Starting on the carport welding

 We are so glad that we had this carport slab poured before we started welding. Both the shop and the carport are about the same designs. They both have a 2 foot overhang except for the South overhang on the shop is 3 feet to allow for the solar aspects of the building. We are using recycled bar joists that had to be trimmed a few inches in order to fit. While we were waiting on the correct scaffolding to arrive we started on the carport frame.

The pictures in this post were taken in a 2 1/2 week span of time. We were only able to work in the mornings because of the heat. Once the sun hit the slab it was too unbearably hot.

 The roof perlins are being hoisted up into position.

 The carport is 40 feet wide, which includes the 3-12 foot bays and the 2 foot overhang on the east and the west side of the building. We used to the foot long purlins and welded them together with a piece of iron.

 When you have overhangs and a metal building, you have to cantilever the overhang a few feet in from front the outside of the building.this is accomplished by welding 2 C purlins together with the C curled in, this is what gives it strength .

 We found that two people along with many clamps can do the welding just as well as three people.

 When we had the slab poured, the cement truck backed into the form boards and knocked the building out of square. One back corner was 3 inches off. So we had to do some adjustments along the way. The way we remedied the problem was to float the roof structure (true, plumb and square) over the wall structure (which was not square).

 The window frames were welded, the rough opening being 1/2 inch larger than the actual window.

 This last bay will be a storage room. Here we placed a window so it would open from the lower half and on the other side of the room we placed a slider up high. That way the cooler air will enter the room and I convection will exit the slider on the high side of the opposite wall.

Below we are welding purlins in between the rafters to seal up the building at that point.