Archive for April, 2006
Hooray! The first two walls are up. Lifting that long side wall was no easy task with just the two of us. We finally got it in place by propping it in stages, and with an assist from a rope tied to Marshall’s truck. The front wall was comparatively easy — up in one try with muscle power alone.
The two huge openings in the side wall are for the sliding door to the porch and the entrance to the stairwell. You can see that the windows in the front wall will be big too (3′ wide by 5.5′ high). They face south and are part of the passive solar heating “system”.
April 28th, 2006
I’ve planted one little azalea bush on my property. My mother won it at an Arbor Day celebration and gave it to me. Thanks Mom! Look at how it’s blooming — I guess it likes its new home.
April 26th, 2006
We installed the subfloor today, using the AdvanTech subfloor product from Huber Engineered Woods. It’s resistant to moisture damage and is supposed to be more stable than plywood. The panels fit together beautifully and were easy to saw. The manufacturer has even marked the nailing pattern right on the panel — a nice touch.
April 26th, 2006
Rain on Monday and other obligations on Tuesday slowed progress a bit this week. We put several tons of sand-clay fill in the crawlspace. We also installed the 2×10 floor joists, and I’m putting in the metal bridging that adds rigidity and stability to the long joists. The kitchen floor joists were notched and installed a little lower than the other floors to allow an extra thickness of plywood under the slate tile floor. The extra blocking between the first and second joists provides ample places to attach the wall, and also distributes the weight of the passive solar collection tubes that will sit by the south-facing windows.
Today (Friday), Marshall will shave high spots off the headers and joists to get everything as flat as possible, and we’ll build the porch piers (if we don’t get rain).
April 21st, 2006
There’s a shallow drainage ditch running along the road in front of my house. It’s in the right-of-way, so the Virginia Department of Transportation (VDOT) has control of it. I contacted VDOT to find out what I had to do to install a driveway and was told I needed a 15 inch x 20 foot culvert pipe in the ditch. I had to buy the pipe but VDOT would install it.
Guess how many VDOT employees it takes to install one pipe (it’s plastic and relatively easy to move around) and cover it with some gravel. The answer is 7 (yes, seven). And 3 (count ‘em … three) dump trucks and a huge Gradall excavator. That’s probably a half million bucks worth of heavy construction equipment.
It took them an hour and fifteen minutes to do a job I could’ve completed by myself with a shovel and a wheelbarrow in a half hour. The next time Virginia’s politicos complain about the “funding crisis for transportation” (their favorite topic), I’m going to break something.
April 14th, 2006
The foundation is done (except for the porch piers) and the sill is attached with anchor bolts. We used a foam sill seal under the sill to fill any gaps. As you can see in the photo, I coated the foundation with Drylok Masonry Waterproofer. The bright white color looks great.
April 14th, 2006
The concrete block foundation is more than half-finished. Building it is a process that requires frequent measurements and re-measurement. We want everything square and level now, or it will cause problems throughout the rest of the construction.
I haul blocks and mix the mortar by hand in a wheelbarrow while Marshall lays the block. I also cement in the anchor bolts at the top of the 4 courses of block. Concrete block is rough and heavy, so I highly recommend wearing protective work gloves while handling it. Gloves also protect your hands from the drying mortar dust.
We put one vent at the center of the front wall, but there are vents within 3-feet of the rest of the foundation corners as required by code. We’ve also built-in a foundation access door on the west side of the house. It’s aluminum so it should last a long time.
These photos were taken early in the day — quite a bit more was done by the end of Friday. The foundation should be done by Tuesday. We still need to dig the rest of the organic material out from inside the walls and fill with a sand/clay mix.
April 8th, 2006
We poured the concrete footings this morning. Contractor Marshall ordered 4 cubic yards of concrete and his calculations were right on what we needed. The little extra went into a landing for the front steps.
Lee from T&W Block delivered the concrete in a mixer truck, and he was a big help. He jockeyed the truck around so we didn’t have to muscle the stuff too much.
April 3rd, 2006
