Rear Soffit work continues

Shawn finished installing the fascia to the end of this section. Then he brought the siding up to the soffit level, and did all of the caulking on the window. This picture shows the end result. It looks pretty nice.

Shawn's parents had tickets to the college football game in town, so they spent the night at our place. Derald helped Shawn for a few hours and they worked on installing the ledger board that will eventually someday attach the deck to the house.

We followed a "best practice" approach to make sure we waterproofed the wall behind the ledger board as well as we could, to prevent moisture from infiltrating into our wood framing. So first, you have to locate where the ledger board will go and try to snap a level line. Then, you attach a layer of flashing onto the wall so that it will sit behind the ledger. We decided to use a waterproofing peel-n-stick material that is used on the roof to protect against ice dams and water damage. That's the black stuff you'll see in the picture.

After that, you install your ledger board. Shawn and Derald screwed it onto the wall for temporary support. The board gets bolted through the rim joist. After the ledger board was installed, Shawn and Derald tore down the scaffolding and moved it over to the other side.
Shawn decided not to work on the living room gable until a later time when he can get some help since he will be so high up in the air.

With the scaffolding up, it was easier to work on the ledger board as Shawn drilled the holes for the anchor bolts. We installed 5/8" galvanized anchor bolts. When I asked at the local lumber yard how many we would need, the guys said maybe one every two foot should be enough.
I was concerned about the number of bolts because we have a 1" of foam between the ledger board and the rim joist, and basically when you look at the mechanics and engineering of load distribution and such, that would not be enough. So we followed the bolting schedule recommended for our situation that I found online on some university engineering department website. When I asked for 30 bolts, the guy wondered if I plan to land a helicopter on that deck.
And yes, when you look at that ledger board, it definitely looks like overkill. So that ledger board isn't going anywhere.

We took pains to put a dab of caulking both inside and outside on the bolts to prevent moisture migration through the bolt holes, and also to reduce air infiltration which affects your heating loads for heating purposes.
Once the board was bolted, Shawn put a bead of caulking at the top between board and wall, then he installed what is called deck flashing. (That's the galvanized steel Z flashing that you see Shawn installing in this picture).

Once that was installed, another layer of the black waterproofing was installed over the of the deck flashing, and tucked under the Tyvek paper. So theoretically, any water that would happen to get behind the siding or the deck, will have nowhere to go but out.

Once Shawn was finished with that, he worked on finishing the siding under the ledger board, and did the trim around the door and window, then began siding the area above the ledger board.

Last weekend, my in-laws had tickets for the Speedway, so Derald helped Shawn a little bit in the morning on Saturday, and again on Sunday.
They finished with the siding, except where a base for an outdoor light needs to be installed, and they didn't go all the way up. Then they started working on the soffits, and this is a picture of the progress so far.

Next is to finish the soffit, build that little end triangle, and install the fascia.

We have decided that before the ground freezes, we'd like to run the water line, septic line, and the electricity to the house, and do some rough/final grading around the house, and inside the garage. So we've been busy quoting rock and sand, and mini-excavators and skid loaders to use sometime in October. Right now we are hunting for an electrician to do the electrical, since the one we had talked to had a heart attack over this summer and is not working at this time.

So Shawn will continue on with the soffit, and once we have the electrician lined-up, we'll switch gears and stop the soffit work to do all that other stuff. We'll see what we're up to next week.

Until then.

Shawn started working on the soffit on the garage last week, and he got the North garage soffit installed on Friday. Friday eve, Shawn's parents arrived, and the guys decided to tackle the soffit at the back of the house the next day since that would involve scaffolding to reach the two story roof eaves, and there would be 2 people to work on that. They also decided that since the scaffolding was up, we should do everything that needs to be done while they are up there.

So, they started installing the soffit from the SW corner of the house. It took a long time to set up the scaffolding and to do initial prep work from the ladders. To start at the corner, they needed to install soffit on the SW side of the house a little bit. So from ladders they used a level to mark on the wall the height of the eaves, then used a chalk line to snap a straight line on the wall.

Then an F-channel has to be installed along the wall. Click on the picture to see details. The soffit panels rest on this f-channel along the wall, and the other edge gets nailed to the roof subfascia. At the corner, the soffit is cut at a 45º angle, and a T-channel is used. Both pieces of soffit on either side of the t, slide into the little channels to hold them. When the soffit is done, the aluminum fascia goes on to cover the wood sub-fascia and that slides under the roof drip edge that was installed when the roofers shingled the house.

The guys installed the soffit as far as the scaffolding would reach. After lunch, they worked on finishing the siding to bring it up to the soffit. They also caulked around the window, and between the white trim and the siding. Once that was finished, they proceeded to install the aluminum fascia. You can see Shawn here as he nails the fascia into place.

Once the fascia was installed, the guys tore down the left side of the scaffolding and moved it to the other side. They installed a few more pieces of soffit, finished the siding, did some caulking. After that, they again tore the left side of the scaffolding down and hooked it on to the right side of the one left standing before it was time to quit for the day.

So on this next picture, that 20 ft of wall that you can see is finished with everything. A huge milestone in our Phase II of the construction. The rest of the weekend we spent it vegging out since Shawn caught Evan's cold and wasn't feeling too good. We were supposed to go my grandpa's for a labor day BBQ, but because of the threat of the flu, we decided to not go and spread germs all around.

Shawn worked some more on the soffit, and finished installing the soffit on the rest of this eave. Then he did some woodworking to seal up the eave at the end, when the roof stops and the living room gable starts. Here's a nice picture of his work. Next step will be to finish the fascia to the end. Then finish the siding up to the soffit and caulk around the window.

Then he'll have to tear down the scaffolding and move it over so he can start working on the living room gable. This part will be a lot harder, and a bit more dangerous since he'll be 20 to 25 ft in the air to reach the peak of the gable.
That gable part will also take a while since we have to finish all of that siding, and we have to figure out how to trim around the arched window.

We'll see what sort of progress we can make for next update.

Not much has happened

The past week and a half we've been researching all we can about soffit and fascia installation as well as the materials that we need.
Last weekend we bought the materials, and my parents were visiting, so my Dad helped Shawn unload the soffit from the trailer.
We got the Orange crush sold, and bought a nice sized utility trailer to tow behind our small SUV and so far that seems to work great!

Last night Shawn began to figure out how it all goes up. And tried to install the F-channel along the wall. He didn't like how it turned out, so he ripped it out and will try again this weekend.
Hopefully this type of work will go faster than siding, but we'll see.

Again, my father-in-law is coming over this Saturday to help Shawn with this work. We also bought a nice compound radial arm saw to cut the material from craigslist, and it looks like it will do all sort of neat cuts. So that should be a good investment. We've got a couple of books from the library to give us a little bit of know-how, so we should be able to figure out this soffit business. It doesn't look like complicated work, but one never knows.

Here is a picture from the last side of the house that Shawn finished before we halted the siding job.

We'll see what sort of progress the guys can make in a day with soffit. It would be nice if it goes a lot faster, but I presume that once they start going around the sides towards the back, there will be more time spent setting up scaffolding and climbing up and down than there will be on the soffit installation. Still, any progress is better than none at all.

Until next week!

No post last week.

The weekend before last, we went to the annual family camping trip with Shawn's parents, his siblings and their families, and during the week we were busy with other things so not much progress.

Shawn did manage to install the vertical siding on the NE wall of the house. Here you can see the extra help Shawn had on hand for transporting the trim.

On Saturday, Shawn's parents came down again and helped with the house. Pam spent the day with the weed wacker and the mower again, so our property looks decent once again.

Shawn and Derald spent the morning hours wacking weeds to create room for them to work on the NE side of the house, as well as shoveling some dirt around to make the ground less treacherous. Then they installed the trim and the bandboard, and prepped the bottom of the wall for siding.

Near lunchtime, it started to rain, so the guys got a longer break at lunch. They went back out in the afternoon, and while it was still rainning they worked on fixing the rear garage entry door. We believe that door was not installed right, and the garage might have settled a bit as well, so the door had trouble closing. I'm not sure what exactly they did to the door, but I think it is fixed. I guess I never asked what they did to it.

After it quit raining, the guys managed to get the bottom siding done. This part is always difficult because of the angle, not to mention that the slope is steeper than the other side, and because of that, the table for cutting and prepping the siding was a distance away. I think Derald discovered new hip and calf muscles he forgot existed.

By the end of the day, they started to set up the scaffolding so that Shawn could work on the upper level siding.

On Sunday, Shawn spent the day taking the Orange crush seat apart and fixing a few things since he is listing it for sale. He also went all out and cleaned it real nice, and changed the oil.

In the evening, we took some free mulch we got from Evan's daycare person to put around the small trees we are trying to grow. Makes it look much nicer, and also will help with mowing around them.

On Monday, he took the evening off from house work to spend some time with Evan. Since the creek running through our property is so low right now, Evan had fun walking along the river bed jumping from rocks into the water and trying to catch fish and frogs.

Last night Shawn spent the evening marking out the studs on the wall so he can side. If the potential buyer for the Orange crush gets back to us, we probably will be doing that tonight.

Otherwise, perhaps Shawn will start on the siding. Here is a nice view of the house. It is starting to look like a house with the siding going up.

We've decided that once he is done siding the upper part of this wall, we are going to stop working on the siding, and switch to installing the soffit and fascia next. Summer is almost gone, and the siding job has taken a lot longer than we hoped (and I can't imagine what the siding job would actually be right now if it wasn't for all the help from the in-laws!)

Sometimes Shawn wishes we would have picked vinyl siding. We probably would be done with the siding by now, but I am happy with this siding. (But of course, I'm not the one that has to install it.)

We want to make sure we get the house enclosed before winter, and worst case scenario we can put off siding until next spring. So next we are going to focus on the soffit and fascia to have that done before winter, so that snow does not blow into the house through the eaves. We don't need another winter of shoveling snow from inside the house.

And as a final parting picture, our sunflowers are blooming now, and here is Evan enjoying them.

Until next week.

Good Progress

On Thursday, the guys started bright and early setting up the scaffolding when I left for work.
When I came back, they had the SW wall of the Master Bath all done, as you can see here.

Then, they shoveled out the dirt out of the way along the next wall and installed the bottom aluminum flashing.

They had to make a trip into town to get some supplies, including some cedar wood to make some furring strips.

Because the basement is not *gasp* perfect, when the framer laid down the main floor in a couple of walls, the main floor projects over the basement a little. On this wall, it is about a half an inch. Structurally speaking, this isn't a problem. But, when it comes to siding, it makes it tricky. Hence, the furring strips.

In this picture you can see the concept. The furring strips were ripped to size from the cedar boards (so they won't rot with time). The furring strips are installed, and this will make the bottom basement flush with the main floor so that the siding will look right. The siding is installed on top of the furring strips.

At the bottom you can see some screen the guys are using to seal up that gap to keep insects and rodents from climbing up behind the siding.
You can also see Derald adding the extra Tyvek paper.

Some in the industry consider the use of furring strips behind the siding as a best management practice. In an ideal situation, you would put furring strips on the whole house and install your siding above that. This, they say, is to provide an air gap that allows any water that may get behind the siding to drain away and never have a chance to find its way inside the wall and rot away the framing. But that's a new trend, and who has time to put furring strips (not to mention the additional costs)?
What we did was to make sure we had proper flashing around the windows, and that the drainage plane (the tyvek) is installed correctly and any cuts or tears are taped and fixed. This way, moisture behind the siding will drain on the tyvek paper out and away from our framing members.

On Friday, Shawn and Derald did all they had to do to get ready for siding boards on the next two walls (locate and mark all the studs, extra tyvek, vertical and horizontal trim, bandboard, z-flashing, starter strips, move scaffolding around, etc.)
By then end on the day, they were well on their way with the siding, as evidenced in this picture.

My mother in-law arrived on Friday evening. She came to teach us how to butcher chickens. In case you forgot, earlier this year we got a batch of chicks in the mail. Out of 20 chickens, 9 turned out to be roosters. And though they are very handsome to look at, more than 2 roosters per 10 hens is too much. Not to mention two of them were very mean to our 2.5 year old, and one finally attacked him out-right. Since they didn't have spurs, they didn't hurt Evan, but that was enough of that. So, on Saturday morning the construction work was delayed while my FIL decapitated 5 of the 9 roosters, then we plucked them. The 4 remaining are on their grace period. If they misbehave, they will end up like the other five.

They guys went back to work, and my MIL taught me how to properly gut out and prepare the chickens for the freezer. My idea to get 100 broilers next year to raise to butcher them is now going to be on hold, indefinitely. I'll stick with pets that lay eggs, and make sure to order new chicks sexed as hens only. Oh, and by the way, we're getting about 2 eggs every other day now. Neat!

Back to construction:
This is a picture of the progress made in the three days of siding. So this side is done for now. There are a few details that we need to figure out around those window wells for the bottom windows before we can side that bottom wall.

So next, Shawn will move onto the other side of the house. We will leave the front of the house for last, since we will be switching to a shingle style siding on that front bedroom.

Shawn was gone on a business trip since Sunday, until last night, so no more work was done on the house since Saturday.

Till next week.

More siding

It took a while to get the bottom of the SW wall sided, because of the angle. If Shawn had 4 arms if would be better. So on the initial tricky part, we had to manage keeping both sets of eyes on Evan while I tried to help for a few minutes. Once the first two boards were up, it was easier since Shawn could now use the solo-siders to hold the boards while he measured and installed.

On Saturday, Shawn finished the bottom, and worked on prepping the upper part. He got the brown flashing in and the starter strip. In order for him to continue, he needed help to get the studs marked on the wall. Unfortunately, I wasn't feeling well enough to help him, so he had to wait for me to get better. Also, we were out of painted siding, so he spent most of Saturday afternoon painting boards. So here's the next batch of siding planks ready for use.

Sunday, Shawn didn't work on the house so we could spend some time as a family, mostly Church, napping while Evan napped and watching some movies.

Last night after work, while Evan entertained himself inside the new house doing who knows what (there were frogs and tubes of caulking involved), I climbed the ladder and held the chalk line lined up with a stud, while Shawn snapped the line on the outside. He then had enough daylight left to install the first board on the upper part. Yay!

Tonight, my FIL will arrive. And with two of them with nothing to do but side for the next three days from sunup to sundown, maybe the house siding will be done! Or, this may be the last time the in-laws visit the Goetz's down south for a few years to come.

Yesterday, the aluminum planks for the scaffolding hadn't arrived. We suspected the UPS guy left them at the neighbors as usual. However, this morning when we left for work, they were leaning against the side of the house. Either UPS delivers at the crack of dawn or in the middle of the night, or they did get delivered to the neighbor and he brought them over last night or this am when he left for work.
This always freaks me out that people can come and go into the property and we are never aware of it. I've considered installing a driveway alarm that will let me know when someone crosses into our driveway. Oh well.

Here is a shot of the attention to detail that Shawn is doing. He tried very hard to make sure the siding lines up as it goes around the house. This also made the first board to be installed kindof tricky, since it had to be ripped just right, and angled right as well. But looks nice in the end.
Tonight we'll have to do some grocery shopping so we have food for our guest, and probably have to do some cleaning so house looks decent.

Here's a final shot for you to enjoy. We caught Evan pretending to shave in the bathroom one evening (thank goodness the cover was still on the razor!). So next time daddy shaved, Shawn indulged Evan and invited him to use some shaving cream and pretend to shave. (Note to self: move shaving razors higher in the bathroom cabinet out of reach or install a safe.)

So, please pray for patience and good temperaments between father and son as they work together for three days straight! Also for good weather, no accidents, and good progress. An update next week!

Onto a new side

So Shawn's gone as far as he can go on the back.
Here's a couple of pictures that show how the back is shaping up.

Until we get the soffit and fascia done (meaning cover under the eaves of the roof), we can't side any higher. Once the soffit and fascia are done, we can put up two more rows of siding and the trim above the windows. Also, before we can finish that gable, we need to get more scaffolding to reach the higher areas.



On this next picture, you can see what's unfinished on this side. We need to install the joist for the deck right below the double doors upstairs and to the right of the door. The siding and trim have to be done a certain way leaving gaps above the deck to keep siding from touching any possible standing water.
Once that is done, we can bring the siding below up to the joist, and then side above between sliding door and living room and dining room windows.

Trim also needs to be installed around those windows, and that arched window above the living room one is going to be tricky to do. Also, my father-in-law is going to help Shawn through a marathon siding effort. They are going to take thursday and friday off from work next week, and really go at it.

So Shawn is ordering some aluminum scaffold planks for greater safety (the wood ones tend to creak and groan while working on them, and since they will be so high, it's a bit scarey to think that one might break) Derald is bringing the next set of scaffold he's picking up at Menards on his way here.

So Shawn has moved onto another wall! Yay!

This is the wall that faces SW. As you can see in the picture, Shawn started by digging the dirt at the bottom, then installing the pvc covered aluminum that will cover the exposed basement wall between the ground and the trim.

The foam blocks of the basement have a plastic stud at the corner, but that gets taken over by the trim, so theres nothing between the trim and the next plastic stud to attach the end of each siding piece. So Shawn installed the galvanized steel sheathing at the corners so that we have an anchoring surface for the siding.
With that done, he added about another foot of Tyvek paper to cover the seam between the main floor framing and the basement. Then he installed the vertical trim at each side, then the bottom trim piece, and finally the band board trim. Here's what that looks like.

He is now ready to start siding. He'll have to install the little brown z-flashing above horizontal trim, and put a started strip on.
On this wall, the bottom half will be the tricky part to start, since that bottom trim piece is at an angle. But overall, this will be much easier since there is only one window to side around.

Maybe Shawn can have this wall done in one weekend. That would be nice. Maybe progress will go a bit faster now. We'll see.

More next week!

We're onto the second half of the back

Shawn's parents came down on Friday night, so we could get an early start on Saturday.
First thing the guys did was to set up the second level to the scaffolding so they could reach higher. Then they set out to mark the studs along the wall on the outside.

Derald and Keith had done this a week earlier, but this time, Shawn wanted to snap a chalk line along each stud.

So Derald was inside the house on a ladder and would drop the chalk line over the eaves at the top of the wall and line it up with the center of the stud.

Outside, Shawn would use a level to level out the string and also measure the distance from the previous stud, then snap the line.

With that done, they proceeded to start laying the first two rows of siding above the band board (the big fat piece of trim between floors.) It takes quite a while to lay one board now because of all of the climbing up and down ladders and scaffolding.

Then, they cut and installed the trim around the master bedroom window since the scaffolding was already located under it.

After lunch, they had to dig into the dirt quite a ways so they could move the scaffolding over to the end of the wall. The ground slopes at that end, and it took a while to get the scaffolding to sit level.

Then they proceeded to trim around the bathroom window at that end, and they started again on starting the third row of siding. And by then it was already 6 pm and quitting time.
On Monday, Shawn put a piece of siding under the master bedroom window, and did the 4th row of siding up to the window. Now he's going to side all the way up between windows.

While the boys were siding on Saturday, Pam mowed all day. First she rode the lawn mower, then she took the brush mower in front of the new house, and when she ran out of gas, she discovered that the push mower had some, so she went around trimming trees with that. I wish I had that kind of energy! After she was done, our yard looked like a decent yard again.

I baby sat Evan and we supervised the work of the others.

I combined a couple of pictures to show a view of what the back of the house looks as of now. Once Shawn is done siding between bathroom and bedroom, he will have to take the scaffolding down, and move it over and side between bedroom and living room windows. We are going to buy a third level to scaffolding so that Shawn can reach up into the gable area above the living room windows.

You can also see in the picture right below the sliding door upstairs there's no siding. That's because there will be a deck installed there and we need to get the deck rim joist installed and then we can side around that. So, probably will do that here soon as Shawn gets closer to that side of the house to side.

That's it for now. More next week.

Overdue pictures

Here are the pictures from two weekends ago where my in-laws came with Shawn's uncle Keith and his family to help out.

In the morning, Pam and Aunt Wanda painted siding, and the cousins painted the trim boards.

Here you can see cousins Kelly and Chelsea as they paint some siding boards in the afternoon. Then once they painted the boards, they transferred them to the rack that Shawn made to hold the boards while they dried. Once dry, Shawn loaded them onto the Orange Crush to haul them to the new house.



In this picture you can see Derald testing the scaffolding they set up to reach a bit higher. There is a second level to the scaffolding that will be added once we start siding the main floor on the back.

And here, you can see Uncle Keith (in blue) assisting Shawn as they installed some siding.

to bring it all to the level of the top of the windows.






In these pictures, Pam and Wanda were hard at work sweeping out the inside of the basement and organized tools and materials in there. It was hot work, but they had fun as well.



















Last week, Shawn put the brown z-flashing over the windows, and finished siding the back of the basement.

Yes, indeed, the back of the basement is done, thought I didn't take a picture yet.
This week, when it was not raining, Shawn began installing the z-flashing over the thick band board trim that's between the basement and the main floor. He also began cutting the starter strip to do the first row of siding on the main floor at the back.

Pam and Derald are once again coming to help on Saturday. So, we'll get the second part of the scaffolding up, and we'll work on getting the trim around the windows done, then the siding will commence. Since now we'll be on the wood framing, maybe things will be a little bit faster since Shawn can get the nail-gun out instead of having to hand-screw the siding.

I'll try to remember to take a picture of the finished baseement to upload tomorrow. If not, until next week with more progress.

Ciao

Running a week behind in posts

This was supposed to be last weeks post.

Anyway, Shawn's parents came down on the weekend of the 20th, and Pam did a lot of painting of siding pieces. She also took it upon herself to mow our yard and to take the weed brush mower to the weeds in front of the house. That was nice.
At least the weeds help to keep the rain from eroding the house.

On the siding, Derald and Shawn made good progress. Here's a picture from that weekend's work. During the week, Shawn worked on bringing the level of siding up to the top of the windows.

Then last weekend, Derald and Pam came back again and they brought reinforcements. Shawn's uncle Keith and his family came down to help.

Shawn's aunt, Wanda and Pam painted siding, while Shawn's cousins Kelly and Chelsea painted trim boards.

Unfortunately, Shawn was sidelined with a migraine that day, so we were on our own as to what to do. Keith and Derald set up the scaffolding so that Shawn can side higher now. Also, they marked all of the studs along the main floor on the back wall, so that was nice.

After lunch, Shawn joined the fray and they finished siding the back wall up to the top of the windows. Then they tried to do the row of siding that would cover all of the windows. They realized then that there was a problem with the spacing, and had to take down that row. It was disappointing and it was 5 pm, so time to call it quits. But on the other hand it was a good thing, that they took that row of siding down. We overlooked the fact that we need to put some of that z-flashing above the horizontal trim at the top of the windows before the siding can continue.

So that's what Shawn has done on what little time he can find during the week. I was gone for a business trip, so not much more progress.

Tomorrow we have off work due to the 4th of July holiday, and Shawn took this afternoon off to hopefully get a good chunk of work done. The goal is to finish siding the basement back wall this weekend.

I'll try to upload pictures next week. Have a safe holiday! God bless.