The Other Side

You can barely make out the right section of the house here, ironically on the left side of this picture. This is the section we've been working on lately (picture is before we did any work on the front).

Years ago I had to replace the gable vent (in the lower picture), but it was too high to reach from the outside, so I did it from inside the attic. After ripping out the broken old vent, I mounted some boards to the back of the vent and ran some boards across to the studs from the inside. I know, that tells you nothing. I had to widen the hole by about 1/4 inch, so I used a 4" battery powered circular saw. Since there were studs in the way of the saw's sole plate, I had to hold the saw on the outside of the house, while I was on the inside. Confused yet? That means the blade was facing me, and spewing dust everywhere. I was bracing myself to not fall out of the hole when my hand slipped and it hit the spinning blade. It was a nice little cut, but not deep. Phew!! Just blood poured out, no meat.

Due to the angle of the roof, the traditional pump jacks or ladders didn't seem to be a good idea. I was concerned about how to do the siding up this high. A light went off solving that problem and I'll share it in my next post.

Lower Walkboards

These are a couple of pics from before we finished the front of the house showing our adjustable walkboards (extended to the full 14').

Unlike our work on the side, we didn't use any platforms on the upper work on the front, and we didn't use the pump jacks at all. You can see how we used step ladders and the walkboards to get a higher work surface.. On the other side, we set one of our workbenchs on saw horses to reach lower rows of boards.

You can see that I can reach the first 3-4 rows. With taller setp ladders, we could've worked higher, but we were able to use extension ladders for everything else. Since there were a lot of windows at the top, working from ladders instead of platforms made more sense. Work is easy when you're working between windows because all of the boards are cut to the same length, and you don't have to worry about butt joints hitting on studs.

Also notice that we ripped out the old soffit, which was made of the same cardboard like material as other "boards". I put a bunch of new insulation into the overhang since that's floor space right above it. When we get all of this done, I think we'll see a little difference in engergy consumption from all the insulation, foam board, caulk and Tyvek we're using.