When Grace told me she wanted to fabricate the steel header to support the west side of the roof all in one piece and then lift it into place, I can’t say I was sanguine about it; it was a labor to carry a single 3-meter length of tubing at waist level, and here she was telling me that we were going to lift a single 8-meter length into place on the roof. But she welded it up on Tuesday, and on Wednesday Chekhov and I lifted it into place. It was a lot easier than I expected; we used jackstands, heavy-duty saw horses, and the wooden railings beside the hot tub to maneuver the beam back and forth, taking advantage of leverage to raise it to the top of two ladders. The last move, from laddertops to rooftop, was actually the hardest because there wasn’t a good enough fulcrum to make the lift easier; however, it was also a fairly short distance, and once it was in place it wasn’t difficult to get it centered and placed behind the brackets. The tubing lying along the hot tub is going to be an upright; you can just see the bottom of another one leaning roughly in place near the mat. In the next couple of days those uprights will be installed, and we plan to make the first connection between the roof structure and shop; there will also be some uprights along the north edge of the deck. It’s going more slowly than I like, but it’s going; pretty soon I’ll need to be up on the damned roof again, and I sincerely hope after this one there won’t be any further roof-building in my future.
Annex 36
July 16, 2021 by Maggie McNeill
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I am intrigued by you use of meters for mesurement. I always thought the US was into miles, feet and inches. Here in the UK we are very much a mixture. We buy ply wood in 6ft x 4ft and 13mm thick. I always think of weight in Kgs, but my friends use Stone.
Imperial measurements are ridiculous; it’s much easier to move a decimal point. I’ve been using metric since my teens. The US refuses to convert due to the same asinine political inertia that causes laws to stay on the books forever once enacted.
Totally agree. In engineering school we had to use both systems, but I much preferred the metric (SI) system. Especially for energy calculations. A few times I solved a problem by converting the units that were given into metric, working the calculations, then converting the answer back to SI. My professor was not impressed and I lost points for “not working in the units given”.
Oops. I meant “converting the answer back to standard”.
Popular inertia plays a significant role.
The use of Metric system SI units for USA weights and measures has been legal since the passage of Metric Act of 1866.
Since 1918, the National Institute of Standards and Technology has published an annual handbook urging use of SI units.
The Metric Conversion Act of 1975, signed by Pres. Gerald Ford, declared that SI units were the preferred system of weights and measures for US trade and commerce, but permitted the use of customary units. Conversion is completely voluntary.
In 1991, Pres. George H. W. Bush signed Executive Order 12770. It ordered all government agencies to take all measures within their authority to use SI units as the preferred system.
Today, items in interstate commerce display their relevant measurements in both SI and customary units. Check most any label for goods on supermarket shelves.
Popular conversion has been extremely slow. It is likely that most people still “think” in customary units. But there is some danger in conversion being mandated suddenly, for that same reason. People make mistakes when making sudden changes.
For particular examples of dangers, look up “Gimli Glider” for dangers to people, and the Mars Climate Orbiter for a very expensive miscommunication leading to failure of conversion.