Chapter 775

The foundation was only half leveled, it had to be continued!

Starting the crawler tractor and climbing into the cockpit, Wang An continued to level the foundation.

Two houses, a full 400 square meters, plus the large pit used to build the ground fire dragon combustion chamber, to be honest, this workload was quite significant.

It was mainly that although the speed of digging the foundation with a crawler bulldozer was much faster than digging by hand, this thing was actually not that fast.

More than an hour later, the helpers all came one after another, holding clean large bowls or small basins.

Come to think of it, these people were quite active in terms of work, and they were also very serious and responsible.

On one hand, it was because one's mouth is short after eating someone else's food, and on the other hand, it was because people are mutual; whatever you were like when helping me, I would be like that when helping you, so there was no problem.

In short, only a very small number of people would do things like slacking off; normal people would absolutely not do this.

With everyone back in place, everyone was doing their own work just like in the morning, and no one was idle.

It was just that 4 people who understood carpentry were drawn from the group led by Wang Wang Dashu to help carpenter Niu Niu Yichen and his son Niu Dalong.

This father and son were going to lead these four people to do a very important job, which was—smashing the frame.

"Smashing the frame" is also called "hitting the frame"; the professional term is "making triangular beams."

Triangular beams,

Locals call them "big frames."

According to the length of the house span, this thing also comes in big and small sizes.

The long horizontal wood at the bottom of the triangular beam is called the "beam girder" or "girder pole," the diagonal wood on the left and right sides is called the "diagonal beam," and the vertical wood in the middle is called the "stander" or "vertical pillar."

As for those short woods that play a reinforcing role and keep the diagonal beams from deforming, they are collectively called "support wood."

Making triangular beams has a certain technical content. In the early years, triangular beams were all mortise and tenon structures, which were quite troublesome and time-consuming to make.

However, by this era, it was much simpler than before, because the triangular beams of this era had only a very small part of mortise and tenon work.

The vast majority of mortise and tenon work was replaced by large nails.

6-inch, 8-inch, 10-inch, and even 12-inch large nails were sold in the supply and marketing cooperative, and Wang An had bought quite a lot when he went there yesterday.

Just as Wang An was driving the crawler tractor to level the foundation, he was called down again by his father, Comrade Wang Wang Dazhu.

After getting off the tractor, Wang An asked:

"What's wrong, Dad? What's the matter?"

Wang Wang Dazhu didn't speak either, pulling Wang An's arm to the circular saw. Only then did Wang Wang Dazhu say:

"How long should the stander of the big frame be? Should it be normal or what? Your Uncle Niu is about to cut the material now."

Although triangular beams come in all shapes and sizes, the length of the "stander" on the triangular beam has its own rules.

According to the standard, it is a 1-meter beam girder and a 0.25-meter high stander, which means the height of this stander should be one-fourth of the length of the beam girder.

The reason for setting such a standard is that it is said that a triangular roof at this angle can avoid lightning. However, although it is said so, the probability of a brick house being struck by lightning is really small, and besides, such a house built is not very beautiful, so this standard is also considered a minimum standard.

The span of the house Wang An wanted to build was a full 10 meters. If he followed this standard, the entire roof would be a flat house with a slight point.

If such a house were built, how ugly would it be?

And if it were according to rural feng shui, that is, the height of the wing room cannot exceed the main room, then in the future, if Wang An wanted to build a shed or something, it would be affected.

Therefore, Wang An said without hesitation:

"I seem to have forgotten to write it on the blueprint, right? A 3-meter stander, the frames for both houses are 3-meter standers, and both are 21 big frames."

The number of big frames for brick houses is always an odd number, and even numbers will not appear.

Because after the walls of the house are finished with bricks, the first frame installed when putting up the beam is placed in the middle of the entire house, and then other frames are expanded to both sides in turn.

After Wang An finished speaking, carpenter Niu Niu Yichen subconsciously said:

"21 frames, that means making small frames. Small frames are fine, small frames are light, so there's no need to use lying wood, just nail the fence boards directly, and the roof won't easily sag."

The small frames that carpenter Niu Niu Yichen mentioned have nothing to do with the overall size of the frame; they refer to the thickness of the beam girder and the diagonal beam.

Normally, although the number of triangular beams used in a house is an odd number, this quantity can be more or less.

If the number of triangular beams is small, big frames with very thick beam girders must be used.

And using big frames requires the use of "lying wood" that Niu Niu Yichen mentioned, also called "lying timber." The role of this thing is to be nailed to the diagonal beams of two frames to encrypt the gap between the diagonal beams.

Finally, nail fence boards, which are wooden boards, on the lying wood, and finally cover with thick grass curtains, mud, and tiles.

But the roof covered with big frames, because the lying wood will deform, will appear uneven and wavy after a long time, which is the so-called "sagging waist."

But doing it like Wang An, that is, if the number of triangular beams is very dense, these things will not happen.

And the only disadvantage of doing this is that it requires a large amount of wood to make triangular beams.

Although there is plenty of wood in the mountains, if there is no chainsaw to fell trees, it is really not a simple job, and it is quite difficult to transport the wood out.

One had to know that when Wang An's family felled trees, even if they got a chainsaw and had so many mules and horses pulling together, it took quite a few days to finish.

Hearing carpenter Niu Niu Yichen's words, Wang An said with a smile while distributing cigarettes:

"Yeah, there's plenty of wood, so we must make small frames. Thank you for your trouble, Uncle Niu, hehehehe..."

After Niu Niu Yichen took the cigarette, he waved his hand and said with a smile:

"What trouble, what trouble, isn't this all what should be done? I've been working for so many years, and your family's food is the hardest, hahahaha, this work is comfortable!"

Upon hearing this, Wang An also said with a smile:

"Working must be accompanied by good food. Wait until the day the beam is put up, our family will have stewed meat for lunch, the kind without any vegetables, eat as much as you want, hahahaha..."

When talking to people in the Tuntun, don't talk about empty things, because no one listens at all. Go straight to the meat, and there will absolutely be no problem at all.

Hearing Wang An's words, not only did Niu Niu Yichen laugh loudly, but those nearby who heard it also had their eyes shining, clearly having very strong expectations for the food on the day the beam was put up.

"Eat meat as much as you want"—these five words are something many people dream of!

(End of chapter)