Oct 19

Heavy Lifting

With the first floor more or less complete the framers have moved upstairs… however they didn’t get very far without first needing to move the final steel beams into place. I previously described the excavator as being large, but that puppy wasn’t anywhere close to the size and scale of the crane that showed up to move these beams.

The second floor has 3 steel beams, so the crane was in and out pretty quickly. I can’t say I was expecting it would have any trouble picking up the beams, but I honestly thought there would be move involved with it. A set of legs extend out from the base of the crane and then drop down to the ground. Supported by this wider base, the arm was extended out and the hook lowered. The workers simply tied a strap around a beam, connected it to the hook and hoisted it up.

Once the beams were properly installed, the framers were able to continue and they’ve more or less finished installing all the floor joists. It’s great to walk around the main floor and finally get a sense of how the rooms will actually feel. I was a little concerned that we made a mistake by raising the dinning room up a foot (the ceiling height is 8’ vs 9’ 2” in the kitchen), but I think it’ll be just fine now that I’ve actually been in there.

I’m expecting we’ll start to see the walls go up on the second floor… hopefully the weather cooperates.