Up chucking joists around at some friends’ self-build yesterday and today. Although the roof is still being slated, the house is now dry enough to get the joists in across the subwalls and hint at the possibility of it having a floor at some time in the forseeable future.
The method is relatively simple: position the joists – three across the space – space them out with measured templates; strut them with metal straps to prevent movement and bolt the three joists into one structure.
Being of a marginally-lesser girth than B, I got the job of going under the joists to nail the struts in place. Having all the manual ability that comes with thirty years of pushing pens, it’s inevitable that my left thumb will take the brunt of my incompetence. It’s now nicely skinned and the nail feels alarmingly loose. Being additionally of a baldy persuasion, it takes very little to loosen my scalp from my skull, and the metal straps proved to be efficacious in this respect as well.
Still, since next weekend takes me to Suffolk and my TA learning group, the chance of getting either my head or thumb skinned for a couple of weeks is now reasurringly low.
Pat the Chooks 
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