Today I managed to get the first 7 rafters in place. It was a tough job working alone. First, I had to raise the very heavy ridge beam up about 7 feet above the top of the walls. It was too heavy and awkward to lift up alone so what I did is I strapped an extension ladder to the east end wall. I tied a nylon strap around the beam and ran it up over the top rung of the ladder and down to where I hooked it to my electric hoist. Then I used the hoist to raise the ridge beam above the necessary height. Leaving it there I could climb the step ladder and screw on a horizontal support and then lower to beam to that support.
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Raising the Ridge Beam
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Winch to lift Roof Beam
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Once I got the east end of the beam lifted the west end was relatively easy since I could work standing on the loft floor and only had to lift it about 6'. Once the beam lifted and adjusted into position I started raising the rafters.
Rafters on the west end were much easier than on the east, again, because I could work from the loft floor. On the west end I only had to climb a ladder about twice for each rafter. On the east end it was much more difficult, trying to raise and support both ends of the rafter while standing on a ladder. For one rafter I counted 10 times up and down the ladder.
But, I managed to get the first 7 rafters up, 4 on the west end and 3 on the east end.
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East end rafters
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Rafters seen from the south
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Rafters seen from the north
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