Over
the weekend we had some friends visiting, and took the opportunity to
move the yellowtongue out of the storage shed down to the house site.
Laying
the sheets on the joists, we covered them up with tarps for a bit of
weather protection as rain was predicted. Yellowtongue is a type of
particleboard flooring made
from "precision milled wood flakes and bonded with moisture resistant
synthetic resin". This was provided with the kit home when it
was delivered. Each
sheet is 3.6 metres long by 90 cm wide and weighs 30kg, which Josh
says is not that heavy and he is able to carry it on his own. It may
not sound like a lot of weight, but imagine lifting a 30kg backpack
or box - that's pretty heavy. When he and I were carrying them
together I found it to be an almost unbearable weight, as for me
around 15kg is just getting beyond what the limit of what I can
carry. Whilst I CAN carry 15kg, I know that I am pushing my body to
its limit, and doing so will definitely lead to long term damage (and
pain!). So I had to tell him that I could not help carry the boards
as they were too heavy for me.
On
the Friday before everyone arrived Josh carried 7 of the sheets down
to the house site on his own, which is around 100 metres down a hill
on rocky and uneven ground. He said that the weight of it was not so
much the problem, as was the length and width of the sheets, making
them very unwieldy. So he created a tool made of a camping shovel,
with the head folded to a 90 degree right angle, and 2 G-clamps. This
allowed him to carry the sheets underneath his arm like a really
large surfboard. His body was very sore the next day after carrying
all those sheets at an awkward angle, combined with the constant tromping back
up the hill to get the next sheet. The boys helped carry the rest of
the boards with two people on each board, and it was lovely to see
all the work get done so quickly and easily (of course it was easy
for me - I was just watching!). THANK YOU GUYS!!! All done in a
couple of hours, after waiting for two months trying to figure out
how to get this done.
The
next step is to cut half of the boards to the right size, and the
other half will stay full length. I figure the easiest way to do that
is to make a temporary floor on the joists out of the yellowtongue,
and then lay them over the sawhorses in order to cut them with the
orbital saw which has been purchased for this express purpose. We
will have to remember to measure twice and cut once, as we do not
have any yellowtongue to spare - and getting more on site would be
both difficult, and expensive. We have 20 sheets, which is JUST enough, but could really do
with one more anyway. Once they have been cut, they need to be placed
in exactly the right spot and screwed to the metal joists. Hopefully
this will be a trick that we figure out BEFORE we do it the wrong
way!
