2012 Construction - week two

Footing forms

We have been working on the footing forms this week.  We got the interior perimeter set yesterday and leveled and should be close to finishing the tower footings later today.

Setting the forms level is the hardest part as it requires a lot of precision... we would like to keep the forms to within 1/8" from level from end to end as it makes the construction from then on much easier.

We have a problem on the east side of the tower footing, as you can see in the picture at right, the rock slopes at about a 45 degree angle, which doesn't make a very stable footing.  We purchased some DexPan, a non-explosive demolition agent (a hydraulic clay that is mixed with water and poured into a drilled hole) that we will use to break up the slope into steps so the footing has a more horizontal surface to sit upon.  We will take lots of pictures!!!  Do you see the face in the rock?  Eventually this will be the bottom of the fish pond... cool huh?

After the forms are set level and squared up we will line the forms with OSB (oriented strand board) down to the bottom of the footing and then place rebar in the forms.

We are planning to pour concrete next week.

By the way, Carol took these pictures.

2012 new construction - week one

Ground breaking

On Sunday morning, the 8th of April 2012, I got a call from our excavator, Chuck Howe.  "Would it be alright if we came over this morning and start the excavation?"

I paused for a moment, it was Easter morning, before I responded, "yea, that would be OK!"

So about 11:00 am, Chuck and his son Keith show up with a bulldozer and a backhoe and start digging out the foundation of the main part of the new house - great room, tower, and guest bedroom suite.  While Keith is moving some HUGE rocks from the tower area, Chuck is moving soil with the dozer.  It doesn't take them long before they have removed the soil and loose rock to expose the solid rock underneath and they are gone by 3:30 pm.

There were some surprises... the rock under the great room is not a floater... they couldn't move it with the dozer and backhoe combined, so that rock will be incorporated into the crawl space floor.  We are also going to have more headroom along the north wall, we had thought there was about 2 feet of soil above the rock but they were able to dig down about 6 feet so instead of 3 feet of headroom we will now have about 5 feet.

Monday morning I called the lumber yard and got a load of lumber delivered early in the afternoon for the footing forms.  I had the driver dump the lumber right into the pit.

I spent most of Monday and Tuesday laying out where the footings were going to go.  Because of the sloping site and the underlying rock the footings will have to be built in steps.

Tuesday afternoon we started to construct the south wall footing. Wednesday the construction continued on the west and north wall footing.

The mornings have been chilly, so we have been enjoying our coffee and doing our paperwork in the mornings and getting outside about 11:00 am, after the day has warmed up a bit.

Friday, we took a trip to Spearfish to pick up a box of DexPan, a non-explosive demolition product, a hydraulic clay.  You drill a hole, mix up the DexPan with water and pour it in... hours later the rock is broken up.  I need this to create some steps in some steep rock so the concrete in the footings has a horizontal bearing surface, rather than a diagonal surface.

On the way home we drove through Rapid City and I ordered a new table saw, a SawStop.  I had two table saw accidents last summer and wanted to get the safety added features of the SawStop as a replacement to my old and well used Craftsman table saw.

Saturday and Sunday it rained and snowed and the wind blew and it was not a great day for being outdoors, so I lit a fire in the wood stove and spent those days working on shop drawings and bid documents for the cement work.

Two Old Curmudgeons Construction Co.

STORY FROM 2010

GARAGE CONSTRUCTION

Cast from the same mold as Mike Holmes, Carol was calling us “Two Old Curmudgeons Construction Company.”

 “The slab is not level!”  Mark said peering through the transit.

“Crap!”  I replied, holding the stadia rod.

“Yeah, it is down about 0.5” in the northwest corner and high by about the same amount in the opposite corner.”

“That damn concrete contractor!”  I cursed.

That error led to Mark and I spending the better part of two days shimming the bottom plate level.  Another carpenter would have built on the slab as it was.  When we got done the bottom plate was within 1/8” of level in 60’.  The advantage was that we didn’t have to adjust for the unlevel condition of the slab for the rest of the construction and as you can see from the picture, the building is straight!

Mark is one of my climbing buddies and a good friend; we have known each other since we were on the swimming team in High School.  He lives in Hill City, about 25 miles north of our place and works as a carpenter – he is a gifted craftsman!  I hired Mark for a couple of weeks to help me put up walls and roof of the garage and shop.  I really like him because he is a pain in the ass about details – just like Mike Holmes on the TV show.  I am a lot like Mike Holmes too, so Mark and I had a great time being precise and doing it right!

The garage is built on a peninsula of rock that slopes off about 8’ in 60’ to the west.  At the high end is the garage, 28’ x 28’, with two 7’ x9’ garage doors on the east side and a man door on the south side.  The garage is going to be our home while we build the house so we installed a ½ bath and a dog wash (we had an issue with the septic system sizing so had to down grade the bathroom to a ½ bath without a shower so we could get the building permit.)

The shop floor is 4’ lower than the garage floor and is 28’ x 32’ with a 12’ ceiling.  There is a man door, a 10’ x 10’ overhead door and five fixed pane windows on the south face and a double man door  and two single hung windows on the west end.  There will eventually be a covered timber framed deck on the west end of the shop that will be accessed via the double doors.  The west edge of the deck will be 6’ to 8’ off the ground – the ground slopes away into a ravine – it will be great sitting out there in the evening quaffing a beer after a hard day of work.

The walls are 2x6 and the roof is framed with an asymmetrical truss, designed so the south face will accept direct application of solar collectors.  We covered the walls with plywood and I had a contractor put some paint on it the same color as tree bark, but the plan is to install vertical steel siding, a board and batten design with a wood texture and the same color as tree bark.  The roof was covered with roll roofing this fall but it will get steel roofing the color of the pine needles when the house is roofed.  The goal is to get the garage and shop to blend into the background of the forest.  So far, so good, from the road (about 100 feet) it is hard to see.

We started construction middle of May, 2009.  I had a contractor excavate the site, there was about a foot of soil across the site, but in one corner they had to pop (dynamite) the rock.  Carol and I built step footings down the hill, pinned into the rock.  I hired a concrete contractor to pour the concrete.  Then we built stem walls using insulated concrete forms (ICF), they stack like Lego’s, put down a row, put in the rebar, then another row.  At this point we were level to within an 1/8” in 60’.  We had the contractor fill the forms with concrete after we returned to Fargo.

We came back for a week over the 4^th of July.  Our objective was to install under-slab insulation, the PEX in-the-slab radiant heating system and rebar.  It rained for days!  We extended our stay by one day, worked until late and got back to Fargo about 4:00 am.

The slab was poured the next week.

We came back in August for two weeks, that was when Mark and I put up the walls and roof.

We hired a contractor to paint the walls and put up the roll roofing.

We came back for another week over Columbus Day.  We drove through a snow storm to get to Custer, there was 8” of snow on the ground at our place, the temperatures were hovering just above zero.   The first days on the job were pretty chilly, but the temperature continued to rise day by day and the day we left we turned on the AC in the truck as we pulled out the driveway.

Our next trip is planned for mid May, we have two weeks: one week to rough in the electrical wiring and get it inspected and another week to insulate and sheetrock the garage.

We plan to take another week later in the summer to finish up the wiring and insulate and sheetrock the walls in the shop.

I am retiring on the 30^th of November and on the 1^st of December Carol and I are moving to Custer for 2 months.  During that time we will complete the plumbing, install an antique Yǿtel wood burning stove in the shop and if the weather cooperates, start framing up the deck on the west end of the shop.

Engawa

Engawa is the Japanese word for veranda.

The ground on the west end of the shop drops off sharply down into a valley... it is a grand view.  We are going to build a covered deck, an engawa, overlooking the valley.  The deck is 28' by 8', the roof overhangs the deck by 2'.  Access to the deck is by a pair of doors in the shop - eventually there will be a second entrance to the deck on the exterior.

There is a lower deck, as you can see in the sketch at the right that will be for storage of lumber.

We enjoyed the engawa along the garage in Fargo and are looking forward to this new addition.




New post:  2 April 2012  We got the lumber for the lower part of the engawa on the 13th of March.  We started construction the same day, setting posts in footings poured last November.  Carol attached the joist hangers and I cut the joists, the teamwork moved the project along smoothly and by the end of the week we had the structure set in place.

Before the deck boards were screwed to the structure we set some furniture out there and enjoyed the afternoon.  Now with the deck boards fastened in place we enjoy the deck every day.  I had my first beer out there and spilled my first beer out there so the deck has been properly christened.


We received the lumber for the roof structure on the 26th of March, but the delivery was short one of the main beams so we can't start construction until we get that beam, expected to be delivered on the 6th of April.

burning desire

We have been wanting some additional snow cover so we could burn slash piles on our property.  (Slash is the accumulation of limbs, leaves and pine needles left by natural debris and forest management activities.  Slash piles are created by the accumulation of these materials into small manageable piles that can be burned in a safe manner.  Stolen from the Internet.)

On Wednesday we got about 6" of snow but the County didn't give authorization to burn until Friday when an additional inch fell.  (We are supposed to be able to burn with 3" of snow cover.) We got a permit for Saturday and Sunday to burn small slash piles, no more than 8' diameter at the base.  Saturday looked the best, as high winds were expected on Sunday.

I got started lighting piles about 8:30 am on Saturday.  The lighting process uses a mix of 75% diesel fuel and 25% gasoline, the gasoline allows for ease of lighting the pile.  Actually it was not easy to light the piles and after several attempts I resorted to using an old newspaper soaked in the diesel fuel and gasoline mixture.  It didn't take long and I had four towering infernos!  OK, maybe they weren't towering but I had four good fires going.

After about an hour the piles had burned down a bit so we started adding stumps to the fires.  Carol drove the tractor and operated the loader and I got the stumps into the bucket and then directed Carol where to dump the stumps, aiming for the middle of the fire.

The process for burning stumps requires knocking off the dirt and rocks from the roots with a shovel and turning the stumps occasionally.   This is really hot work!  And you have to keep at it.  I was wearing mechanic's gloves with a Velcro wristband - there is a small hole between the glove and the Velcro that exposes the skin and if I wasn't careful to pull down the sweatshirt sleeve was subject to burning that small spot.  I also had to pull up the hood of the sweatshirt to shield my face as I walked into the fire with the shovel.

The fires burned for the afternoon.  About 4 pm I consolidated the burning material from one of the piles into one of the other piles.  Two other piles I had allowed to burn down to about nothing and using the tractor bladed over the 3 spots leaving only one fire burning.  As the sun was setting I dumped a bunch of snow on the glowing embers of what used to be several big stumps.

It was a good day!

I suffered some 1st degree burns on my face and breathed too much super-heated and smoky air.  I was pretty congested and uncomfortable that evening and over night... every breath of air smelled of smoke.

stove disaster

23 February 2012

I was in the shop this evening, had started a fire in the Jotel #1 wood burning stove and was enjoying the fire's radiance, when I heard an odd snap, moments later the stove collapsed, falling backward into a bunch of steel that I had stored behind the stove with a loud crash.  The stove pipe disconnected and smoke started to belch from the open pipe.

Carol appeared in the doorway to the shop asking what had happened and while figuring out what to do gave her a brief explanation... the rear leg broke!!!  Damn cast iron.

I grabbed a bucket of water that I keep close and doused the fire, put a bucket over the stove pipe and opened the windows and the doors.  Elapsed time about one minute.

Tomorrow I will have fabricate a new leg.  I have been using the stove to make the shop comfortable to work in when the sun doesn't shine.  OK, that doesn't make a lot of sense.  The shop has a bank of windows that are oriented to the south and when the sun shines the shop warms up nicely but when the sun doesn't shine or in the evenings I use the stove to keep the shop warm.

Welcome

Welcome to Vern's Michi...

I have been wanting to start a blog for several years but didn't have time.  I retired a little over a year ago and about Thanksgiving I began to think again about writing a blog and made a New Years resolution to start in 2012.  Carol and I packed up all of our belongings and moved just after the first of the year... it has been an adventure, more about that later, but I am finally getting to "blog".

I hope you enjoy.

Vern