Improvised hoist: ten of us lifting and one machine lifting

After concreting the reinforced concrete wreath, we moved on to the truss construction. We had to figure out how to get them to the planned location in the first place. The building is single storey, so the trusses had to be placed on the reinforced concrete wreath at X height. Unfortunately, we don't have a crane available, but we managed. The water tower, or rather a part of its steel stand, which has not been made yet, was useful. And the hoist was born!

We lifted twelve trusses, each weighing approximately 350 kilos. The first six trusses were lifted by hand, and the Zambians enjoyed it, perhaps too much. For the next six, we used a car to hoist them over the pulley, which the truss was tied to and pulled up as it moved. Then we moved each truss, to the exact spot on the wreath, by hand.

All in all, we managed to accomplish the entire feat in a record time of 5 hours and with 27 people. And the trusses are in place. As far as the truss construction itself is concerned, the trusses have a span of 7.3 metres, a height at the ridge of 1.5 metres and are placed in a grid at a distance of 1.3 metres. The truss is stiffened by a wooden bay and stringers at the level of the bottom flange. When placing the trusses, we found it convenient to make Ondřej crosses in the extreme and middle bays, which further in the structure act as a windward element.

And what kind of news would it be if we didn't sprinkle in at least one surprise! The trusses were made by our boys carpenters as part of a carpentry workshop, after the nailing the wood was treated and the trusses lay together for 3 days next to the house building waiting for the remaining pieces to be finished. What we didn't realise was that the termites were probably waiting anxiously in the holes in the ground! They ventured into some places quite voraciously and the only luck was that we had allowed for safe oversizing in the design and so the resulting uneaten section was still fine. And these are exactly the kinds of things we don't think of in the office in the Czech Republic when doing the math. But it's another day and we are "smarter" again! So watch out for termites or anything hungry!

Greetings from Kashitu!