Large, Open-Air Coop in Central NC

[3KillerBs]

Exactly!
....and even work on it during any rain.

DH has been watching roof installation videos for the past 3 days. There's one piece of odd-shaped flashing that came with the metal that he's not certain where it's supposed to go.

He figures that he and DS#3 can probably handle the roof installation but that we'll want a crew for the wire, which will run vertically.

We bought electric shears for cutting the metal and when I tried them on scrap hardware cloth it was as easy as cutting cloth with good sewing scissors. We will, however, try them on some scrap metal before touching the good stuff.

 

[3KillerBs]

Planning a work day with my sister and her husband tomorrow. We hope to get a significant portion of the roof and the hardware cloth done.

I'm excited that this larger-then-originally-intended project is starting to near completion!

 

[WyoRoo]

With lumber prices so high; you might consider refurbishing some of the old metal for the siding. Our coop was a similar design and I was able to use old metal (free) from a neighbors barn that was getting torn down. I also used cedar for the trim and wainscoting. Attached is a picture of our coop; it also shows the metal gable trim and eave drip if that helps. I would recommend trimming (rounding) the sharp edge on the lower side of the gable trim as well; as seen in the picture. Your coop progress looks awesome!!

 

[3KillerBs]

We're making great progress! One side of the roof is fully secured and we have a couple panels of hardware cloth on. We also got hardware cloth onto the doors.

More work after lunch. Loads of photos tonight or tomorrow.

 

[3KillerBs]

The roof is complete! And as much hardware cloth as we had the steam for.

Fortunately, it didn't break 90 today so we were able to keep working in the middle of the afternoon instead of stopping after lunch.

 

[linguini]

We're making great progress! One side of the roof is fully secured and we have a couple panels of hardware cloth on. We also got hardware cloth onto the doors.

More work after lunch. Loads of photos tonight or tomorrow.

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I hope your chooks know how lucky they are!!!

 

[aart]

That first door, will you remove the 4 lower panels?

 

[3KillerBs]

That first door, will you remove the 4 lower panels?

No, we weren't going to go to the trouble. We just covered the entire thing -- because the panels are thin, cheap, and held only with trim nails.

 

[3KillerBs]

So,

Wednesday night after work we ate a scratch dinner of leftovers so that I could mow the area around the coop despite being tired from a hard day at work. I trimmed the grass down HARD, an inch lower than I'd usually mow so that we'd have a good surface to lay out wire on.

Then, Thursday morning by 7:30 we were out there prepping -- DH moving all the tools out of storage and my running the lawnsweeper. By 8:30 my sister and her husband arrived and we got to work. The guys worked on the roof and the ladies tackled the hardware cloth with 15yo DS#3 going back and forth as gopher and assistant.

My sister is a former Air Force AGE mechanic so she understands how compressor-driven tools work and taught me, though my hands are too small to use the heavy fence stapler.

The guys ended up not having to cut any of the metal roofing (and we ended up having 2 panels left over!), but the electric shears were worth the price just for the hardware cloth. This model is anything but ergonomic, but just within my capabilities to control and better than the other one that was available because that one takes out a kerf -- which would mean tiny bits of metal permanently salting my chicken yard.

We started with covering the doors, making generous use of the narrow-crown staples, spaced at about 4" apart, since DH was pretty sure that the fence stapler would split the boards of the old screen doors. As noted above, we covered the entire door on the one that had the kick panel because those panels are thing and held only lightly by trim nails (It's the carport door from our previous house that DH had refurbished half a decade ago so we knew *exactly* how it was constructed).

The wire ended up on the inside of both doors as an artifact of the way the doors are constructed.

I might even go back and put in a second row of staples.

Once the guys were far enough along one roof section that we could work under it, we started on the coop itself.

Measure twice, cut once.

The fence stapler is wonderful, but HEAVY and made for large hands. My sister and my 15yo took turns. I tried but can't hold it up and control it, so can only place staples at a level where I can brace it on my hip -- which isn't very useful.

Due to the nature of hardware cloth we, naturally, have some ripples. The original plans included trim boards, but at the current price of lumber I'm going to take a hammer and the narrow-crown stapler and put in extra staples to tack down anything that's making a gap large enough to worry about.

We got 6 panels done and another cut but felt that we were getting too hot and tired to continue. It was a relatively cool day -- under 90 with not too awful humidity. Had it been really hot-hot we'd have had to stop after lunch.

 

[3KillerBs]

Meanwhile,

The guys were working on the roof. First they laid the panels on the entire lower section to check the fit and the overhang.

DH is a little stressed that the structure turned out to be not *quite* perfectly square -- which amounts to the roof being *maybe* 2" out of line. I didn't remember to get a picture of that -- you have to actually look for the flaw.

@U_Stormcrow, we used the screws sold by the roofing company. I think we got plenty of threads through the purlins.

Once they got into their rhythm they moved right along, breaking for lunch between the two sections. The final section on the end overhung by one channel but instead of cutting it they just overlapped it a little further.

DH is in love with his lightweight, DeWalt drill and impact driver. DBIL is likely to buy his own impact driver after using ours.