Jim got out to the site early and worked on tweaking the beam pockets a bit more - he grinded the concrete down until it was totally level and then placed the newly-painted orange steel plates on top. If you look closely at this picture, you can see the spots of orange.
Then we ate lunch early and waited until 1:00 when both the crane and the steel were supposed to arrive. Instead of just pacing as we probably would have done while we waited, we decided to put up a little more dimple board.
Practically at 1:00 on the button, the crane arrived!
Within ten minutes, while the crane was setting up, the steel arrived!
And so it starts! The crane operator gave Jim the straps to hook up the first load.
Then he attached the straps to the crane...
...and up goes the first load of decking!
I stood out of the way but it was so scary to see this big pile of steel decking hanging out over the building! Look how little Jim looks down there directing the crane operator.
The operator really moved the steel quickly - made me so nervous how quickly he dropped it. Jim had to grab hold of the guide rope and try and wrangle all this into position on pieces of wood he had set up on the shop floor.
Whew. Then it was time to repeat for the second load of decking.
Up it goes...
...and down it comes!
And the final load of decking (that's a lot of decking - gulp!)
...on its way down. You can see Jim at the bottom of this picture directing it into position.
Setting it down. As each load was set down, Jim had to hustle to get the strapping off the load and attached back to the crane so it could be sent back over to the steel guys who had taken over the task of strapping everything to the crane.
This last load was all of the wire and the pour stops.
This load made me a little nervous just because the wire was so flexible - it really seemed to sway.
Then there was nothing left but the giant I-beams. The big ones weigh over 1200 pounds each! Here's the crazy part of the day - one I'm still trying to get my brain around. This was definitely a two-man job, but Jim had told the crane operator that since he was by himself, he wanted to have the operator set the beam down at a slight angle so that Jim could get one side set and then get down off the ladder, reset on the other side, and set that end into the pocket. So that was the plan. Just as the steel guys were strapping up the first beam, this car pulled into view and a guy got out and came over. This is a guy who stopped by the property about a month ago - he lives around the corner and did some construction work but was out of a job and looking for work. Jim took his card and that was the end of that. So this guy just shows up, totally out of the blue, at the EXACT moment that he was needed. I can only say that the hand of God was in that situation. Jim told me to grab another pair of gloves for him.
Here's the first beam...
I took a video of the first beam being set into place - it's very cool but too long to fit in. So I will have to try and get that to work. Meanwhile, here's the second beam coming down. You can see Steve (the neighbor) on the right side and Jim on the left.
Jim has to grab the end and sit it just on those steel plates.
Then the other side fits right into place.
Here comes one of the two giant beams!
Jim said that he's been working with these numbers and steel design for so long now that he's just used to the 1200 pound wording. But it's another thing when that 1200 pounds is swinging toward you on a rope and you have to catch it and set it into place!
Jim putting his side down...
...and all set into place. These were hard too because Jim had to get down and move the ladder into position to unhook the straps on each side - they were just too far out to reach from the end.
You can tell by this picture of the last beam being moved into place that we definitely had divine intervention today!
This one had me holding my breath even tighter...it seemed that the operator was bringing it too low too far away and it looked precariously close to hitting the wall if he didn't stop!
But Jim managed to get ahold of it and get the operator to get it in better position.
Then it gets set into place...
...and I can stop holding my breath - they are all in place!
The steel truck drives away...the bill of lading that they gave us showed that they delivered 8,437 pounds of steel to us today!
...and then the crane is all fastened back into place and after Jim paid the bill, he was on his way too. There is a two-hour minimum on the crane and it really only took about an hour to unload - but his travel time is counted in all of that too.
WOW!!! It just looks fabulous and what a huge relief to have that step done!
Of course, here's a giant load of work for all the upcoming deck jobs but that's to be thought about another day. Today we celebrate our beams!
Here's a close up of the sheer pins that they welded on to the top of the beams. There are 48 shear pins on this beam. Look how perfectly the beam sits in the pocket - it all looks so good in person after just looking at the drawings for so long.
Check this out - Jim put a level on top of one of the beams - perfect! He had used the laser level to make sure that all of the beam pockets were precisely level, so it's good to see that it remained that way after the beam was placed!
Jim went back to trench work before he called it a day. Because of the angle of the sewer pipe as it exits the house, the grade had to be cut more so that the pipe can be buried in the right line towards the septic tank. You can see how much dirt he dug and then moved at the left of the picture.
No comments:
Post a Comment