I'm Ron Patterson with Utah State University Extension in Carbon County. In
this segment we're going to cover putting together from the hip purlin
down, putting on the wiggle wire track, and having this connected to each of our
ribs here, and then the...the side wall curtain support here to keep things from
flowing around, and then also how we fasten up. So I'll show how I put all
this sidewall together; helps a lot with the ventilation and it makes it very
functional. For the hip purlin I like to use plumbers strap to hold the T post
to the hip purlin. I also have this screw right here that holds that up into place;
that way after I get the plastic on, I can release that screw and kind of pull
down and keep a little bit more tension on the plastic - it doesn't flap quite as
much. You can see here I use these nail plates to hold the ends of the boards
together, so when you're doing the hip purlin it's a lot easier if you have a
second person to help you hold that board up while you put in your plumber's
strap and the nail plates. You want to gap your..your joints between your...
your hip purlins in between the ribs - makes it easier. Now I've shown how you
can use nail plates along here, you can also use a 1 by 4 if you have it long enough
and it fits in between there. 1 by 4 will work pretty good - I have some - ran out of
nail plates, I bought all of them out of the hardware store, and I have some 1 by
4 so I cut some 1 by 4 sections to splice those together. The end T post
I'll fasten in this manner: goes around to the end of your hip purlin, around
your T post, so that I've got it fastened up pretty good there; keep it in place. So
each one of these ribs is attached to the hip purlins here; I like to use
plumbers strap - you can use a pipe clamp if you want. The reason I use plumber's
strap is because I like to be able to have it just a little bit loose so
that as the slack in the plastic in the summertime - as it warms up, it expands - and
so there's a little bit flapping in the wind.
I like to be able to pull this hip purlin down a little bit with my
anchor lines, and so I'll not tighten that up really tight. I use inch and a
quarter - anywhere from inch and a quarter, inch and 5/8, screws on here. You don't want to
be a screw that's so long that it...that it goes all the way through the board. So
I've got some scrap plumber's strap I was using on another project; just trim that
off, or if you've got brand new. You want to make sure you tap down these sharp
edges - I've cut myself a time or two on those so...kind of tap those down out of
the way, so that you don't get cut on the sharp
edges of the plumber's strap. So that's how you fasten the hip purlins to the ribs. So to
fasten the wiggle wire track in here you have to drill holes or screw some screws
through there - they sent me these self- tapping hex head screws. The self-tapping
part actually goes through that aluminum quite easily, but the hex head takes up a
fair amount of space inside the track. So I like to use the grabber screws just
for the space purposes; these self tapping screws actually do drill a hole
quite quickly through the aluminum, and so what I did was I used a device on my
my drill...okay we'll cut that part out - no don't touch it. So what I did here then
to drill the holes is I just put the self-tapping screw into a nut driver,
attached it to my drill, and drove it through. Drilled a hole in the wiggle
wire track - doesn't take too long - take your screw...just have the grabber
screws...and just screw them into the wiggle wire track. I've had - if I don't
have these spaced close enough - I've actually had the winds bust the heads
off these, so you need to have your spacing on these grabber screws
twelve to maybe sixteen inches or so. You don't want to have, you know, like three or four
of them in an eight foot wiggle wire track; you want to have them spaced a lot
closer so that you've got a little more strength to them. The self-tapping screws
are a lot stronger, I've never had any of those break off, but I have had these...
these grabber screw heads pop off so make sure you get them close enough that
you don't have them break off in the wind. On the outside of the hip purlin
we have wiggle wire track that we use to hold the plastic in place, so from the
top on this side over to the top - the hip purlin on the other side - we will have
this wiggle wire track and the plastic will be in place there until we take it
off for winter. And then down below it drapes and you can lift it up for
ventilation, so we'll show how that happens as we get later in the - in the
construction. When I first built this high tunnel I was kind of in a hurry,
and I...and I put the PVC over there and put the plastic on, and then I had to
go to the office and the wind kind of blew that day, and it almost lifted it
off. So I hurried up and came up with another way to keep that from lifting
off. So I had these stakes - 18-inch rebar - they can be 3/8 inch, half inch rebar, and
I welded a washer, or a chain-link, onto them and then I hurried and drove it down
here right next to the post. And drove it straight up and down and that helped, but
still with the wind it lifted that straight back up. So the way I do it now,
and it works quite well, is I'll set it off - you want to have a gap here so that
your curtain can drop down straight between the stake and the Tpost - and
then I angle it out at about a 10 degree angle away from the T post. And then I
offset it from the T post about six inches, so it's out here about six
inches like this. Drive it all the way down into the ground so I've got a good
anchor; and then I run a line from a eye screw
to the stake that way. And that will hold that down and also keep the curtain from
billowing.