Trusses are all up. Need to put in the blocking in the last bay on the right (its the only one that's sub 24", so I can't use the pre made braces), but its getting close.

 

No new pics recently. Blocking / bracing is up in the last bay, but it doesn't look much different externally.

Moved on to adding hurricane ties (the new style screws aren't readily available locally) and fully nailing in the blocking. I will say its changed my opinion on the scaffolding. I broke it back down into 2x 6 foot kits. Loaded my tools / supplies onto it, and then wheeled myself from truss to truss installing the added bracing. I'll admit its a lot nicer than going up and down a ladder 100 times. Starting to think I'll get a good bit more use out of them for insulation / electrical / lighting/ drywall.

My big issue is the amount of play in a double stacked kit. I'm already a bit iffy standing on anything at 10'+, but the play in the connections of 2 kits was unnerving for me - especially leaning over the edge. These kits cap out at 3x tall (18' max platform height), I'd never be able to climb on top...


Garage doors are supposedly coming. Due date was 6/15, and they completely blew that. Called a few days later, and they said I should be hearing from the delivery company any day. Called back a couple days later as I still hadn't heard anything and they gave me a number for the delivery place and said they definitely have them in hand.

Turns out the delivery place is a local garage door company. Not sure why they use that over LTL / dedicated truck, maybe they've got some kind of special delivery vehicle? Well, this gargae door place is a hot mess. They dont return calls / voice-mail, text only.

First they say they dont have them. They said the local distribution center for this garage door company (here in town) doesn't let them pick what orders they can take (lol what?). I told them the OEM says this company has them (and has had them for a week), so please check again before I escalate/ call the distribution center myself. Magically he texts back the next day that he does have them. Definitely feels shady. I also see this place has several 1 star reviews on Google for this exact issue - one person claiming it got drug out for 3 months.

But then he says he'll try to swing by in a few hours - on a day I'm already at work. I told him that's not how a scheduled delivery is supposed to work, he can't just leave $10k worth of doors laying in the road. He said he'd try for Wednesday, but has some install jobs (never called / responded). Finally today he said I'll definitely have them this week...

Its not that I'm in dire need doors obviously but:
A) I don't like my finished doors sitting around at someone else's shop. I know how fragile that sheet metal is and don't want them damaged in transit as Im sure that'll be a hassle to get replaced.
B) I've got some short work trips / vacation coming up. I don't want them magically showing up when I'll not be home for a few days.

 

More baby steps. Been fairly busy with other stuff lately so I haven't had as much time to work on this project.

Got the last truss braced up. Got most of the bottom layer of OSB up. Started working the top layer of OSB in the back.



Starting to feel like a real garage inside no with actual walls up.


Also took some scraps to build some side walls for the trailer. Going to start getting some of this old wood to the dump. Lots and lots of form wood from the concrete phase that's junk and needs to go.

 

Garage doors are here finally. I was getting nervous...

Last week was excuse after excuse. Won't answer the phone at all, text responses were hit and miss, but usually with a BS response about why things were slipping out again.

Read reviews of this place online and noticed numerous complaints for this exact same thing (apparently they're the Home Depot go to in the metro for installs + delivery of the DIY doors). One from a year ago said they took 4 months to finally deliver (remember this isn't building them, this is just the place that takes them from the local distribution center to your door). Final straw was a review from 3 days ago, they'd held this guys doors for 3 weeks - employees on the phone cussed at him (I'm sure not totally unprompted, but still - they're holding thousands of your merchandise hostage), so he asked to speak to the owner. No dice - owner recently got booked into jail...

So today I called back Home Depot to escalate things on their end. I'm getting frustrated having to push for release of my own product- the place I bought them from should be doing the legwork.

Magically at 9am they arrived. No warning, just showed up. Not sure what finally prompted it, but I'm glad to have them.

Only minor issue was one install parts box was demolished / had a giant hole. Did inventory vs a good box and all is fine except 1 bracket is mangled. I could probably save it, but I'll call for a replacement - shouldn't have to do more work for that kind of money.

 

This has been a fantastic read so far.. I don't venture on here much anymore, but I'm glad I did!

As for the drone guy.. that isn't borderline creepy, that's just straight up creepy. The legal drone height per the FAA is 400 feet above private property, so he's not only being creepy, he's breaking the law and breaching your rights to privacy.

Anyways.. I'm pumped to see this move along!

 

Thanks for the heads up on that! I figured there had to be some kind of rule. He's definitely way under 400. Hard to tell exact height not knowing the size of the drone, but its close enough I bet I could knock it down with one of our scrap 2x4s (not that I would of course).

Fortunately we haven't seen it in several weeks. Our progress also slowed to a crawl again after going back to work, so its probably not visually interesting to look at anymore. I did see it again on 4th of July - a lot of people in our neighborhood do big personal shows, us included, so I saw him going up and down the street with it. Didn't get super close to us this time though- other houses had way bigger (commercial grade) stuff.

 

Not much progress lately. Had a week of vacation and a couple work trips and have been doing a lot of OT for my real job at night. The heat has also been brutal, so even when I do have full days to spend on it, I'm probably spending 10-15% of my time taking breaks drinking in the shade.

Also took a step backwards - I had to strip all the OSB off the front. I didn't do the metal straps properly, so I had to tear off the OSB to do it right, then re-sheath it. Luckily I only had the bottom half up at the time.

But at least now the front sheathing is all done except the two corners (have the temp corner braces on still), and all sheathing on the back is done. Both sides just need the 2nd row. Roof is about 25% sheathed but frankly I've been avoiding it for the moment - its the worst spot to work for sun exposure.

Been spending a lot of my time on blocking inside (outside sheathing in the morning, inside blocking in the afternoon). Sure is tedious work...

Also been burning through tools lately - I don't think they like this heat. First victim was the framing nailer. Was running 100% fine, then it started getting this weird thing where 2-3 random nails per clip would only half fire (it would drive them, but would leave 1"+ sticking out still). Probably should've stopped there to have it looked at - it ended up misfiring one where the front of the nail somehow dipped down 30 degrees and blew through the front of the nailing head. Now has a nail permanently lodged in the tip. Ended up buying a second one as I can't stop sheathing for weeks.

Next one was the jigsaw. Used it maybe 4-5 times its whole life and it stopped 100% out of nowhere. You can still manually move the head up and down, and the lights still come on - the motor just refuses to turn at all.

Most recent was the oscillating saw (the ones that jiggle a short blade back and forth). Id originally bought this for cutting off hidden nails in my covered patio build, but only used it a few times. However I found a really good use for it here - retrofitting those metal straps over the headers that Id missed. They need to loop over the top of the double top plate of the main wall, but not over the bottom plate for the parapet (as the lumber is different sizes). So this came in handy cutting a thin slot in the parapet bottom plates to shove the metal strap through - until it broke.

Started shutting itself off if run for more than a minute (almost like overheating, but cooling it down had no effect). Turning it off and back on would buy you another minute. But it kept getting worse, eventually to the point where it wouldnt run at all in the upper speeds - shut off almost instantly. Then on low speed it started to get where you couldn't apply ANY load at all. You'd still get about a minute out of it, but only if you ever so gently brushed the blade against the wood which took forever to cut. Finally got so fed up turning it on and off 100x a cut that I sent it in to fix.


On the note of heat, even my phone is struggling. I used to take a few shots for memories when heading in for lunch each day, but since it got over 100 out, my phone won't open the camera app due to overheating (and it sits 100% in the shade). I do use it for music to my Bluetooth headphones, but zero screen time / phone usage. Has to sit in the house for awhile before it cools enough to give me full screen brightness and allow pictures again.

 

Slow but steady progress lately. Work has been 12+ hour days every day the last month, so I've been limited to just weekends.

Got all of the side sheathing up. Wrapped up the vertical seam bracing on the too of the back wall (made the osb butt joints land on the studs for the main wall, but being 16 OC vs 24 OC for the trusses means they dont always line up). The wall bracing method chosen requires 100% of the butted edges to be supported.

Got the same bracing done (along with adding the top plate + double top plate for the parapet) on half of the front wall.

Also tossed in a pair of solar lights.


What's left before next inspection:
-Finish the roof sheathing. Currently about 25% done.
-Finish the second half of the front wall parapet bracing.
-Add the double top plates to the side parapet walls.
-Go back and fill in the nailing pattern on the walls (I had just been tossing in 20-25 or so nails per sheet to get them in place, but I need to go back and fill the nailing pattern to code. Takes about 70 per to do that. I'm hoping my broken nail gun is returned by then so I can alternate to let the other cool down. They nail as fast as you can pull the trigger, but in 100+ temps, I only get maybe half an hour of that before the tool shuts down for over temp.

 

Wow that is a great garage you have in process. Will you run water and electric to it? A lift maybe?

 

Thanks!

Electric - absolutely. Ive actually already bought the electrical panel (clearance at Lowes - came with a handful of breakers in a starter kit) and installed an Ufer ground (horizontally embedded in concrete vs the usual ground driven down into the dirt). It really needs it in this area, if nothing else for the AC alone. With that said, I'm going to do this on a standalone permit - my current one is structure only. Plan is to finish this permit then immediately apply for an electrical one.

Water- ugh... Id absolutely love to but it's going to be a big hassle to do. The water outlet at the rear of the house is blocked by all kinds of stuff - concrete patio, pool, septic system, irrigation, etc. Not impossible - but some tunneling under concrete and lots of hand trenching to not destroy something else. The safe bet would be to tap off the front of the house/ feed for the whole house from the street, but that adds a ton more trenching (although it could be 100% machine dug coming from there so at least it would be quick) and lots more piping. It's one of those things- is the juice worth the squeeze? I'm tempted to just do a simple sink in the meantime to be able to wash my hands, I almost bought a clearance sink setup at Home Depot just for that - they had a tiny cabinet with a cheap sink and faucet on top. My thought is to feed it with a gravity fed water storage tank and just stick a 5 gal bucket underneath to catch the waste water/ dump in the yard when full.

A lift - definitely, but it'll be further down the road due to finances. Frankly I'm not even super interested in one for working on the cars (as I've not had regular access to one for 20 years), but I would like 2x 4 posts in the back left corner at least for double stacking car storage. For the bulk of the stuff I do, I really think even something like a quick jack (portable lift system that you slide under the body from each side) would satisfy my need.

I was heavily looking into them a few months back, but then slapped myself (figuratively of course) for looking at that kind of stuff when I literally don't even have a roof system picked out yet. Since then I've been trying to keep my focus on near term items I need to be buying very soon - house wrap, roof insulation, roofing material, man door, etc etc