YUMADOME

April 2001 Newsletter
(such as it is)

Hello all!
Let's see... it's April now, I hope you have all filed your taxes by this point. If you haven't you should be doing that instead of checking on our progress... can't have our audience going to jail!

When we got back from the conference  and immediately started working on getting the trusses built and hung. The trusses went up very smoothly this time. Dennis (of Gecko Steel Truss) came out and measured for each truss before building it so that they would fit just right.  It worked like a charm and the only trimming that had to be done was on an extended piece left long just for that purpose so we could trim it off right near the shell.	Back to the homepage	Now that we have had the fun and ease of having a Home Depot and a Lowes store right here in town we have found they are wonderful stores to have access to but they are definitely not the be all, end all of stores.  You still have to shop around and compare or you may spend far more than you need to on things.  That being said, I sure like having all the variety available that they provide!
Once the trusses were mostly in place we went down and bought out Home Depot on Simpson strapping for cross bridging on the trusses.  The truss company engineers have confirmed what I've heard from other sources... having the concrete deck rather than plywood only helps to make a much stronger system since loads are distributed more evenly by the stiffness of the concrete.	3rd Floor Pictures	After scrambling madly to get ready to pour, we finally got the 3rd floor poured on Monday. Unfortunately, it was warmer than expected and the concrete started curing much too quickly.  Greg (concrete guy) is looking into some self leveling products that may be able to fix things up for us. He asked that I not do any framing there until he has a chance to fi it up. I told him I thought maybe we could find other things to work on in the meantime.
Fortunately, I had ordered the B-deck for the 3rd floor just before leaving for the MDI conference... it took a while to get here but it worked out perfectly. It showed up about a week before we had the last of the trusses figured out so we were able to start laying down B-deck while Dennis was finishing up the last of the trusses.	This will take you to monolithic's website	I think from here we will continue working on the remaining walls on the second floor so that the electricians can continue.  They have nearly all the wiring in on the first floor already.  We 'helped' the guy run the flexible conduit to the sub-panels on the 1st floor last week.  That stuff is tricky... it doesn't allow any twisting at all so it's like wrestling an anaconda when you try to slide it through the trusses and walls!
As soon as the decking was mostly in place, we began building the 6" walls for the second floor so the plumbers could come in and install the black pipe to get the penetrations in place for the third floor.  They worked real hard to get us finished in time for the pour and did a great job for us.	And click here for the Domebuilders Bulletin Board	Please make sure you visit the link to the old site and sign in on the guestbook... at least until I figure out how to put one on the mainpage!