Front Porch & Insulation Board

The above pictures are what the house looked like when we arrived on April 12th for a very productive workday. We had a crew of 10 amazing workers! Our tasks for the day were to finish installing the insulation board on the side of the house and to construct the front porch. We had already built the roof of the porch a couple of weeks ago.

The day started out quite foggy but temperatures were in the 40's and we were all dressed for whatever Mother Nature threw at us! The ground was quite muddy from all the April showers but Louis, our site supervisor, put down chip board so we wouldn't be sinking in the mud. Thank you Louis! A group of four tackled the insulation board job and the other 6 of us began work on the porch.

The insulation crew worked around a large puddle of rainwater on the ground. First they taped off the chip board seams, hammered the insulation boards on and then sealed all the seams with tape. Most of their work was done off of ladders but occssionally you would see a head stick out of an upstairs window to do some taping or hammering! 

Below is a picture of the fruits of their labor!! They were able to get all but the very top of the house finished. They just couldn't stretch those ladders any higher! Soon the siding crew will come and install the siding and the house will take another step forward!

The front porch job involved installing some tar paper below the insulation board to make sure everything would be water tight. Then we were able to mount the 2 x 10 support beam to the front of the house. The next step was to notch out the 6 x 6 beams to accomodate the rest of the porch framing. The notching out job took a bit of work but the guys were able to get it done. The concrete forms had to be drilled to accept the beams.

The 4 beams were then mounted and levelled. Occasionally one would need a little persuasion to go into place and out would come the enormous sledge hammer! As you can see in the picture below, that was the highlight of the day for one of our workers!!

Once the beams were installed the rest of the exterior support boards could be mounted. Then the inside boards were cut and put into place.The entire perimeter got a 2nd dress piece around the outside as well as  blocking around each of the posts for the deck boards to nail to.

It was a very satisfying day with a lot of progress. The house is now ready for siding and the front porch is ready for deck boards. A special thanks to our great crew of helpers for jobs well done!!