it slow and easy.

First we had to align and bolt together the girders and posts.

 Having the holes pre-drilled in the girders makes alignment easy-peasy. Nice and perpendicular drilling too. This would not be a good time to make crooked holes.

This is an easy job to do on the ground. With a nice drill and ratchet driver it was no problem.

An early morning start and we are fresh and ready for the erection. The post on the left will tilt up to be walked to the brackets on the right- and vice-versa.

Whoa Nelly- we did it- with minimum fuss and bother. Ray looks up at the first set of posts with their girder in place. We secured them temporarily with super-duper Bessey clamps that are very strong and reliable. We want to bolt the posts to the Simpson post bases only after the next step with the first 2 rafters, but the rest of the little woods need to have their finish first- and it has to dry/set-up enough to tolerate some rough handling.

Here I am bolting the cross girders that align and hold the posts in place. The entire unit is not secure yet, but we can trust it for a few days until we have the next pieces ready to install. We are using the scaffolding we bought long ago but have not used for more than 25 years. You can see my precious 30" Bessey clamps holding the posts firmly to their brackets.

Behold the fruits of our labors! Looking North to South and East to West. We did it ourselves and we did a great job, and I am super proud of us.

June 22 - 27, Monday - Saturday- the end is in sight!

Looks like a lot of time has passed, but there were a couple of doctor's visits and a broken toe to take care of in that time too. Most of it was spent in finishing up the stain/finish on the parts we will use to finish the project. Oh- and the tomatoes are in, and with 11 huge plants there are a lot of jobs that needed to be done- right now!

 

We brought the stub joist assembly pieces inside to work on in the kitchen- and in the air-conditioning. Smart move. We will assemble all the 'ladder' pieces there too. Each stub is attached to the rafter with 2 screws 2.5" long.

We had to do a lot of moving of stepladders and scaffolding to keep ourselves safe. This would be a bad time to fall and break a hip.

 

We had much anxiety about how these pieces would fit together, but it went slick as grease through a goose. Snapped together with such ease- it could not have been better. I'm glad we worked so hard and long to make everything square and level. The 'ladders' should fall into place with little effort at all.

Each of the stubs, and the rafter pieces with stubs, had to be drilled for pilot holes and then we used 4" screws to attach everything to the girders. Now to assemble the ladders to fill in that center area and we will have a bit more shade for the greenhouse.

June 28- July 3, 2020 Sunday through Friday

The ladders. When I saw the plans I thought that having the ladders would make it easier to construct the top of the pergola. Not so. First off- they weigh 75-80 pounds. Picking that up for us is difficult enough, but then we have to carry it through the house from the kitchen, through the living room, over the furniture, and out into the back yard to the scaffold. One a day is about all we can handle.

Even better is to construct them one day and carry them the next day. In the top photo you can see how we place them near to the scaffold after lifting them over the top of the posts. In the next photo we have slid the ladder over to the other side where we have no room for scaffold. We each have a lightweight aluminum ladder that we use to raise the heavy ladders from both ends so that we can slide them. They are upside down now until we are ready to bolt them all into place .

This in the view from our bedroom floor showing the first 3 ladders temporarily placed. Note the many solar panels here and there. There are many more in the pastures. The top of the pergola will (unfortunately) be mostly obscured by the 6 panels we will put on top, but it will make it much easier to work in the greenhouse in the shade.

Today was the last day for applying finish. These 32 pieces for the trim at the base of the posts now have 2 coats of color and protection. This pergola will outlast us- and maybe our children too.

July 4- July 13, Saturday to Monday  FINISHED!!!

Lots of high temperatures and humidity outside have made our progress somewhat limited to early mornings and what we could do in the house with air-conditioning. 

 LADDERS!

Here we have used the Bessey clamps again to help us to keep the big sticks secured while we aligned the little sticks at specific locations. The ladders extended from one end of the kitchen and half-way through the next room (13.5'). We could make one ladder a day- or carry it outside through the house. They weigh about 80 pounds and it was all we could do to carry them. It was a magic trick to maneuver ourselves through the living room, around the furniture, and out the door.

There are 4 ladders, so it kinda took 8 days to get them made and in place.

This photo was taken just after we turned the ladders over and placed them where they needed to go. We were absolutely blown away with how they just dropped into place with hardly any effort on our part


We screwed them to the girders with 4" screws after drilling pilot holes.

We were mighty pleased at this point, but it was important to add the corner supports in order to stabilize and finish plumbing the posts. We could still waggle it quite a bit, and that is not good.

 

On the left you see the corner supports that were possibly the most difficult task of the whole project. For each support we had to get the post plumb (straight/perpendicular up and down) in both planes at the same time- as well as to screw both the top and bottom ends in the designated locations at the same time. We got better as we went along, but there was a big learning curve.

On the right is one of the finished post bottom decorative pieces. Another learning curve that pointed out even more than usual why professionals are professionals- first one took 2 hours, fourth one took 10 minutes. There was a great satisfaction in hammering in the last stainless steel finishing nail and declaring this pergola project- FINISHED!

I'm dressed like this mostly for protection from biting insects- even though it hit 107 degrees today. I would rather sweat than itch. This was right about when I smashed my finger with the hammer. That was the worse damage to us this whole project- one purple fingertip.

Not too much shade yet, but when the 6 solar panels are in place it will be more like this with the yellow being the area of the greenhouse that will get sun at noon in the summertime. Of course, as the time of year changes, and the day lengthens, the pattern will change. Alternatively, if I added 4 lattice patterned sheets instead, I would have a different pattern. In either case, if I want more shade I now have an excellent framework from which to suspend shade-cloth both under the roof and along the sides.

With this project done we can now get back to the projects that have taken a back seat while we focused on this for 38 (Covid-19) days. Like weeding and working with plants in the greenhouse.Theoretically, this is a 1-2 day job for a couple of young, strong people- so theoretically this was not possible for us to do. So much for theories.

This is the end of this blog. but if you are interested in how the solar panels were attached, or how I disguise the concrete cylinders under the posts, or whether or not I actually (finally) get around to painting the garden shed to match the pergola and house- pergola red trim and house white walls- you are welcome to join me on my FaceBook page.