Your leaking thatched hut during the restoration of a pre-Enlightenment state.

 

Hello, my name is Judas Gutenberg and this is my blaag (pronounced as you would the vomit noise "hyroop-bleuach").



links

decay & ruin
Biosphere II
Chernobyl
dead malls
Detroit
Irving housing

got that wrong
Paleofuture.com

appropriate tech
Arduino μcontrollers
Backwoods Home
Fractal antenna

fun social media stuff


Like asecular.com
(nobody does!)

Like my brownhouse:
   cutting edge of third world techniques
Monday, December 1 2008

setting: rural Hurley Township, Ulster County, New York

Galvanized steel five-V-crimp is the roofing I most prefer working with. It's what my father and I used when we re-roofed my childhood home circa 1985. It's what I used on my Shaque and, more recently, on my woodshed. The seams are arranged so that two crimps overlap that and the nails penetrate these at the crests of their narrow ridges, keeping water out of the nail holes. Home Depot doesn't sell five crimp, and none of the other hardware stores I can go into stock roofing. So today I had to order my five crimp from Herzog's. It only comes in a few stock sizes, so I ended up going with the ten foot sections. Five crimp is designed for rafters spaced 24 inches apart, while most roofing today seems to depend on rafters only sixteen inches apart.
While I was there, I bought five sheets of 3/8 inch plywood for roof sheathing. I don't know what I was thinking or even if I was. 3/8ths is definitely too thin for use as roof sheathing, particularly with rafters spaced 24 inches apart. When I showed up at the wood yard to collect my plywood, dude asked where I was going to put it. I was driving the hatchback. I simply pointed upward, indicating the roof. Evidently this is not a common way to transport plywood, at least not yet. It seems I'm on the cutting edge of third world techniques in the land of the Hummer.
As I leave the Herzog wood yard, the security guy who checks my invoice always makes a fuss about the dogs and always delights in fetching them bone-shaped dog biscuits, which he keeps in stock. Others keeping such biscuits in stock include UPS and FedEx delivery dudes, employees at the Hurley Town Dump, and cashiers at Catskill Art and Office Supplies.


For linking purposes this article's URL is:
http://asecular.com/blog.php?081201

feedback
previous | next