The Dolly Varden Are Jumping… Just Not Onto My Hook!

The SIPS will be here in a week or two. They are structural insulating panels we’ll be using for the roof – not the actual metal roof, and they’re going to be built in roughly a few dozen pieces.

We’ll use the crane to lift them up, put them on and put acoustical caulking in the joints to cinch them together, making them airtight. Acoustic caulking has a property that doesn’t dry but stays pliable for years. I just did a reno on the house we’re living in now and we used acoustical caulking 27 years ago and it’s still pliable. We pulled it apart and it’s still sticky. That’s what you want because you’re trying to get an airtight seal between the membranes so you don’t want it to dry out and crack but to stay malleable. There is slight movement in structures as they expand and contract, so the caulking provides a bonding agent without that total adhesive quality that would dry out. It’s becoming the way of the future because you can build it in a controlled environment, a factory, rather than on site. This not only ensures quality control, but will speed up our project to a significant extent. Three to four weeks of construction time is going to be done in one day!

Ceilings, particularly vaulted ceilings, are more difficult to sprayfoam because you’re upside down and basically spraying upwards.The insulators charge a premium for that, so we want to avoid it. When we figured out the cost for the SIPS, it was about the same. We have to rent a crane to lift them into position, so we’re looking at a couple thousand dollars for the crane as an extra cost, but the benefit is that we can control the quality.

The structural framing is nearly done. There are a couple of beams to put in when the crane comes. There’s a ridge beam weighing 1,700 lbs. that goes down the centre of the house and will go up at that time too.

As for the weather, you can see how nice it’s been, but the days are getting very hot now and it’s harder to work up there, so it’s a good thing we’re by the lake! Every once and a while we jump out in the canoe and fish for an hour, which we did last Wednesday, but no bites. There are about six different species in the lake and the fish that are jumping right now are Dolly Varden. So not this go around…but maybe next time I’ll get lucky!