{"id":2284,"date":"2007-08-30T21:11:56","date_gmt":"2007-08-31T02:11:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.zanthan.com\/gardens\/gardenlog\/?p=2284"},"modified":"2017-07-19T18:07:57","modified_gmt":"2017-07-19T23:07:57","slug":"smarter-than-a-fourth-grader","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.zanthan.com\/gardens\/garden-house-project\/smarter-than-a-fourth-grader\/","title":{"rendered":"Smarter Than a Fourth Grader"},"content":{"rendered":"

\nIn fourth grade, Sister Florence introduced me to the wonders of multiplication and division–concepts that thrill any gardener when it comes to bulbs and perennials. Even as a child I found these concepts interesting in the abstract, despite being forced us to recite the times table up to 12 in front of the class. Arithmetic is pleasingly exact. And unlike Peggy Sue’s algebra<\/a>, simple arithmetic is useful in all the practical sciences: cooking, sewing, building.\n<\/p>\n

\nThe man who came last month to measure the garden house for the screens was a confused when he looked at the framing. The strips for the rectangular wall screens are indented so that the screens will be flush in line with the columns. But the strips for the triangular gable screens are nailed to the outside of the beams. And so, they are not flush; they hang out over the edge.\n<\/p>\n

\"garden<\/p>\n

\nAfter examining this anomaly, I decided that it must have been done because the rafters were also doubling as the top edge of the frame for the gables. Unfortunately, the rafters did not line up with the beams and supporting columns. So now the only way to screen the mosquitoes out was to nail wood on the outside of the wall, to line up with the rafters.\n<\/p>\n

\nWhen I asked why the rafters hadn’t been spaced to line up with the walls, I received this reply:\n<\/p>\n

\n

I was going to run wood on top of the screen and the frame would not be showing. Otherwise the frame would stick out much further than the others. An error that was revealed after framing as 18″ on center did not work out all the way down the line, as we have an overhand [sic] of 2 ft, and so forth..small 1 inch fudge.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\nSo here’s the story problem. The house is 20 feet wide. If you want the rafters to line up with the walls, is there any way that 18 inches on center will work? If not, how far apart should you space the rafters? What is the standard spacing for rafters anyway?\n<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\nThe standard spacing for rafters is 16 inches on center. Perhaps, not coincidentally, 20 feet (240 inches) is evenly divisible by 16.
\n240\/16 = 15
\n240\/18 = 13.333333\n<\/p>\n

\nI was pretty annoyed that this calculation hadn’t been made on paper in the planning stage before the roof was installed. Why 18 inches on center? The explanation was that the roof panels are 36 inches wide.\n<\/p>\n

\nWell, I thought. That’s something to consider. For a moment I was stumped. Then I remembered…The roof panels aren’t screwed to the rafters. They’re screwed to the cross-pieces.\n<\/p>\n

\"garden<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\"garden
Somehow it didn’t all add up.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[10],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zanthan.com\/gardens\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2284"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zanthan.com\/gardens\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zanthan.com\/gardens\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zanthan.com\/gardens\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zanthan.com\/gardens\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2284"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.zanthan.com\/gardens\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2284\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5501,"href":"https:\/\/www.zanthan.com\/gardens\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2284\/revisions\/5501"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zanthan.com\/gardens\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2284"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zanthan.com\/gardens\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2284"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zanthan.com\/gardens\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2284"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}