Author: Judith Seaman

The Myers’ Home team has been busy preparing the porch structure on the Western face of the home. This porch is unique among previous Rural Studio projects for a few reasons: It’s fabricated from steel, has its own slab, and barely touches the rest of Myers’ Home.

Mildew, Mil-don’t

Looking back, the home was designed for longevity and flexibility through generations. In previous Rural Studio homes with front porches, the space is most often subtractive. This means that the open porch is carved from the main volume of the house and its structural system. In doing so, the rafters are exposed and gaps between trusses are exposed. These must be filled in some way, usually bird blocking. The other solution is a soffit under the eaves.

In both cases, the exposed undersides of the rafters or soffit are nearly always in shade and tend to mildew. Over time the uncovered portion of the truss or rafter can degrade faster than the interiorized segment. In these cases the whole member is still compromised.

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The team addresses this problem by eliminating the condition entirely. Myers’ Home has no true eaves, only a slight overhang of the corrugated roofing material. Flashing details are tight and the long Western porch is entirely removed from the structure of the house.

Finding Your Footing

But how’s that little gap mitigated? A separate foundation for the porch is planned. Ideally, this job could be completed with just the team and some extra hands in one morning. This settled into five separate pavers, with two inches of gravel between and roughly a foot of separation from the main house slab.

Before the pavers can be placed though, footings for the metal columns of the porch must be set. This system shook out to be a trench footing, with ten-inch-deep reinforced footings at the columns and a six-inch-deep trench spanning each bay.

With the help of a handful of 5th-year students and professors Andrew Freear and Steve Long, the pour was complete in just about an hour with all levels squared away. The team can look on to the next pour the following week of the pavers.

Prep for the latter involves formwork once again, this time with removable dividers between eight by eight-foot segments. These folks took a leaf out of Horseshoe Courtyard‘s book and used a system of stakes and plywood strips for this maneuver. They then mound backfill dirt around to keep concrete from spilling out beneath the forms. The last step before the concrete arrives is reinforcement with metal mesh and grade pins. The mesh strengthens the concrete as it settles over time and grade pins are fluorescent marked stakes driven to signal the correct level of concrete in the forms.

Finally, the team can tackle their third and last concrete pour of the project. The truck arrived and they were soon in the groove of a process with aid of Patrice’s Home team and Steve. Riley manned the chute; Judith, Daniel, Adam, and Lauren shoveled and screeded; Madeline and Lauren troweled and floated away; and Steve edged each one.

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These pavers, being on the porch, are also exposed aggregate which necessitates an additional step after the concrete is finished but still wet. Following a half hour’s wait, Judith misted a specialized concrete retarder atop the fresh pavers, bright ectoplasm green. This allows the majority of the concrete to cure normally while the topmost layer of cement is kept a slurry.

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After roughly eight hours, Madeline and Judith return in the evening to hose and scrub the surface of the pavers and wash away the cement. This reveals a texture of the aggregate, in this case pea gravel specially ordered for this type of slab. The team is aiming for a change in surface material between the concrete of the porch and that of the interior as well as a more rugged finish for the home’s entrance.

Weld, Weld, Weld

These three can now focus on the porch structure itself, made entirely of metal with a corrugated roof to match that of the main home. Thanks to the generosity of Studio friend, Jim Turnipseed, the team was able to spend about a week in Columbiana, Alabama at Turnipseed International’s metal shop. There they built jigs, practiced welds, fabricated purlins, and built bents.

With the oversight of teachers Flo and Luis, they quickly learn the equipment, cut pieces to length, and weld up a storm.

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Purlins are up first, a good practice run as most welds will be hidden from sight. For east of installation and transport, purlins are designed as mats. These mats are welded in a line and installed as a single unit in each bay. Tables are placed a specified width apart and a simple rectangular jig is made with four ninety-degree angles to catch the mat’s corners.

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The bents are pitched with a solid four-inch-wide plate welded atop to catch the purlin mats and provide more tolerance. These take more complex jig-work. The needed angle cannot be achieved in the range of the band saw’s angle. So the extra distance is made up by welding a separate tray to make up the difference.

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Following this, the angle for the bents’ top and bottom knee-joint are welded to the tables similarly to the purlin jig. Once the pieces are arranged, baseplates with holes drilled are attached to the bottom of the columns. These baseplates are what will anchor the porch structure to the footings poured earlier.

The final step in fabrication is to prepare the members for galvanization. A series of half-inch holes must be drilled in all pieces to allow them to drain. This is relevant when components are dipped in the zinc bath stage. Results can be…explosive, otherwise.

Let’s Taco ’bout Halloween

The welded component are shipped off to Mississippi for galvanization! The team is on their merry way back to Newbern to continue site work. But several days earlier the team returned to Hale briefly for the annual Halloween Reviews! Those who may have spent a few days in this neck of the woods may recognize the wall murals from Greensboro’s own Mi Tenampa Mexican restaurant. As leftover students from the previous year, these three spend review day listening in on new thesis and 3rd-year work, attending the costume contest, and eating quite a few Reese’s peanut butter cups.

Bringing Down the Hammer(drill)

While waiting on the return of the porch structure, Madeline, Judith, and Riley move back into finishes and porch groundwork.

Judith and Riley borrow the Studio’s hammer drill and a masonry bit and spend a morning drilling four six-inch-deep holes in each footing. Riley has a specialized jig that expedites the process. After snagging only a bit of rebar, they’re ready for the next stage. Threaded rods are anchored into the holes with epoxy, these will catch those baseplates on the porch columns. With a system of threaded rods and nuts, the team can micro-adjust the levels of the bents upon installation.

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That’s what’s going on around town, catch the final stages of finishes soon. Myers’ Home is getting fitted out with cabinetry, sinks, stair treads, and more!