Never got around to getting the pictures that I wanted to take, so not much to update.
Shawn did get to work on the skid loader on Wednesday night. He broke up the slab from the old small garage that we tore down in May, and dumped the concrete in the ravine to help control erosion there. Then it rained. It rained all day thursday, and the rental company said that they couldn't let us keep the skid loader for the weekend, so Shawn worked in the rain to move the big concrete pile that was by the barn. He also moved the big ol roots he had dug with the excavator, and did a few miscellaneous things. Since it was an open cab, he got soaked. I don't know how he can stand working soaking wet in the cold, but he did it anyway.
The soil was too wet to try and do anything around the house on Friday evening. Saturday, Shawn spent the day with Evan while I went shopping with my mum. The Saturday evening, Evan had an invitation to a neighbors trick or treating party, so we had some fun.
Sunday, Shawn worked on taking the mowing deck off the lawn tractor, and get it ready for the snow blower. He wanted to do that now while it is still decent, instead of waiting until it's too cold.
The he took the lawn tractor around with the trailer and moved his "shop" for doing soffit work into the garage, though it was still pretty muddy and got the mower stuck somewhere out there.
This weekend, he will help his grandma move into a new apartment, so no construction progress will be made.
The electrician did say that if it stays dry, they will do the outside work this week, and finish installing the inside panel on Monday. We'll see what happens between now and next Wednesday.
Oh, by the way... maybe you wondered what the heck was wrong with me that I kept saying I didn't feel good sometimes to help Shawn around the house construction. Shawn and I are expecting a baby girl, and we hadn't said anything to friends and co-workers until about a month ago. So the cat's out of the bag now. We're due in January, and can't wait to meet the newest member of our family.
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
Wednesday, October 21, 2009
Lot's to update, since I missed a post last week
After my last blog entry, Shawn cut off the cleanout from the septic line that we had installed inside, and I helped him redo the pipe and put the cleanout outside. I didn't take any pictures of the new setup before we backfilled the trench, but I can get some of the inside of the house so I'll have to get those for next week.
Two weekends ago, my father-in-law, Derald, came to help Shawn on Saturday. They worked on finishing the soffit and fascia, and the corner box at the back of the house. With that finished, they moved onto the East side, and got as far as the kitchen window (the double window in the picture). They had to use ladders because they left the scaffolding in place so that Shawn can do a bit of siding and finish caulking the double sliding door.
Shawn worked a bit on Sunday to do more, and got as far as the laundry room window, as you can see. Also, my dad suggested to Shawn that to try to do fascia by himself, maybe he could put a nail in the middle of the fascia to hold it up temporarily since it is lightweight, then nail each end. Shawn tried it out, and that seemed to work all right.
Then the flu hit our household, and Shawn helped me care for our son, so not much work got done that week. He also went away on a biz trip overnight during the week.
On Wednesday, we decided to rent a skid loader for the weekend to get all of the trenches backfilled, the grading done, and the garage floor leveled out. So we ordered 3 truckloads of 3/8" rock for the garage and slab base. The skid loader arrived on friday, and we had decided to rent it for 40 hours instead of just 16 because it seemed like maybe it would not be enough time.
Then Friday, Shawn began to get some flu symptoms. Uh Oh. But he stocked up on sudafed and nasal spray, and went to work on the yard. Unfortunately, the controls for this skid loader are so much stiffer than the one we had before. So his shoulder started to bother him, and even though it was painful, he felt he had no choice but to work on the project. Lots of Tylenol was consumed. But that still meant that he had to take more breaks to let his arm settle down a bit, and with the cold symptoms (that thankfully only lasted two days) it wasn't ideal conditions. But despite all of that, Shawn accomplished an amazing amount of tasks and completely transformed the landscape around the house. He took Monday off work since weather stayed nice.
Here's a picture of the front as of Monday pm. All of the trenches were backfilled, then he worked on the garage (and had to do much shoveling becuase it was hard to get the skid loader to do fine detail work by the walls inside. Didn't help the shoulder either). Then he spread the rock inside the garage, outside in front for the parking area, and in front of the main entrance. And look, we can now park our cars inside the garage (though we still need to level the rock in there someday)
And since Tuesday turned out to be nice weather, we took vacation from work to do as much as we could, since it calls for rain the rest of the week, and we return the skid loader on Friday.
We worked on getting the area in front of the window wells graded, and I think it will turn out nice once we add some grass, rock, and cut the level of the window wells down. I am happy that I get more view out of those windows than previously. So use your imagination to picture the slopes on each side covered with rock, the window wells lower, and nice grass to finish it all off.
You can see the two wires sticking out of the ground between the window wells. Sometime the electrician will come out to hook up the electricity and install a main panel in the house. With rain for the rest of the week, I doubt it will happen until next week now. Unless they come out on Saturday.
On this next picture, you can see the grade on this part of the house. I think it turned out nice. And the chickens really appreciated all of that fresh dirt and all the worms they could find in there. If you look closely you can see a couple of my chooks checking out the new landscape.
Here is a picture of the progress we were making along the back. This was about 2 pm yesterday. Shawn went into the house to use the restroom and I was taking pictures when I heard a loud buzzing sort of grinding noise.
So I headed back to the old house, and asked Shawn what was making the noise, and he said it was the propane tank, and that my mother, who was in the house, thought she smelled propane in there (Shawn thought it smelled like sauerkraut, and thought it might be something my mum cooked). So I called the Co-op, and the guy on the phone said that regulators from time to time will buzz and you can hear it if you're standing next to the tank. I said I was about 200 ft. away and I could hear it, and mentioned that my mum thought it smelled like propane in the house, though when I went in, I thought maybe it was a faint smell, but not sure. That changed his tone of voice very quickly and told us to stay outside and sent a technician out to do a safety check. Ten minutes and the guy was at our property.
So for the next two hours I went around the house with the guy checking this and that, and Shawn continued to work on the grading. The tech guy put a pressure valve and pressurized the system and watched the gauge drop in pressure. Yeap, there must be a leak somewhere.
He had a nice little sniffer, and he checked the stove. No leaks there. So then he went to our old heater, and the sniffer did detect a small leak, though it was minuscule and not something he would worry about. He closed the valve to the heater, and we were still losing pressure. So he went to the water heater, and the shut off valve leaks, but it really shouldn't be dropping that much pressure. So he shut that valve off, and still we lost pressure. So the guy now is puzzled, and thinks there's a leak in the pipe somewhere in the house. Nope, not there. So he takes off the regulators at the house and at the tank. Nope, those work fine. So he tested the line between tank and house. "Holy cow! You guys have an underground leak in your line somewhere."
My lightbulb goes on, and I mention that I suspected the electric coop hit our gas line last year when they installed the power to the pole and ran a trencher through the area, though they said that no, they hadn't. So the guy goes and pokes some holes in the ground where the electric trench was dug last year, and stuck the sniffer thingy in there.
He was so excited, the little sniffer thingy was new and he'd never used it to check propane levels on the ground. So he got the manual out to check for underground leaks. So he pokes some holes in the dirt, then dropped a sensor in the hole and checked. He said he'd better check the manual, because his reading couldn't be right. So he did it again, following instructions step by step. His readings were right. Our soil is 20% propane between house and tank. He said that if the house wasn't there, he would have liked to start the soil on fire to see it burn. So yeah, we've been leaking propane into the dirt for some time.
Really Nice. Since last October we've been pumping money into the ground. We did think our propane bills were outrageous last winter, but it was so cold, and with the old house (and Evan cranking the heater to it's maximum setting when we weren't looking) we really didn't look much into it. They guy said that with our propane use, we should have been at 60% full on our tank at this point after our last fill, so the leak would explain why we're at 20% instead.
So the easy fix was to rent a rubber hose from the co-op to put between tank and the old house that will go above ground, since we don't plan on living in the old house and hope to move soon. We had to move the tank closer to the house, so Shawn did that with the skid loader, while the guy went to get a rubber hose. He said that if after the underground leak was fixed, and we still had leaks at the heater and water heater, he couldn't let us hook up again until we got those two things fixed. Thank God that after he put the rubber hose on the tank, the pressure gauge held even after 20 minutes of chit-chatting while we waited. He then went around again to do the sniffing thing safety check, and he said we're ok. The water heater shut off does leak, but what he said was that would only be a problem if the pilot light ever goes out. So keep an eye on the water heater, since, reasonably, he didn't expect us to buy a new one for the old house.
At least we won't be wasting any more money pumping propane into the soil.
So, back to grading. Here's a nice shot from the SW angle of the house. Shawn worked until about 9 pm to get it all done. I'll have more pictures of the back and East side for next week since it was too dark by then.
Today it supposedly rained a bit, so we'll see how the ground is when we get home tonight. Maybe Shawn can mess around with the skid loader to move some concrete chunks that are by the barn, and touch up any areas of that house grading that might need it. Otherwise, he might just give his shoulder a break. If he can't work tonight, tomorrow I'll call the rental place and see if they would let us keep the skid loader until Monday, since we've only used about 22 hrs of the 40. We'll see what they say. After this is done, I suppose is back to soffit and fascia for Shawn. Siding... we might be done for the year, since I think the boards get stiff with the cold and the nails might blow out the back of the siding boards. We'll just take it a week at a time and see what we can do.
Two weekends ago, my father-in-law, Derald, came to help Shawn on Saturday. They worked on finishing the soffit and fascia, and the corner box at the back of the house. With that finished, they moved onto the East side, and got as far as the kitchen window (the double window in the picture). They had to use ladders because they left the scaffolding in place so that Shawn can do a bit of siding and finish caulking the double sliding door.Shawn worked a bit on Sunday to do more, and got as far as the laundry room window, as you can see. Also, my dad suggested to Shawn that to try to do fascia by himself, maybe he could put a nail in the middle of the fascia to hold it up temporarily since it is lightweight, then nail each end. Shawn tried it out, and that seemed to work all right.
Then the flu hit our household, and Shawn helped me care for our son, so not much work got done that week. He also went away on a biz trip overnight during the week.
On Wednesday, we decided to rent a skid loader for the weekend to get all of the trenches backfilled, the grading done, and the garage floor leveled out. So we ordered 3 truckloads of 3/8" rock for the garage and slab base. The skid loader arrived on friday, and we had decided to rent it for 40 hours instead of just 16 because it seemed like maybe it would not be enough time.
Then Friday, Shawn began to get some flu symptoms. Uh Oh. But he stocked up on sudafed and nasal spray, and went to work on the yard. Unfortunately, the controls for this skid loader are so much stiffer than the one we had before. So his shoulder started to bother him, and even though it was painful, he felt he had no choice but to work on the project. Lots of Tylenol was consumed. But that still meant that he had to take more breaks to let his arm settle down a bit, and with the cold symptoms (that thankfully only lasted two days) it wasn't ideal conditions. But despite all of that, Shawn accomplished an amazing amount of tasks and completely transformed the landscape around the house. He took Monday off work since weather stayed nice.
Here's a picture of the front as of Monday pm. All of the trenches were backfilled, then he worked on the garage (and had to do much shoveling becuase it was hard to get the skid loader to do fine detail work by the walls inside. Didn't help the shoulder either). Then he spread the rock inside the garage, outside in front for the parking area, and in front of the main entrance. And look, we can now park our cars inside the garage (though we still need to level the rock in there someday)And since Tuesday turned out to be nice weather, we took vacation from work to do as much as we could, since it calls for rain the rest of the week, and we return the skid loader on Friday.
We worked on getting the area in front of the window wells graded, and I think it will turn out nice once we add some grass, rock, and cut the level of the window wells down. I am happy that I get more view out of those windows than previously. So use your imagination to picture the slopes on each side covered with rock, the window wells lower, and nice grass to finish it all off.You can see the two wires sticking out of the ground between the window wells. Sometime the electrician will come out to hook up the electricity and install a main panel in the house. With rain for the rest of the week, I doubt it will happen until next week now. Unless they come out on Saturday.
On this next picture, you can see the grade on this part of the house. I think it turned out nice. And the chickens really appreciated all of that fresh dirt and all the worms they could find in there. If you look closely you can see a couple of my chooks checking out the new landscape.Here is a picture of the progress we were making along the back. This was about 2 pm yesterday. Shawn went into the house to use the restroom and I was taking pictures when I heard a loud buzzing sort of grinding noise.
So I headed back to the old house, and asked Shawn what was making the noise, and he said it was the propane tank, and that my mother, who was in the house, thought she smelled propane in there (Shawn thought it smelled like sauerkraut, and thought it might be something my mum cooked). So I called the Co-op, and the guy on the phone said that regulators from time to time will buzz and you can hear it if you're standing next to the tank. I said I was about 200 ft. away and I could hear it, and mentioned that my mum thought it smelled like propane in the house, though when I went in, I thought maybe it was a faint smell, but not sure. That changed his tone of voice very quickly and told us to stay outside and sent a technician out to do a safety check. Ten minutes and the guy was at our property.
So for the next two hours I went around the house with the guy checking this and that, and Shawn continued to work on the grading. The tech guy put a pressure valve and pressurized the system and watched the gauge drop in pressure. Yeap, there must be a leak somewhere.
He had a nice little sniffer, and he checked the stove. No leaks there. So then he went to our old heater, and the sniffer did detect a small leak, though it was minuscule and not something he would worry about. He closed the valve to the heater, and we were still losing pressure. So he went to the water heater, and the shut off valve leaks, but it really shouldn't be dropping that much pressure. So he shut that valve off, and still we lost pressure. So the guy now is puzzled, and thinks there's a leak in the pipe somewhere in the house. Nope, not there. So he takes off the regulators at the house and at the tank. Nope, those work fine. So he tested the line between tank and house. "Holy cow! You guys have an underground leak in your line somewhere."
My lightbulb goes on, and I mention that I suspected the electric coop hit our gas line last year when they installed the power to the pole and ran a trencher through the area, though they said that no, they hadn't. So the guy goes and pokes some holes in the ground where the electric trench was dug last year, and stuck the sniffer thingy in there.
He was so excited, the little sniffer thingy was new and he'd never used it to check propane levels on the ground. So he got the manual out to check for underground leaks. So he pokes some holes in the dirt, then dropped a sensor in the hole and checked. He said he'd better check the manual, because his reading couldn't be right. So he did it again, following instructions step by step. His readings were right. Our soil is 20% propane between house and tank. He said that if the house wasn't there, he would have liked to start the soil on fire to see it burn. So yeah, we've been leaking propane into the dirt for some time.
Really Nice. Since last October we've been pumping money into the ground. We did think our propane bills were outrageous last winter, but it was so cold, and with the old house (and Evan cranking the heater to it's maximum setting when we weren't looking) we really didn't look much into it. They guy said that with our propane use, we should have been at 60% full on our tank at this point after our last fill, so the leak would explain why we're at 20% instead.
So the easy fix was to rent a rubber hose from the co-op to put between tank and the old house that will go above ground, since we don't plan on living in the old house and hope to move soon. We had to move the tank closer to the house, so Shawn did that with the skid loader, while the guy went to get a rubber hose. He said that if after the underground leak was fixed, and we still had leaks at the heater and water heater, he couldn't let us hook up again until we got those two things fixed. Thank God that after he put the rubber hose on the tank, the pressure gauge held even after 20 minutes of chit-chatting while we waited. He then went around again to do the sniffing thing safety check, and he said we're ok. The water heater shut off does leak, but what he said was that would only be a problem if the pilot light ever goes out. So keep an eye on the water heater, since, reasonably, he didn't expect us to buy a new one for the old house.
At least we won't be wasting any more money pumping propane into the soil.
So, back to grading. Here's a nice shot from the SW angle of the house. Shawn worked until about 9 pm to get it all done. I'll have more pictures of the back and East side for next week since it was too dark by then.Today it supposedly rained a bit, so we'll see how the ground is when we get home tonight. Maybe Shawn can mess around with the skid loader to move some concrete chunks that are by the barn, and touch up any areas of that house grading that might need it. Otherwise, he might just give his shoulder a break. If he can't work tonight, tomorrow I'll call the rental place and see if they would let us keep the skid loader until Monday, since we've only used about 22 hrs of the 40. We'll see what they say. After this is done, I suppose is back to soffit and fascia for Shawn. Siding... we might be done for the year, since I think the boards get stiff with the cold and the nails might blow out the back of the siding boards. We'll just take it a week at a time and see what we can do.
Wednesday, October 7, 2009
Slow week
Between rainy days and a friend's wedding on the weekend, not much happened at the construction site.
I did get a hold of the county Sanitation engineer, and luckily they decided we didn't need a permit to dig up the septic line, even though it is an alteration to it. The county engineer did want us to let him know when the pipe was laid so they can come out and survey it. This way it will be on record where the pipe goes if in the future we ever sell the house. So he was supposed to come out this morning. We'll see if we don't find some sort of notice saying we're violating something or other.
Shawn's brother, Brian, and his wife, Cari, came down with Blair on Friday night and stayed with us since it was a mutual friend who got married on Saturday. It was nice to visit and see Blair. Evan had a good time with her, and it was good to see them.
Shawn worked on breaking through the wall a little bit on Saturday am, and again on Sunday after his brother and family left. He used the bigger drill bit and his air-hammer chisel. After some sore shoulders and numb wrists, he finally broke through! He did encounter a piece of horizontal rebar that he had to cut through with his sawzall.
With the hole ready, he put in his 8 in PVC coupler that he's using as a sleeve, and foamed it all up with expanding foam to secure it to the wall and seal between the sleeve and concrete.
Then he hooked up the rest of the pipe through the sleeve, then sealed it all up. He then went inside the house and installed a sweep elbow and a cleanout so that if we ever need to get to the pipe, we don't have to dig it all out.
Here you can see him filling it up with foam. That should be it for plumbing until later this winter when we start working on the inside plumbing.
Monday, he was out of commission with a Migraine, and last night he was going to try to do some soffit and fascia, but the scaffolding was too slippery and it was very windy. Wisely, he chose not to do anything. Not to mention that the fascia is a two person job. One to hold it up, while the other nails it up. So we'll see if on Saturday I can help him out with that.
If we get the fascia up where he's done the soffit on the SE corner of the back, then he has to move the scaffolding over so he can finish up building that end piece triangle and finish the soffit to it, and to finish caulking the door. It seems like the weather will not improve much, so we may end up not finishing the siding and fascia this falls as we'd planned. If it doesn't warm up again, we may be done caulking for this year too. We'll see.
We still have to backfill the trenches and do some grading, but we're waiting on the electrical. We have two more quotes to receive, and we hope to have a decision by next week, so they can come and install that wire.
Speaking of the county engineer, guess who just called? Everything looked fine except that code requires we put a cleanout on the pipe before it enters the house. I said we put it inside, and he said that it needs to be outside right before going through the wall. Nice.
So, Shawn has to now cut off the pipe, put a cleanout and redo the pipe going into the wall. Basically that sweep and cleanout that he put inside are wasted. The other thing is that the cleanout has to come all the way up to the grade level so they don't have to dig down to the pipe if it ever needs to be cleaned out. Ah, the joys of surprises.
So Shawn will probably work on the plumbing some more. We should also lay down that blue foam in the trench for the water line under the concrete. Then we'll see what else Shawn can work on. Maybe soffit and fascia around the garage and work his way back to the back? Or maybe start doing something to the window wells? Maybe put plastic in the front porch to seal it up, since we most likely will not do soffit in there until we get to siding the front? (Also to keep a cat out that keeps going into the house through the roof in the front porch).
Oh, we need to install some truss hangers that the framer didn't install last winter, because the garage floor is not level and they couldn't get to it without slipping in the snow in there.
Shawn could start working on designing the plumbing for the basement, since that's what we want to work on this winter. I'm sure there's plenty that can be done between now and skid loader time.
Until next week.
I did get a hold of the county Sanitation engineer, and luckily they decided we didn't need a permit to dig up the septic line, even though it is an alteration to it. The county engineer did want us to let him know when the pipe was laid so they can come out and survey it. This way it will be on record where the pipe goes if in the future we ever sell the house. So he was supposed to come out this morning. We'll see if we don't find some sort of notice saying we're violating something or other.
Shawn's brother, Brian, and his wife, Cari, came down with Blair on Friday night and stayed with us since it was a mutual friend who got married on Saturday. It was nice to visit and see Blair. Evan had a good time with her, and it was good to see them.
Shawn worked on breaking through the wall a little bit on Saturday am, and again on Sunday after his brother and family left. He used the bigger drill bit and his air-hammer chisel. After some sore shoulders and numb wrists, he finally broke through! He did encounter a piece of horizontal rebar that he had to cut through with his sawzall.
With the hole ready, he put in his 8 in PVC coupler that he's using as a sleeve, and foamed it all up with expanding foam to secure it to the wall and seal between the sleeve and concrete.Then he hooked up the rest of the pipe through the sleeve, then sealed it all up. He then went inside the house and installed a sweep elbow and a cleanout so that if we ever need to get to the pipe, we don't have to dig it all out.
Here you can see him filling it up with foam. That should be it for plumbing until later this winter when we start working on the inside plumbing.Monday, he was out of commission with a Migraine, and last night he was going to try to do some soffit and fascia, but the scaffolding was too slippery and it was very windy. Wisely, he chose not to do anything. Not to mention that the fascia is a two person job. One to hold it up, while the other nails it up. So we'll see if on Saturday I can help him out with that.
If we get the fascia up where he's done the soffit on the SE corner of the back, then he has to move the scaffolding over so he can finish up building that end piece triangle and finish the soffit to it, and to finish caulking the door. It seems like the weather will not improve much, so we may end up not finishing the siding and fascia this falls as we'd planned. If it doesn't warm up again, we may be done caulking for this year too. We'll see.
We still have to backfill the trenches and do some grading, but we're waiting on the electrical. We have two more quotes to receive, and we hope to have a decision by next week, so they can come and install that wire.
Speaking of the county engineer, guess who just called? Everything looked fine except that code requires we put a cleanout on the pipe before it enters the house. I said we put it inside, and he said that it needs to be outside right before going through the wall. Nice.
So, Shawn has to now cut off the pipe, put a cleanout and redo the pipe going into the wall. Basically that sweep and cleanout that he put inside are wasted. The other thing is that the cleanout has to come all the way up to the grade level so they don't have to dig down to the pipe if it ever needs to be cleaned out. Ah, the joys of surprises.
So Shawn will probably work on the plumbing some more. We should also lay down that blue foam in the trench for the water line under the concrete. Then we'll see what else Shawn can work on. Maybe soffit and fascia around the garage and work his way back to the back? Or maybe start doing something to the window wells? Maybe put plastic in the front porch to seal it up, since we most likely will not do soffit in there until we get to siding the front? (Also to keep a cat out that keeps going into the house through the roof in the front porch).
Oh, we need to install some truss hangers that the framer didn't install last winter, because the garage floor is not level and they couldn't get to it without slipping in the snow in there.
Shawn could start working on designing the plumbing for the basement, since that's what we want to work on this winter. I'm sure there's plenty that can be done between now and skid loader time.
Until next week.
Thursday, October 1, 2009
Continuing yesterday's post
Shawn got the window well area excavated and the trench line dug to the pit where the septic line is. Our electric line will cross under the sewer line, but as long as we keep at least a foot of space between the two, we should be ok. (Or so the electricians say)
Shawn went around and started digging from the septic hole back to the utility pole where our meter panel is. This is the part I was most nervous about. And no matter how many times Shawn kept saying that the high power line coming from the street is buried like 6 ft, I still was grumpy about him digging right over it. So here he is, right next to the pole, and he is still alive after that.
Once I was finally sure he wasn't electrocuted, I left with Evan to go to Lowe's to buy the fittings for the water line and one coupling we needed to repair the sewer on Sunday evening.
In the meantime, Shawn went behind the new house and used the exacavator to bring up piles of dirt that had been placed there during excavation last year, but had been out of reach with the skid loader. We need that dirt to properly do the grading on the East side of the house where we were short of some dirt. And since we had gone over the 8hrs anyway on the machine, he decided to go around the yard and pull up some stumps that he's been cursing for the last few years every time he mowed. Serves them right for breaking our mower deck.
When I got back, it was late evening, and Shawn finally fixed the septic line. Yes, we could shower again and use the toilet.
On Monday, Shawn was really bothered by that one elbow connection in the new sewer line that didn't go in all the way. So he decided the time to fix it was now, or he'd kick himself later if it ever failed and we had to dig it back up. So he cut the elbow out, and installed a new one. He asked for my help to make sure that pipe went into the fitting all the way in.
So with that fixed, he hooked up the water line to the rural line. We're not going to turn the water at this point because there will be no heat in the house this winter, and we don't want that water line to freeze. But we're thinking maybe we should to test the pipe, then shut if back off. We might do that if we can figure out how to drain that line so no water remains in it. I suppose we could add the food grade antifreeze to it (not the toxic car stuff) to be safe. We'll see.
On Tuesday night, we re-checked the slope of the new septic pipe as we began to add some sand under it for support and for a bit of protection.
Here I am, working on stuffing some sand under that pipe, and checking slope, while Shawn shoveled in some sand from the sand piles. He only hit me once with a shovelfull of sand. So not too bad.
Last night Shawn marked the location where the septic line will enter the house. We really should be renting a core drill for this part, but that is expensive. So Shawn thought he'd try first to drill a circle with his hammer drill and a bit for cement, then maybe whack the cement in the middle in one big chunk. We forgot we have 4000 psi cement in the wall. So after drilling all of the circles with a 1/2" bit, he tried to bust through the concrete. That ain't happening. Normal concrete you can crack and hack at it. The stuff in our wall? Maybe a chip the size of a marble falls off with each blow.
So he thought maybe he could drill a small pie section and try to whack that. Nope. Concrete is not budging. After Evan went to bed I came out and wisely held a steel wedge for him positioned over the holes he drilled (which are spaced about 1/4" apart) while he hit the wedge with the sledge hammer. You'd think that with those holes so close together the concrete would give way in between. You'd think. After about twenty minutes, and no smashed fingers, we were able to chip away 1.5" inches in that small pie section. Yay, progress.
So today I'm going to price core drills and see what they really cost. Before we do rent it, Shawn is going to try to upgrade to a 3/4" or 1" bit that we have and re-drill the holes. Ideally this would drill the concrete between the 1/2" holes and we should be able to push a plug of concrete out.
Our luck? There will be a horizontal and vertical rebar crossing at 90º angles right in the center of the circle, and that chunk of concrete is not going out, unless Shawn can figure out how to get a sawsall in there to cut the steel. We'll see what happens.
Also, we met with another electrician on Tuesday for another quote. Hopefully we can finalize something with that. Though the first quote we got knocked our socks off. Electrical is not cheap, specially when that outside feeder wire is about $2 a foot and we have 260 ft of it to buy. Ouch.
Oh, and guess what? I think we were supposed to pull a permit for the new septic line. Ooops. I'll have to call the county to double check. Hopefully we're not in trouble.
Until next week. I'll leave you with Evan and his nice birthday cake he made.
Shawn went around and started digging from the septic hole back to the utility pole where our meter panel is. This is the part I was most nervous about. And no matter how many times Shawn kept saying that the high power line coming from the street is buried like 6 ft, I still was grumpy about him digging right over it. So here he is, right next to the pole, and he is still alive after that.Once I was finally sure he wasn't electrocuted, I left with Evan to go to Lowe's to buy the fittings for the water line and one coupling we needed to repair the sewer on Sunday evening.
In the meantime, Shawn went behind the new house and used the exacavator to bring up piles of dirt that had been placed there during excavation last year, but had been out of reach with the skid loader. We need that dirt to properly do the grading on the East side of the house where we were short of some dirt. And since we had gone over the 8hrs anyway on the machine, he decided to go around the yard and pull up some stumps that he's been cursing for the last few years every time he mowed. Serves them right for breaking our mower deck.
When I got back, it was late evening, and Shawn finally fixed the septic line. Yes, we could shower again and use the toilet.
On Monday, Shawn was really bothered by that one elbow connection in the new sewer line that didn't go in all the way. So he decided the time to fix it was now, or he'd kick himself later if it ever failed and we had to dig it back up. So he cut the elbow out, and installed a new one. He asked for my help to make sure that pipe went into the fitting all the way in.
So with that fixed, he hooked up the water line to the rural line. We're not going to turn the water at this point because there will be no heat in the house this winter, and we don't want that water line to freeze. But we're thinking maybe we should to test the pipe, then shut if back off. We might do that if we can figure out how to drain that line so no water remains in it. I suppose we could add the food grade antifreeze to it (not the toxic car stuff) to be safe. We'll see.
On Tuesday night, we re-checked the slope of the new septic pipe as we began to add some sand under it for support and for a bit of protection.Here I am, working on stuffing some sand under that pipe, and checking slope, while Shawn shoveled in some sand from the sand piles. He only hit me once with a shovelfull of sand. So not too bad.
Last night Shawn marked the location where the septic line will enter the house. We really should be renting a core drill for this part, but that is expensive. So Shawn thought he'd try first to drill a circle with his hammer drill and a bit for cement, then maybe whack the cement in the middle in one big chunk. We forgot we have 4000 psi cement in the wall. So after drilling all of the circles with a 1/2" bit, he tried to bust through the concrete. That ain't happening. Normal concrete you can crack and hack at it. The stuff in our wall? Maybe a chip the size of a marble falls off with each blow.
So he thought maybe he could drill a small pie section and try to whack that. Nope. Concrete is not budging. After Evan went to bed I came out and wisely held a steel wedge for him positioned over the holes he drilled (which are spaced about 1/4" apart) while he hit the wedge with the sledge hammer. You'd think that with those holes so close together the concrete would give way in between. You'd think. After about twenty minutes, and no smashed fingers, we were able to chip away 1.5" inches in that small pie section. Yay, progress.
So today I'm going to price core drills and see what they really cost. Before we do rent it, Shawn is going to try to upgrade to a 3/4" or 1" bit that we have and re-drill the holes. Ideally this would drill the concrete between the 1/2" holes and we should be able to push a plug of concrete out.
Our luck? There will be a horizontal and vertical rebar crossing at 90º angles right in the center of the circle, and that chunk of concrete is not going out, unless Shawn can figure out how to get a sawsall in there to cut the steel. We'll see what happens.
Also, we met with another electrician on Tuesday for another quote. Hopefully we can finalize something with that. Though the first quote we got knocked our socks off. Electrical is not cheap, specially when that outside feeder wire is about $2 a foot and we have 260 ft of it to buy. Ouch.
Oh, and guess what? I think we were supposed to pull a permit for the new septic line. Ooops. I'll have to call the county to double check. Hopefully we're not in trouble.
Until next week. I'll leave you with Evan and his nice birthday cake he made.
Wednesday, September 30, 2009
Utilities
After the last update, Shawn installed that mount block for the outdoor light by the kitchen sliding door, and finished the siding up to the soffit. He also worked on caulking the siding and the window, and started caulking on the sliding door. He still needs to finish the soffit and fascia on that side before the scaffolding goes down.
Fall rains have started, and last year it rained every weekend in October and most of November. So Shawn didn't want to risk a repeat of that, so he decided to rent an excavator to run the utilities to the house. The didn't have the mini one he wanted, nor the next in size, so we had to go with a medium sized one. On Thursday, we ordered 2 truckloads of sand to use in the trenches, and they arrived in the evening.
Evan loved to watch the big big big big big dumb trucks (as he puts it), and has been playing in the sand piles every day since.
Theexcavator arrived on Saturday at 9 am, and, of course, Evan was excited about the big equipment. He had to go for a ride in the excavator with daddy and helped pull levers for a little while, then got bored and went back to the sand piles.
This is what the house looked like by Sunday afternoon. Looks just like last September, only there's a house there and not just a hole for a basement.
We knew that the one utility that would take the longest to do would be the septic line from the new house to the septic. So, Shawn decided to start by locating the septic pipe that runs from the old house to the septic tank, (which if you remember was actually built and sized with the new house in mind when we bought the property five years ago). So Shawn started out with slow, clumsy movements on that thing.
Last year, when the electric company broke through our sewer line close to the old house, the pipe was buried about 4 to 5 ft. below grade. We assumed that the pipe should be buried below the frost level. So Shawn was not expecting to rip through the sewer pipe with the mini-excavator at about 2.5 ft from grade. OOoops.
*Insert expletive of your choice here* It was frustrating because you pay a guy to do things for you, and seems like you have to do things yourself to do them better. We are surprised that septic line hasn't frozen yet, which means it has maintained enough slope so that water hasn't pooled in there long enough to freeze. It could also be that this close to the septic tank, maybe the tank generates heat in the decomposing process and has kept the pipe warm enough to keep from freezing. Who knows.
Well, there was no sense in fixing the broken sewer right away since we had to tie the new line to it. Which meant that we had no toilet, shower or sink available to use. Yeah, dishes piled up real fast over the weekend (on top of the dishes that piled up during the week since we like to save them for the weekend) and we were creative with our toilet needs.
Our friend Kaya came to chop up some wood to replace the split wood that we gave him for his fireplace. He was kind enough to buy some extra pipe and fittings to eventually repair that septic line, so that saved us a trip into town.
To lay the new line, Shawn needed to figure out where that new line would go. So now that the septic pipe was located, we took some reference measurements from two corners of the house to the point of connection on the old septic line. Then Shawn used his CAD software to draw out the new line, so that it would come into the front of the house. The perfect septic line would be a straight line from the house to the septic. This is not possible with our conditions, so Shawn designed the pipe so as to not use any bends over 22.5º angles. Also, he needed to take into account the slope of the line, so that waste water will flow down to the septic. So our line gently curves towards the house. After he had his numbers, we measured from different corners of the house for the location of the bends and the layout of the pipe, and spray painted it on the grass.
Shawn was now ready to dig that septic trench. Here's a shot of the excavator starting at the house. Shawn worked his way back to the broken septic line. Oh, and do you happen to remember that black corrugated pipe that we had installed last winter around the house before backfilling the basement to be used for the gutter downspouts to drain? Yeap, Shawn found it all right. I was supposed to keep an eye out for it, and we were doing good, but I turned around to reach for the pipe we were using to measure how deep he needed to go, and riiiiip, there was the pipe. So he was 2 for 2 at this point. That needs to be fixed before we backfill.
Then Shawn is happily digging his trench, and he is now about ten feet away from reaching the old septic line when suddenly he hits something and WHOOSH! the ground collapses a bit and black murky water splashed up and it stunk like crazy. An old septic tank.
How ironic. Had Shawn designed the pipe to go over a few feet on either side of the spot he picked, he would have completely missed it. And the thing is that last year when the excavator dug the basement he busted through a bunch of clay pipes, and we were wondering what the heck they were for because the old septic tank for the house was supposed to be partially under the bathroom of the old house. Had we asked for 4 foot trenches around the basement instead of three, the excavator would have found it last year. So that makes us wonder if the guy that installed our septic fibbed a little when he said he couldn't really get to the old septic tank very well, but did fill it with sand when we had the new one built. God does things for a reason. Had the little excavator Shawn wanted been available, it would have had difficulty busting through the steel reinforced concrete box. At least it would have taken a lot longer, and with the medium excavator, it still took about an hour to bust through the thing, get it out of there, and the hole filled with sand. Then he finished trenching for the septic line.
Now, he went to work on digging the trench for the water line to go from the meter pit of the rural water company to the water line that we buried under the footings last year. See what white pipe sticking up? Before we backfilled the basement, Shawn put that pipe over the water line so we could find it again when it was time, and to keep us from damaging the water line when we excavated it. It was time now.
The water line runs in front of the garage. Even though we are burying it 5 ft. below grade, which should be plenty to stay below frost depth, I am concerned that the slab in front of the garage will be right above it. That concrete can get so cold that it can push the frost level deeper into the soil. So to protect our water line, we will be putting a layer of 2" Blue foam over the top before we backfill to help insulate it.
Here's Shawn digging the waterline trench in front of the garage. He's getting pretty good by now with the excavator and work is going faster (except for the billions of rocks in this hill. He got out some nice big ones)
When the rural water company installed the meter pit, the installed 5 ft of pipe beyond the meter pit for us to tie into it and put a stake at that location. (Perhaps they have enough experience with people trenching right into the meter pit and braking it) Anyway, by the end of the day Saturday, Shawn had about three feet to hit the stake.
On Sunday, he finished trenching to the stake, and not wanting to be 3 for 3, he decided to be cautious this time and reach the pipe by digging with a shovel. Of course, the rural water people did their job right and that pipe was buried about 6 ft into the ground. Also, the long stake was pushed when they backfilled, so it was actually at an angle, and the end of the pipe was actually about three feet farther away than where the stake poke out of the ground. After about an hour of shoveling, and that stake kept going lower and lower and at an angle, Shawn decided to hop back on the excavator to help speed things up. And no, he didn't hit the pipe. He excavated down about 4 feet right over the pipe and shoveled out the last foot. At last, that pipe was visible.
Shawn laid down the water line in the trench, and began to hook it up. Here is is making the connection at the house. The blue pipe is the one the plumber buried last winter when he did the basement under slab plumbing before the basement slab was poured. Now Shawn goes over to the other side to tie into the rural water pipe. Uh oh. That water line is not flexible water line (like the black and blue ones). Instead is CPVC rigid pipe. Drats, we don't have the right fittings for that. I guess we still needed a trip into town.
So Shawn set aside that project, and went back to the sewer line. He laid down and dry fitted the septic line to make sure it would fit within the trench (he kindof drove over the paint line when he was digging and may have been a little off) and to make sure things were right, and also to set the correct slope up to the house.
Then he began to glue the pieces together. You can see the fixed broken sewer line waiting to be glued back to the old one at the bottom left of the picture.
Then there's a wye connection where the new line ties into the old one, and from then on goes back to the house. One particular joint didn't go all the way in before the glue set, but Shawn thought it was good enough.
He got all of the pieces glued, except for the last one. That one will have to wait until we drill a hole through the basement wall to go into the house. Technically we should have located a sleve in the wall before it was poured so that we didn't have to drill through it. But without knowing where exactly we would tie into the septic tank, we couldn't locate that hole, so we couldn't do that.
After glueing that septic line, Shawn went to work on the window well area. This is where the electric line will come into the house, but we also decided to change the grade level here and we're lowering it about two feet. This will do two things: 1) reduce the soil pressure on those window wells which are bowing a bit. 2) We can lower the window well level and we'll have a better view out of those basement windows. Nice.
It's a bit rough, but you can see the exposed wood of the window wells. That will get cut off. In between the two window wells is the trench for the electric line.
I'll have to finish this on Friday since I have to go now.
Fall rains have started, and last year it rained every weekend in October and most of November. So Shawn didn't want to risk a repeat of that, so he decided to rent an excavator to run the utilities to the house. The didn't have the mini one he wanted, nor the next in size, so we had to go with a medium sized one. On Thursday, we ordered 2 truckloads of sand to use in the trenches, and they arrived in the evening.Evan loved to watch the big big big big big dumb trucks (as he puts it), and has been playing in the sand piles every day since.
Theexcavator arrived on Saturday at 9 am, and, of course, Evan was excited about the big equipment. He had to go for a ride in the excavator with daddy and helped pull levers for a little while, then got bored and went back to the sand piles.
This is what the house looked like by Sunday afternoon. Looks just like last September, only there's a house there and not just a hole for a basement.We knew that the one utility that would take the longest to do would be the septic line from the new house to the septic. So, Shawn decided to start by locating the septic pipe that runs from the old house to the septic tank, (which if you remember was actually built and sized with the new house in mind when we bought the property five years ago). So Shawn started out with slow, clumsy movements on that thing.
Last year, when the electric company broke through our sewer line close to the old house, the pipe was buried about 4 to 5 ft. below grade. We assumed that the pipe should be buried below the frost level. So Shawn was not expecting to rip through the sewer pipe with the mini-excavator at about 2.5 ft from grade. OOoops.
*Insert expletive of your choice here* It was frustrating because you pay a guy to do things for you, and seems like you have to do things yourself to do them better. We are surprised that septic line hasn't frozen yet, which means it has maintained enough slope so that water hasn't pooled in there long enough to freeze. It could also be that this close to the septic tank, maybe the tank generates heat in the decomposing process and has kept the pipe warm enough to keep from freezing. Who knows.Well, there was no sense in fixing the broken sewer right away since we had to tie the new line to it. Which meant that we had no toilet, shower or sink available to use. Yeah, dishes piled up real fast over the weekend (on top of the dishes that piled up during the week since we like to save them for the weekend) and we were creative with our toilet needs.
Our friend Kaya came to chop up some wood to replace the split wood that we gave him for his fireplace. He was kind enough to buy some extra pipe and fittings to eventually repair that septic line, so that saved us a trip into town.
To lay the new line, Shawn needed to figure out where that new line would go. So now that the septic pipe was located, we took some reference measurements from two corners of the house to the point of connection on the old septic line. Then Shawn used his CAD software to draw out the new line, so that it would come into the front of the house. The perfect septic line would be a straight line from the house to the septic. This is not possible with our conditions, so Shawn designed the pipe so as to not use any bends over 22.5º angles. Also, he needed to take into account the slope of the line, so that waste water will flow down to the septic. So our line gently curves towards the house. After he had his numbers, we measured from different corners of the house for the location of the bends and the layout of the pipe, and spray painted it on the grass.
Shawn was now ready to dig that septic trench. Here's a shot of the excavator starting at the house. Shawn worked his way back to the broken septic line. Oh, and do you happen to remember that black corrugated pipe that we had installed last winter around the house before backfilling the basement to be used for the gutter downspouts to drain? Yeap, Shawn found it all right. I was supposed to keep an eye out for it, and we were doing good, but I turned around to reach for the pipe we were using to measure how deep he needed to go, and riiiiip, there was the pipe. So he was 2 for 2 at this point. That needs to be fixed before we backfill.Then Shawn is happily digging his trench, and he is now about ten feet away from reaching the old septic line when suddenly he hits something and WHOOSH! the ground collapses a bit and black murky water splashed up and it stunk like crazy. An old septic tank.
How ironic. Had Shawn designed the pipe to go over a few feet on either side of the spot he picked, he would have completely missed it. And the thing is that last year when the excavator dug the basement he busted through a bunch of clay pipes, and we were wondering what the heck they were for because the old septic tank for the house was supposed to be partially under the bathroom of the old house. Had we asked for 4 foot trenches around the basement instead of three, the excavator would have found it last year. So that makes us wonder if the guy that installed our septic fibbed a little when he said he couldn't really get to the old septic tank very well, but did fill it with sand when we had the new one built. God does things for a reason. Had the little excavator Shawn wanted been available, it would have had difficulty busting through the steel reinforced concrete box. At least it would have taken a lot longer, and with the medium excavator, it still took about an hour to bust through the thing, get it out of there, and the hole filled with sand. Then he finished trenching for the septic line.
Now, he went to work on digging the trench for the water line to go from the meter pit of the rural water company to the water line that we buried under the footings last year. See what white pipe sticking up? Before we backfilled the basement, Shawn put that pipe over the water line so we could find it again when it was time, and to keep us from damaging the water line when we excavated it. It was time now.The water line runs in front of the garage. Even though we are burying it 5 ft. below grade, which should be plenty to stay below frost depth, I am concerned that the slab in front of the garage will be right above it. That concrete can get so cold that it can push the frost level deeper into the soil. So to protect our water line, we will be putting a layer of 2" Blue foam over the top before we backfill to help insulate it.
Here's Shawn digging the waterline trench in front of the garage. He's getting pretty good by now with the excavator and work is going faster (except for the billions of rocks in this hill. He got out some nice big ones)When the rural water company installed the meter pit, the installed 5 ft of pipe beyond the meter pit for us to tie into it and put a stake at that location. (Perhaps they have enough experience with people trenching right into the meter pit and braking it) Anyway, by the end of the day Saturday, Shawn had about three feet to hit the stake.
On Sunday, he finished trenching to the stake, and not wanting to be 3 for 3, he decided to be cautious this time and reach the pipe by digging with a shovel. Of course, the rural water people did their job right and that pipe was buried about 6 ft into the ground. Also, the long stake was pushed when they backfilled, so it was actually at an angle, and the end of the pipe was actually about three feet farther away than where the stake poke out of the ground. After about an hour of shoveling, and that stake kept going lower and lower and at an angle, Shawn decided to hop back on the excavator to help speed things up. And no, he didn't hit the pipe. He excavated down about 4 feet right over the pipe and shoveled out the last foot. At last, that pipe was visible.
Shawn laid down the water line in the trench, and began to hook it up. Here is is making the connection at the house. The blue pipe is the one the plumber buried last winter when he did the basement under slab plumbing before the basement slab was poured. Now Shawn goes over to the other side to tie into the rural water pipe. Uh oh. That water line is not flexible water line (like the black and blue ones). Instead is CPVC rigid pipe. Drats, we don't have the right fittings for that. I guess we still needed a trip into town.So Shawn set aside that project, and went back to the sewer line. He laid down and dry fitted the septic line to make sure it would fit within the trench (he kindof drove over the paint line when he was digging and may have been a little off) and to make sure things were right, and also to set the correct slope up to the house.
Then he began to glue the pieces together. You can see the fixed broken sewer line waiting to be glued back to the old one at the bottom left of the picture.Then there's a wye connection where the new line ties into the old one, and from then on goes back to the house. One particular joint didn't go all the way in before the glue set, but Shawn thought it was good enough.
He got all of the pieces glued, except for the last one. That one will have to wait until we drill a hole through the basement wall to go into the house. Technically we should have located a sleve in the wall before it was poured so that we didn't have to drill through it. But without knowing where exactly we would tie into the septic tank, we couldn't locate that hole, so we couldn't do that.
After glueing that septic line, Shawn went to work on the window well area. This is where the electric line will come into the house, but we also decided to change the grade level here and we're lowering it about two feet. This will do two things: 1) reduce the soil pressure on those window wells which are bowing a bit. 2) We can lower the window well level and we'll have a better view out of those basement windows. Nice.It's a bit rough, but you can see the exposed wood of the window wells. That will get cut off. In between the two window wells is the trench for the electric line.
I'll have to finish this on Friday since I have to go now.
Wednesday, September 23, 2009
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.
Wednesday, September 9, 2009
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.
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.
Wednesday, September 2, 2009
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!
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!
Wednesday, August 19, 2009
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.
Thursday, August 6, 2009
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.
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