Our first ugly job!

Because the building is constructed on posts, we were keen to make sure that the floor was insulated and enhance the protection against fire.
So our first job was to attach 27 2400 X 1200 sheets of fibre cement butted together on to the bottom of the joists between the bearers so as we could easily sit insulation batts on top of them before laying on particle board flooring.
As we had chosen to use joists set 600mm apart rather than 450mm the timber specified was only 35mm thick rather than 45mm. Now for all Turpsys great work there were of course discrepancies in distances between bearers and my measuring and trimming of the sheets using an electric saw fitted with an appropriate blade was not always as accurate. This would often mean that there was only not enough fibre cement sheet covering the bottom of the joists so nailing was out of the question and I would need to hammer a nail with a large washer around it to hold the two sheets up.
The height we were working with ranged from about 6 inches to 3.5 metres so the system we used needed to vary as we moved further towards the higher end of the platform. One of the most useful investments we made toolwise was a Paslode portable nail gun, and it was not only a god send for this job but for many others, as it is difficult enough to hold a quite heavy sheet in place without then having one person need to release two hands to place a nail in to a joist.
The first part was tricky because there was restricted space to work and we used a chocking arrangement and initally a normal hammer to fasten until there was space to use the nailgun.
Once we got to the middle section we could use our bodies to hold the sheets up so it wasn't too bad and we had our system sorted by then.
Once sheets need to be fixed overhead we needed a new system, which Michelle came up with, to hold the cement sheets in place while they were fastened.
This entailed drilling 4 holes about 50mm in from the side and a comfortable arms distance with from the ends so as thin ropes were threaded through for us to haul up the sheet and attach the ropes to other nearby fixings to hold the sheet up whilst it was fixed. This entailed Michelle, who is not missing an ACL ligament from a knee and a better head for heights, balancing precariously above me on the joists whilst I used the nail gun underneath. Before starting to do so, I make sure to let her know so as she could get out of the way because occassionaly I missed the joist and the nail would shoot straight through the sheet!
It was a buggar of a job taking us about 4 weeks to finish as we both work part time so that meant a maximum of 4 days on the building site.