Now comes the time we were most dreading. Lifting up the Cabin Roof Trusses by Hand. Any normal person would hire a crane. Clearly we aren’t normal.

We built the roof trusses before we put up the walls and moved them off to the side. They have sat there for months under tarps waiting for the day when we were ready to lift them up to the roof. Well that day has come and now we only need to figure out how.

Fortunately we hadn’t put up the wall sheathing so we slide them between the wall studs. If the sheathing was up we would have to lift them over the walls.

We started by sliding the edge of the truss through the wall as far was it would go. We then had to stand it on it’s edge to slide it farther in. Of course it would not go all the way in this way. It was way too tall. To get it the rest of the way in I ran into the cabin and slide it in and tilted the inside up and the outside down until it slid all the way in.

Lifting up the Cabin Roof Trusses by Hand

OK, one truss in the cabin. Now to lift it to the loft. So far the sliding was working. How do you slide up?

We started by leaning the truss against the loft. We then placed a step-ladder near by and walked the peak of the truss up it and rested it on the top. Sharon then climbed to the loft and pulled on the truss while I lifted and pushed from below. This got it most of the way up. With Sharon putting all of her weight on the truss I could climb to the loft and the two of us could then drag it the rest of the way.

One down, twenty more to go.

After we got a few up it started to get crowded on the loft. Unfortunately we had to work with the space we had as once we started putting them up we would not be able to get them to the loft the same way.