Ledgers and Rafters

This week saw the start of some warmer weather for the crew and some outside tasks that need getting done. Colin and his team started taking on ledger preparation and fastening and made some good progress. Each ledger gets cut and the router is used to rout a strip of wood in which to install an device to join the ledgers to the rafters invisibly. It looks very tight and I think it will be a clean look from below.



The rafters are being attached to the exterior with long, specialized fasteners which bite into the wood after making their way through the exterior insulation. The thickness of the walls is something to behold and is going to help us throughout the year to both hold heat and cool air and reduce energy costs and improve air quality. To quote our builder:

“This will be insulated with Roxul for R23 and then a layer of R25 polyiso on the outside for R48 walls. Ceiling will be R80 cellulose and our air tightness target is 0.6.”


Speaking of Roxul, the rest of the insulation was also installed inside in the interior walls so the house is completely sealed and insulated now. The light looks good and judging from the pics I see of builders in short sleeves, I am assuming it is staying plenty warm. I saw on the construction crew’s Instagram that they purchased their own blower door assembly so I’m curious to see how tightly they got it sealed up.


On other fronts, we have found a good pre-school setup for our kid which should be perfect for his temperament and activity level and is very close to home (about 5 minutes away from both our house and the rental property where we are living until the house is complete). Our old house is being photographed this coming week so we’re scrambling to make sure it looks photogenic. We are on the precipice of a strange, disjointed and stressful couple of months.

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