The foundation was only half pushed; he had to keep going!
Starting up the crawler tractor and climbing into the cockpit, Wang An continued pushing the foundation.
Two houses, totaling 400 square meters, plus the large pit used to build the ground-fire dragon combustion chamber—to put it bluntly, the workload was genuinely substantial.
The main issue was that while the speed of a crawler bulldozer digging a foundation was much faster than doing it by hand, the machine itself wasn't actually that fast.
Over an hour later, the helpers arrived in a steady stream, carrying clean large bowls or small basins.
Truth be told, these people were genuinely proactive when it came to work, and they were very conscientious and responsible.
On one hand, it was because they had accepted food and favors; on the other, it was because reciprocity between people was a given—if that's how you help me, then that's how I'll help you, and there's no problem with that.
In short, only a tiny minority of people would slack off or play tricks; normal people would absolutely not do such a thing.
As everyone returned to their positions, they went back to their respective tasks just as they had in the morning; no one was idle.
However, from the group led by Wang Dashu, four people who knew carpentry were pulled out to help the carpenter Niu Yichen and his son, Niu Dalong.
The father and son were going to lead these four men in a very important task: "smashing the frames."
"Smashing the frames" was also called "hitting the frames," but the professional term was "constructing triangular beams."
As for these triangular beams, the locals called them "big frames."
Depending on the span of the house, these things came in various sizes.
The long horizontal timber at the bottom of the triangular beam was called the "beam-joist" or "purlin," the slanted timbers on the left and right were called "slanted beams," and the vertical timber in the middle was called the "standing man" or "vertical pillar."
As for the short pieces of wood used for reinforcement and to keep the slanted beams from deforming, they were collectively called "support wood."
Constructing triangular beams required a certain level of skill. In the early years, triangular beams used mortise-and-tenon joints, making them incredibly troublesome and time-consuming to produce.
However, by this era, it had become much simpler because the triangular beams of this time only had a very small amount of mortise-and-tenon work.
The vast majority of the joinery had been replaced by foreign nails.
6-inch, 8-inch, 10-inch, and even 12-inch foreign nails were all sold at the supply and marketing cooperative. When Wang An went there yesterday, he had genuinely bought quite a lot.
While Wang An was driving the crawler tractor to push the foundation, he was once again called down by his father, Comrade Wang Dazhu.
After getting off the vehicle, Wang An asked, "What is it, Dad? What's up?"
Wang Dazhu didn't speak; he just grabbed Wang An's arm and led him to the circular saw. Only then did Wang Dazhu speak
"How long should the 'standing man' be for the big frames? Should we just go with the norm, or what? Your Uncle Niu is about to cut the materials now."
Although triangular beams came in all sorts of styles, there was a specific logic to the length of the "standing man."
According to the standard, for every 1 meter of beam-joist, there should be a 0.25-meter high standing man. In other words, the height of the standing man should be one-fourth the length of the beam-joist.
The reason this standard existed was because it was said that a triangular roof at this angle could avoid lightning.
That being said, the probability of a brick-and-tile house being struck by lightning was actually quite small, and houses built this way weren't particularly aesthetic, so this standard was considered a minimum.
The houses Wang An wanted to build had a span of a full 10 meters. If he followed this standard, the entire roof would be a flat house with only a slight peak.
How hideous would a house like that look?
Furthermore, according to rural feng shui, the height of the side rooms cannot exceed that of the main house; if he did it this way, it would affect him later if he wanted to build a shed or something similar.
Therefore, Wang An said without hesitation
"I think I forgot to write it on the blueprints, right? 3-meter standing men. The frames for both houses will have 3-meter standing men, and there will be 21 big frames in total."
The number of big frames for a brick-and-tile house was always an odd number; it was never an even number.
This was because after the walls of the house were bricked, the first frame placed during the ridge-pole raising was positioned exactly in the center of the house, and the other frames then spread out sequentially to both sides.
After Wang An finished speaking, the carpenter Niu Yichen instinctively said
"21 frames? Then we're making 'small frames.' Small frames are fine; they're light and nimble, so we won't need to use 'lying-timbers.' We can nail the lath boards directly, and the roof won't sag easily."
The "small frames" Niu Yichen mentioned had nothing to do with the overall size of the frame; it referred to the thickness of the beam-joist and the slanted beams.
Normally, while the number of triangular beams used in a house was an odd number, that number could vary.
If the number of triangular beams was small, they had to use big frames with very thick beam-joists.
Using big frames required the "lying-timbers" (also called "lying-wood") that Niu Yichen mentioned. The purpose of these was to be nailed onto the slanted beams of two frames to narrow the gap between them.
Finally, lath boards—wooden planks—were nailed onto the lying-timbers, followed by thick straw mats, mud, and tiles.
However, roofs built with big frames would eventually become uneven and wavy over the years because the lying-timbers would deform, which was the so-called "sagging waist."
But by doing it the way Wang An wanted—with a very dense number of triangular beams—these issues would not occur.
The only downside to this method was that it required a massive amount of wood to make the triangular beams.
While there was plenty of wood in the mountains, felling trees without a chainsaw was genuinely not a simple task, and transporting the timber out was also quite difficult.
One had to remember that when Wang An's family originally felled the trees, even with a chainsaw and many mules and horses pulling the loads, it had genuinely taken several days to finish.
Hearing Niu Yichen's words, Wang An handed out cigarettes and said with a smile
"Exactly. There's plenty of wood, so we definitely have to make small frames. Thanks for your hard work, Uncle Niu, hehehehe..."
After taking the cigarette, Niu Yichen waved his hand and said with a laugh
"What 'hard work'? This is just what's expected. I've been doing this for years, and your family's meals are the heartiest. Hahahaha, this job is a pleasure!"
Hearing this, Wang An also said cheerfully
"You've got to eat well to work well! On the day of the ridge-pole raising, my family will make braised pork for lunch—the kind with no vegetables at all. Just go wild on the meat, hahahaha!"
When talking to people in the village, one must never speak in vague or flowery terms because no one listens to that. Go straight to the meat, and there will absolutely be no problem.
Upon hearing Wang An's words, not only did Niu Yichen laugh loudly with joy, but everyone nearby who heard it had their eyes light up. They clearly had a very strong anticipation for the meal on the day of the ridge-pole raising.
"Go wild on the meat"—those five words were something countless people dreamed of!
(End of Chapter)