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Friday was to be the big day - the day our SIP walls and roofs were to be installed. It started out fine: The crane arrived and the operator set it up right near the building; the trucker called to say he was loaded up with panels and on his way, and the installers arrived and unloaded their equipment. We all waited for the truck to arrive.
On Wednesday and Thursday Sandy and I had begun placing the paneling that will hide the bottoms of the roof SIPs. (Think of them as really thick wall paper.) We couldn't start earlier due to nearly two days of snow, much of it still covering our entry road. There were still a lot of panels to put up and we hoped we could get them done fast enough to keep ahead of the SIP installation.
Soon the truck and trailer arrived on the county road, went just past our drive and began to back uphill into the driveway. He was unable to get enough traction to get started into the driveway. Then he drove south to the end of the road and turned around, hoping that, by heading uphill, backing into the drive would be possible.
To make a long story short, after a few slippery tries back and forth, we ended up with the rig cross-ways on and completely blocking the county road and unable to move either way without slipping all the way into the ditches on BOTH sides of the road simultaneously!
Eventually a wrecker was called to pull the rig uphill and open the road. In the mean time, the crane was relocated to the end of the driveway, just off the road, and all the panels were picked up and moved onto the small parking area there. Then the panels that could both fit and be lifted manually were loaded onto the crane and driven to the house.
The last three wall panels were too large to move on the crane so they are still waiting near the road under a tarp with a half dozen of the roof panels until the driveway can be maneuvered by the truck and trailer. (Our plan is to break up the snow and ice, cover the driveway with tarps and hope the sun will melt it dry under the tarps.)
The rest of the day was spent mounting the wall panels that were moved up to the house. Here's a view of the crew installing the short wall behind the office space.
While the installers worked on the SIPs, and with the help of our grandson Nicholas, I continued placing and tacking the panels into place.
The only upside of the truck-on-the-slippery-driveway fiasco was that we were no longer under extreme time pressure to get all the under-the-SIPs panels in place. Obviously the truck did not go back for the second load so the roof would not be finished this week.
We finished the roof paneling installation Saturday and began covering the panels with plastic in expectation of the snow and rain predicted for next week. Our installers cannot come back until at least Thursday, and more snow is predicted for that day, too, so we don't know when the job will be done. Thursday is the soonest possible, and only if the driveway is not frozen and we can get a trailer in to the house.
With most of the exterior walls now in place, after getting all the plastic up tomorrow, and if there isn't enough wind to whip off the plastic, I'm hoping to get some interior work started.
Bye for now.
