Glad I checked

Yesterday I was feeling pretty beat up from my weekend of work so instead of going to the gym at lunch I went to Home Depot.  I wanted to get the roof panels that we will use to cover the chicken run.  I bought 7 SunTuf panels (made in Kutztown, Pa) and some special screws with rubber washers and thought I was good to go.  Well later in the afternoon I looked up the installation instructions for the panels and discovered I was missing a key component.

I assumed I would just be drilling a hole through the panel and securing it to the roof supports.  It turns out you are supposed to use these special strips under the panels which offer additional support.  You should attach the screws through the high channels of the corrugated platform, not the low ones like I originally assumed.  So on the way home I stopped once again at HD to grab enough of these supports for the three attaching points we will be using for each panel.

Last night Cindy and I worked more on the run.  My goal for the night was to get the rest of the roof wired in.  Each successive strip of hardware cloth I put on went on smoother than the prior thanks to experience.  I used a couple hundred staples in the process which I went back and tapped flush with a hammer to snug everything as much as possible.  The combo of the wire topped off with the corrugated roof panels should make top access to the chicken run close to impossible for the type of predators that visit our backyard.

Cindy also got some more staining/waterproofing done.  We are trying to get the structure stained before we lay wire across an area of it.  We worked right up until sunset.  I’d love to be able to get the basic run construction done this week with evening work sessions but the odds of that happening are not strong.  There are just a lot of things to do still.