150mm Oak Two Post Porch

Three person job. 2 hours to put together
 
As we were not fixing to a house we had to post crete in two posts at act as our house. We made sure that the posts were 1.52m apart to give us our base. We decided we were going to fix the posts by using threaded bar. We started by drilling 3 holes through each porch post using an extra long 12mm auger bit. We also used a 25mm fortner bit to put three larger holes at the front about 15mm deep. This enabled us to hide the bolt in the beam and would allow for us to plug the hole after the bolts had been tightened. There are two advantages to this. Firstly the bolt is hidden and so there is not unslightly metal or snag places. Secondly if the metal reacts with the tanin in the oak it will happen inside the beam and you will not get unsightly blue stains on the face of the beam. Once we had drilled the beams we secured them to the posts we had put in the day before. As the canopy has a lot of overhanging weight we found it important to secure the posts in place first. We made sure we measured out the gap several times. We used the cross piece between the legs at the bottom to make sure the gap was correct. Once the posts were in place we build the canopy. We had the advantage of forklift and cage, but most of the canopy pieces are one person lifts and so can be done with one ladder. The exception being the cross piece which will require one person at either end. We started by putting in the braces and front to back pieces before putting on the cross piece. Using the pegs to fix the joints in place. This gave us the base of the canopy. We then put on the front apex. We fixed the ridge piece to the back board using a truss clip and the slot in the apex before finally laying on the rafters to complete the kit.