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It took two full days, with the help and trailer of my friend Steve Bonney, to move the 140-year-old rafters from the barn we took down from their storage site to the new house. There are enough to cover all the common areas - living room, kitchen and hallway. The bedroom rafters will either be purchased lumber or come from the stacks that came from milling timbers a few years ago. Of course they are also at the storage site, too, so, either way, more work will be involved to get them here.
Our engineer calculated that the old rafters could be used but they would have to be spaced 12 inches apart. I put a half dozen or so onto the front roof beams. It looked terrible. One foot apart was just too close together. It was hard to see any ceiling at all at that spacing. (The rafters in other rooms will be covered with drywall and not be visible.)
After checking with the engineer, we determined I could place rafters together in pairs at two-foot intervals and still be safe. To make them stronger I am screwing them together every 12 inches or so. I think they look pretty good in pairs.
On top of the rafters and under the SIPs we have decided to use paneling that looks better than the OSB panels used to make the SIPs. The picture shows what they will look like.
Two panels are just sitting on the rafters for the moment. You can also see shims that were used to make all the old rafters the same height. These will be trimmed off later.
Dragging the rafters up, cutting their ends even, aligning them, screwing them together, shimming them to a common height and finally screwing them to the beams, is a very tedious and time-consuming procedure. The final steps are attaching the high ends to planks that run crosswise to hold them in place, and separating the low ends with short sections of lumber to strengthen them. Also, since we will not have an attic, these short pieces are part of the material that will insulate along the tops of the outer walls.
Oh, did I mention it's so darn hot I can only work from about 8 AM until about noon each day. Heat indexes for the last week have been over 100 degrees almost every day. It's been two weeks since we've had more than a trace of rain.
