Putting Up the Walls and Building Up the Garden Area

We’ve resumed building on the house again, as Spring returns. It’s been raining a lot so now that we have the time and money, the weather is a challenge. Pretty typical for this time of year.

Surviving Winter

I wanted to post a couple winter pictures showing the house all bundled up waiting for the thaw: This was one our snow storms in January 2011. We don’t get a huge amount of snow, but it was still a long winter.

 

 

 

 

 

 

You can see our hillbilly hotel with the straw around the foundation to keep us a bit warmer than outside. Despite this and other precautions, the water line did freeze when we forgot to keep it trickling.

Floor

Winter finally did pass and I removed the plastic, since it seemed to keep the floor from ever really drying out. So now the rains have come and I’ve just given up on trying to keep it dry. It will do what it will do.

 

 

 

 

 

 

I think the floor has swelled relatively evenly, so the subfloor is now an inch thick rather than the original 3/4”. (Should have used Aventec instead of standard OSB, as mentioned in an earlier blog entry.)

We finished the floor and prepared to do the outer walls. Notice the foundation for the masonry furnace. Also, you can’t see it, but the posts have warped out of plumb over the winter, which will make putting up the walls a more difficult task. Yeah! Another challenge.

Outer walls

A few of my friends from church and a neighbor family came to help me put up the outer walls. I had pre-built a few of them and they helped me lift those and build the rest.

 

 

 

 

 

 

This wall was built prior to the “party” along with sheathing it on the floor, which is much easier to do, but results in a much heavier wall. I wanted to sheath this one first to ensure it stayed square, being the first wall.

 

 

 

 

 

 

This is the long East wall. We laid this out,  built it, and put it up in about an hour. It was threatening to rain and my crew was needing to leave, so we hurried and finished this. At the end of the day, we had put up the walls on three sides.

The next day, Connie and I built and put up the wall on the west side. It was easier and lighter because it only had one door and I waited to actually nail in the header until we got the wall up.

However, as it turned out, I put the door in the wrong place and had to move it over about 5 inches the next day, which is not too hard to do when it’s just framed.  

Inner Walls

I want thick walls to attempt to super-insulate this house. I decided on double 2x4 walls rather than, say a single 2x6 wall for several reasons: First, I wanted more insulation than would fit in a 2x6 wall, which is roughly R-19. Second, because I introduced 5x5 posts extending into the ground and through the walls, and since I added a couple of rim joists beyond the posts, I needed thick walls to enclose the posts into the wall. Finally, I wanted to avoid thermal bridges by offsetting the studs in the double 2x4 wall. As it turns out, I won’t have to offset the 2x4’s in the inner wall from the outer wall because of the dead space between them.

My design calls for an 8-5/8” wall (framing members only). I’m considering just making that 9-1/4”, or whatever a 2x10 is, avoiding having to rip 140’ worth of 2x10’s. I plan to blow in cellulose into the walls and in the attic. Cellulose has an R-value of 3.7 per inch. So, if I go with the 9'-1/4” 2x10 walls, they will have an R-34 insulation value. Certainly overkill for this climate (Ozarks, or southern Missouri), but I overbuild. That’s what I do.

I’ll do the inner walls and finish the sheathing this next week (if we get enough hours without rain).

Compost Bin

Here I am building the compost bin. Strange how I always get in the picture when Connie takes it. We felt it important to take a small detour from building the house to finish at least one compost bin. I used cut trees as some of the posts and got some old barn wood from a friend who owed me a favor. Don’t look too closely or you’ll notice I used some left-over 5x5 pressure treated lumber. Probably not the best thing to have in close contact with the compost I’m planning to put on my garden, but I justified it in my mind, because they aren’t using copper arsinide any longer, it was easier using square posts, I only had to cut 4 posts for the compost instead of 8, and I already had paid for them. Cheap beat green this time around.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  This is the first bin completed. There will be another bin on the near side. The middle bin will eventually be covered with a roof and will contain hay, or other cover material for the compost. I’ll also be extending the roof towards the back for another covered bin where we will keep saw dust. 

Garden

We also felt it important to get the garden started, at least part of it. We took the hay bails that were around the base of the trailer and made two raised beds 4’ x 40’, spaced 10’ apart. I then had a load (16 yards) of top soil brought in. When I rented the skid steer to drill the post holes for the compost and the vineyard/berry rows below, I moved the top soil into the raised beds. Connie and I then smoothed the dirt. We’ll be planting this week.

 

 

 

 

 

 

We transplanted 16 thorn-less blackberry plants from our previous house. These came from a family at church who had been raising them for some time. We loved the the berries and they produce well. So, we made sure we dug some up before we left and planted these last fall. They are doing well, except for a couple of plants that didn’t make it. They will proliferate well enough, so I’m not concerned.

We also ordered and planted two Concord and two Reliance grape plants, as well as four disease-resistant apple trees (not shown). We aim to produce all our own food, eventually.

Hail Storm

We were sitting in the trailer yesterday when suddenly we heard this CRASH and then another SNAP, THUD, BANG, with increasing frequency until it was as loud as, well, as HAIL. It didn’t last long, thankfully, but occurred twice in the afternoon. We took these pictures just after the first storm. The hail appeared to be as large as ping pong balls. Today I noticed it did ding our truck hood (and probably the top). Oh, well. Not to worry. The dings will just add contrast to the scratches.

 

 

 

 

 

 

We will probably have storms all night again and then we are expecting, and looking forward to, some sunny weather again.

How I’ve Spent My Winter

I mentioned software development. I’m a software engineer and for the past several years, I’ve been building, deploying, improving, and maintaining an electronic medical records system that is used to manage patient care in a medical clinic in rural Kenya—Africa, that is.

The clinic is located in the Mbirikani Group Ranch, a reservation-like location for the indigenous people of Kenya: the Massai. The clinic was founded and is maintained by AID Village Clinics, funded by a philanthropist in Chicago.

We put version 1.0 of my product into production at the clinic in May 2007. Since then, I’ve been working on version 2, which includes some major upgrades, including drug inventory tracking and prescription printing. Finally, in February of 2011, we deployed version 2. I just got back a week ago.

So, it’s been ok that the weather’s been bad and we haven’t had the money to proceed on the house, since I’ve been spending every waking minute for several months finishing this version and preparing for deployment. And now, it’s done. There’s still considerable work left over, but at a much less frenetic pace.

I wanted to share some pictures of my trip. More later.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Winter Delays

Cold weather, rain and snow, and lack of funds have pretty much stopped our progress on the house. We were able to get most of the sub-floor laid over the floor joists. More on that in a minute.

Here’s a picture of the pump house, the most “built” building on our property. Still not done, but functional.

It was a very good thing that we stopped working on the house and built this when we did. It’s now December 31, 2010. We’ve been in the trailer for four months now and I don’t know what we would have done had we still been hauling water. I insulated the pump house pretty thoroughly. Along with the help of a heat lamp on a thermostat, it stays pretty much above 50 degrees in there. I’m also glad I made it a bit bigger (5’ x 6’) than it needed to be. If I had to do it over again, I would have made it even bigger.

We put bails of hay around the outside of the trailer to try and combat the cold. The floor is always cold anyway, but I think it helps.

A friend of ours stopped by and said “It’s kind of hillbilly but it looks like it works.” Yep, we’ve focused pretty much on the practical and what works rather than aesthetics. Living on the edge, as it were, quickly lets you see what’s really important and what’s not.

Now back to the floor. When I purchased the sub-flooring material, I had a choice. Around here, and probably everywhere else in the country, most builders use Avantech, which is an OSB plywood product that is pretty much water-proof and costs about $25 a sheet. This is important when it rains before you get the roof on. Regular OSB plywood, which only costs about $15 a sheet, tends to soak up the moisture and swells. As you might have guessed, I didn’t use Avantech, but decided that instead of spending the extra $300, I would just put a tarp over the floor until we could dry-in the house.

WRONG. The tarps I used, it turns out, were not water-proof. And the older the tarp, the less water-proof it becomes. Here’s a picture of where we’re at now:

It looks covered, but under the tarp, the OSB is pretty wet. And when normal OSB gets wet, it swells, especially on the edges, as you can see:

  So now what? Connie and I have thought we might have to tear it up and re-do the sub-floor with Avantech, which we still might do. However, this kind of thing happens to the builders who still aren’t using the good stuff all the time. I did some reading on-line and found others who were concerned as I was.

First of all, the structural integrity of the plywood is not compromised by rain or moisture, unless it sits in water for some time. Secondly, the swelling that does occur is usually sanded down before applying any flooring treatment. The edges swell the most, but it seems that a good floor sander could handle the problem. A link I found helpful:

http://www.askthebuilder.com/304_Plywood_and_OSB_-_Which_One_Is_Better_.shtml

So, it is possible to recover from this kind of moisture problem. Frankly, I’m not sure if it would have been better to leave the floor exposed rather than covering it with the tarp. My concern is that the moisture trapped under the tarp may take longer to dry. But, it is what it is. I’m not taking the tarp off until I’m ready to dry in the building.

The other reason I should have used Avantech was to make the next step of drying in the building easier. With OSB needing to be kept as dry as possible, I’ve felt we should wait to proceed until we have the money, materials, and man-power lined up to get it done as quickly as possible. As soon as I remove the tarp (assuming it’s doing any good), we need to put up the walls and sheathing, place the trusses, and finish the roof in one swift move. If I had used Avantech, I wouldn’t feel quite so much pressure for speed. So, the extra $300 sounds like a bargain at this point.

Incidentally, regardless of what is used for sub-flooring, especially if standard OSB is used, the building should be allowed to dry after the roof is on before proceeding with any finish work.

So here we are, stuck in winter, stuck in a 30’ trailer, bumping into each other and waiting for a break in the weather and enough money to pile up to buy the materials for drying-in the building, which I think will cost about $4,000-5,000. In the meantime, I’m busy with my software development work and studying to take the ham radio technician class FCC test. I’m gonna’ be a ham. Also, our branch of the church has an orchestra! We’ve become involved with Connie picking up the viola again (which she played as a youth) and me conducting and arranging pieces. I’ll try and post some music that I’ve arranged (using the Finale PrintMusic program) in the future. Cool stuff.

The Pump House

On the advise of a friend, John H., we stopped working on the house and turned our attention to building a pump house and bringing the well to life. After all, we’re not going to finish the house before it starts to freeze (this is October!). So the question is, would we rather be further along on the house or have running water? Water by a landslide!

Masonry Furnace Foundation

Before leaving the house project, we needed to build the foundation for the future masonry furnace, a firebox surrounded by 20 tons of rock and concrete. I was overwhelmed by this little project, having never laid block before and knowing all the concrete it would take and that we would have to mix it. So, I called on some friends and got some much appreciated help from John H. and Chris A. We spent a long day building the block foundation over the footing we had already poured. Chris mixed, and John and I laid block. We filled in the block with rebar and concrete and just got the last course laid before ending for the day.

 

 

 

 

You can surely tell that we are not professionals. But it turned out pretty good and I doubt it’s going anywhere in the next 100 years.

For those interested (I know, none of you guys really care about this part, but maybe there will be someone, someday, doing what I’m trying to do and just maybe they’ll find this helpful; so, deal with it), I’m including some details about the concrete mix:

Previous to the pour, I had paid for a load of gravel and a load of find masonry sand to be delivered. I then purchased bags of Portland cement, masonry cement, and lime. The mixture for mortar that I used was 12 sand, 4 cement, and 1 lime. We mixed the mortar in the wheel barrow and mixed the concrete in the rented mixer. The concrete recipe I used was based roughly on 16% water, 11% cement, 26% sand, and 41% gravel for a 3500 psi mix. I had to convert this to 5 gallon buckets that would work for the mixer, which held a maximum of 6 cubic feet. Converting to cubic feet gave me .9cf water, .7cf cement, 1.6cf sand, and 2.5cf gravel. Then, I did a rough conversion to 5 gallon buckets: 1.3 buckets of water, 1 cement, 2.4 sand, and 3.7 gravel. However, since I really couldn’t be lifting these buckets all day, I decided to move to shovel-full measurements and so finally ended up with 1 bag Portland cement (95 lb. bag, or .67cf), 17 shovels of sand, 15 shovels of gravel (this was not enough, but I was having trouble mixing; should have been closer to 26 shovels). The best order I found was to add the sand, then cement, then some water, and finally to shovel in the gravel.

The next day, Connie and I mixed more concrete to finish filling in the blocks and forming and pouring a cap on the top. You’ll notice the 9” x 9” flue tile we cut at a 90 degree angle (using a masonry blade on my skill saw) and placed in the block, sticking out the side and up through the top. This is the air channel that will eventually feed into the side of the firebox, which we’ll build using fire brick. We’ll also need to build and install a blast gate—a future project that we’ll wait to tackle until after we’re in the house. If we get into the house at all this winter (2010-2011), we’ll use electric heat. The masonry furnace will need a few months of curing before we fire it up so I’m hoping we’ll be able to use it next winter (2011-2012).

Floor Joists

With the foundation completed, we were able to finish framing up the floor joists. Decided to do 24” spacing for the floor joists. I hate springy floors. But, since the joist spans are only about 10-1/2 feet, I felt that 24” centers were fine. The joists, of course, are resting on the beams, which in turn, are resting on the posts. It felt great finally getting above the ground.

We were about done (about two joists short) when we decided to halt the house and start the pump house.

The Pump House

Just when we thought we were done with digging through the mud, we were back up to our knees in muck and rocks.

“Digging” is a relative term here in Missouri where a more appropriate phrase would be “rearranging rocks.” I don’t know what’s worse, digging in wet muck or rock-dry dirt. For this project, we needed to dig out a water-filled trench that had the 1” PEX water line to the house and 1” electrical conduit to feed the pump. Although we weren’t going to connect the pump to the house, I wanted to get all of the underground work done (again) so we don’t have to tear anything up later.

This is a great picture of Connie: My foreman, partner in crime, most loyal workmate, and eternal sweetheart. What she puts up with! And what a worker she is!

 

 

Finding the stubbed lines, and renting a great little trencher (little by backhoe standards), we dug the trenches and prepared to pour the pad for the pump house.

 

The pump house pad is 5’ by 6’. This small of a pour (less than a yard) needs to be done by hand. So, we rented the mixer again. It took about three batches, but we poured the slab.

 

We were advised by the pump man to put the pump house right over the pump. This would save the cost of a “pit-less adapter.” The only issues are that you have ensure the pump house doesn’t freeze and you should leave some kind of access in the roof (or a removable roof) in case of a need to remove the pump in the future. We settled on a 1hp Gouls pump, a pretty hefty high-end unit with a five year warranty, but which typically lasts 15-20 years. The well was 440 feet, the pump was set at 300 feet, the static water level is 180 feet. The pump will make 70-80 gallons per minute. The pump will only dray 10 gallons per minute. He also installed a 36 gallon pressure tank. When all connected and turned on, the gauge reads about 60psi.

We ended up with a 1” pex line out to a hydrant next to the pump house, a 1” pex line to the (future) house, and 1/2” pex line to the trailer, all connected with shut-off valves. We also took the time to install a poor-mans drain: a number 10 can in the center of the slab filled with gravel and 3” sewer and drain pipe out the side. All in all, it turned out ok.

We then built the walls using typical 2x4 construction, a 4 in 12 roof pitch shed roof, a 2x2 foot opening framed in the roof, and sheathed with 1/2” OSB. I decided to frame in a closed soffit to be consistent with the house design.

We finished framing the building and did the rough electrical. We’ve installed 3/4” TG OSB on the roof and are ready to insulate and finish. Decided to use 1/2” foil faced closed-cell insulation board as a finish for the inside. I’ll tape off the joints and seal the cracks with caulk to try and keep the bugs out.

The Dogs

Thought it would be fun to include dogs at play—at least one dog at play and the other just standing around enduring the other dog at play. Sammy is the black one and come evening, he gets pretty playful. Buster is the big white lug.

We also had a beautiful sunset tonight that I tried to capture.

 

 

 

 

 

Water In All its Forms

Well, we’re heading into our first real frost tomorrow night. It’s about 10 days late this year. We bought 22 bales of straw to stack around the base of the trailer as a skirting to try and fend off the cold. We now have running water!!!! YEAH!!! and so we were able to drain the trailer water tank and dismantle the external water tank system. We’ve insulated the 1/2” pex as it leave the ground and connects to the trailer and stacked hay around the North side. We’ll need an additional 30 bales, I’m afraid. Hopefully tomorrow, we can finish insulating the pump house the day before the expected freeze. Always a race.

We really appreciate our well. What a difference to just turn on the tap and get an unending stream of clean, drinkable water under pressure. No more driving 10 miles and filling three 55 gallon barrels, then pumping them into the 200 gallon tank, then filling the 40 gallon tank under the trailer every 3 days. Now we can even drink out of the tap. Amazing! It felt more like a real homestead when we turned on that pump.

Drilled a Well, Beams, and at Home in the Trailer

We now have a $4,000 pipe in the ground. We decided to drill the well now, even though we’ll need to finish the cottage before the pump and pressure tank can be installed. Beautiful, isn’t it?

Thankfully, there’s more to this than what you can see here. It was fun watching the big drilling rig come in, set up, and drill down 440 feet. At about 400 feet, the driller said he hit the “Roubidoux” (pronounced ruby-doo here in the Ozarks) aquifer, which produces about 50 gallons per minute minimum. However, the well we put on will only draw about 10-15gpm. He drilled down an additional 40 feet to allow sand to settle and the water to clear. It was pretty cool seeing tons of crystal clear water gushing out the pipe towards the end.

The drilling is done with something like a very large hammer drill connected on the end of 20 foot lengths of steel shaft. Huge amounts of compressed air are then pumped down into the hole blowing the debris out the top. It was the compressed air that blew the water out the top, the aquifer filling in the water behind it. Here’s what the drill looks like in action:

Here’s a couple of additional “well drilling” pictures. Sorry gals, this is for all of us little boys:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Building

We’re back to working on the building. After pumping out the water in the holes that the posts were set in, we filled in each hole (with a shovel, of course), then took down all of the braces and batter boards. Next, I marked the posts using my laser level so that they are all in the same plane. Using a jig made from three pieces of plywood stapled together and a skill saw, I cut off the posts leaving the long posts in the corners and one each along the front and back walls.

Finally emerging from the ground, we cut and placed the beams on the short posts. Beams were made by nailing 3 or 4 2x10’s together, depending on the span. Then, as a precaution, I installed 2x6 braces on each post connecting each side of the post to the beam, as shown here:

Now that’s a nice beam! You can see the 4 2x10’s comprising the beam and one of the braces connecting the post to the beam. These are now installed on each side of the beam for each post. I used 16 penny nails in my nail gun to tack the braces in place, then drilled and inserted 1/2” carriage bolts, two per brace. Finally, nailed 40 penny galvanized nails, six to eight per brace. It shouldn’t go anywhere and I know, I over-build. Here’s most of beams up:

You can see the long posts on the four corners and one each in the middle of the front and back walls. The first beam (closest to the front) is for the porch.

Although this picture doesn’t show it, I’ve finished all of the beams. Tomorrow, a friend with a tractor will be out to smooth the dirt between the beams so when the crawl space is done, we can lay plastic on the dirt and not cut through it with rocks.

Our Life in the Trailer

So far, the trailer has been pretty comfortable. The weather has been pretty nice, only into the low 40’s one night so far, so the furnace is keeping up. It’s still a bit cold in the back of the trailer where the bedroom is. We’re really trying to not have to stay here through the entire winter, or at least that if we do, it will be a milder winter than last year.

Here’s Connie and the Skip-Bo cards (she’s probably winning). We’re up to about 115 games since September 2007. She’s ahead by six games.

In the spirit of fair play, I have to include a picture of me:

 

This was the good one. Sorry.

 

 

 

 

 

 

As you can see, we got a new dog. Meet Sammy. He's a, well, a dog. Not absolutely sure of his parentage. But I’ve been accused of having questionable parentage myself, so we can’t hold that against him.

 

I like this picture better.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Connie likes this one better. So, I wisely added both of them. Just to stir things up a bit, vote for your favorite. We’ll see who’s right.

 

 

 

Finally, here’s an updated picture of our home site early in the morning as the well is being drilled.