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.

The Big Move

Most of August was spent preparing to move out of our house and onto the property. Two obstacles presented themselves: What to do with all of our stuff and getting the travel trailer move-in ready. Both of these proved to validate our two most oft-repeated mottos: “It took longer than expected” and “it cost more than we thought.”

We rented a 8x40 storage unit. Big surprise, it wasn’t big enough. But due to the expert stacking of some good helpers, we managed to fit most of our stuff in it, although we had to stack it—literally—to the ceiling. But despite our best efforts, the day of the move left us with a few extra items, such as the couch, our bed, the fridge, and a couple of my office desks. We found a willing friend to let us stash it in his garage for the time being.

We started the move at 8:00am on August 28th and we finally finished putting these last items in the garage at about 6:00pm. It was a very long and tiring day. But, we cleared our first obstacle.

I thought it was important to prove that my shop could be cleared out, a feat that we had our doubts about.

The second obstacle required our attention before we moved as we cleaned the outside and attempted to clean the inside of the trailer. We quickly found that the trailer needed more than cleaning.

We bought the trailer from a family who lived in it for two years. There may also been a few goats and dogs in it as well. In light of this multipurpose use, it was in surprising good shape. Still, we felt it necessary to pull out the floor covering, replace the plywood subfloor in a spot in the back that had rotted through, and remove the jackknife sofa to re-upholster it.

Here’s what we’ve fixed in the trailer so far or are in the process of doing:

1. Fixed subfloor
2. Installed new carpet in the back and stick-down vinyl tiles in the front.
3. Removed the dinette booth next to the door and installed a computer desk.
4. Replaced two of the roof vents, replacing the bathroom vent fan with a “whole-house'” style vent (works great).
5. Took out all of the window treatments and cleaned them (haven’t put them back in yet and may not because, hey, we’re in the middle of the woods).
6. Replaced the Wedgewood R2145 stove with an almost new one.
7. Cleared the kitchen sink drain (it was not draining) and replaced the p-trap under the sink so it doesn’t leak anymore (yeah!)
8. Repaired about a half-dozen drawers with new or repaired glides so they all work now.
9. Cleaned all of the windows and screens.
10. Replaced the cold water supply line to the water heater (I think I sliced it when replacing the back room carpet and didn’t notice it until I turned on the water—which promptly sprayed all over the new carpet. Ugh.
11. Placed a 200 gallon water tank next to the back of the trailer on a platform so we can easily refill the 40 gallon trailer water tank.
12. Removed the sofa and we are in the process of repairing the frame and springs (done), cleaning the cover (done), replacing the foam (done), and reassembling everything and installing back into the trailer (to be done this week).
13. Removed (done) and replaced (to be done this week) all of the heating vent tubes.
14. Drained the grey water tank into a 4” flexible drain pipe and ran it out a ways from the trailer down hill. (There’s a story in this task, involving a full black water tank with the valve unexpectedly open that includes lots of nasty stuff washing over me. I can’t tell it here because it’s a really dirty story.)

Still to do, which we’ll hopefully do this week:

• Repair the screen door (replace the screen material and rebuild the bottom of the door, which is basically not there anymore).
• Patch the roof of several leaks we found deep in the night of our first really big rain storm.
• Finish installing the bathroom fan trim.
• Re-install the heater vent tubing.
• Finish re-upholstering the sofa and re-install back in the trailer.

Then, we can get down to the real business of being out here: Building the cottage.

So, here we are, one week into our adventure. It’s been a long week in some ways. But I think we have gotten the systems working and we can now finish up on the details and move on. It’s a bit cramped, but we manager fine. Our life improved 100-fold when we replaced the leaking air mattress with a new (real) mattress. So now, we can sleep well, take showers, cook, keep things a comfortable temperature, and move forward.

I am fortunate that we can still get DSL. I was told by the phone tech that we are about 24,300 feet from the “Dawson remote”, as he put it, which means that we are just a few feet from the limit and their last DSL customer on the line. I had to accept a lower band width from 1.5Mbs to .5Mbs, but that is not a huge inconvenience. What is a problem is that it keeps going up and down during the day. Since my business is software development and I spend a lot of my time remotely connected to Chicago and Kenya, this has been a problem. Hopefully, they can work out the bugs and things will stabilize. After all, they had to run about a mile of cable from the nearest trunk to hook me up, at their expense, we are grateful to report.

Here a couple of pictures I took the day we moved out here. I’m afraid to say that it looks more like a refugee camp or a disaster site then our new home. But I’d like to refer to it as our construction site.          

We have electricity, running hot and cold water, air conditioning when we need it, a roof over our heads, and love. What more could a person want?

More space wouldn’t hurt.

 

Post Foundation in Progress

As mentioned in an earlier post, I decided to do a post and beam foundation with several of the posts going through the floor into the wall. Kind of a pole barn/platform framing combination.

Reason? I thought it would be cheaper than paying for all that concrete, a notion that will probably be proven false with the cost of rental equipment thrown in along with materials. Another reason is oddly enough, earthquake resistance. I know we’re not exactly known as the earthquake center of the country here in southwestern Missouri, but we do have the New Madrid fault that when it last cut loose, turned the Mississippi river up stream. So, as long as I have a chance to be prepared, why not?

It’s been hot: 95 degrees with a heat index of over 100. So, it doesn’t take long to get soaking wet, top to bottom. I take lots of breaks—no hero here—and find some shade. So, that might explain the apparent slow pace of this project. But our impending deadline keeps me going. We need to be out of our current house by Sept 4, 2010. Since the cottage will not be done, we’ll live in a travel trailer on the property until it is.

John, my carpentry friend from church formed up a couple of things for me. This is a footing for a future masonry furnace. It will bear over 30 tons of rock when the beast is done, so I’m pouring an 8” thick footing.

 

 

 

 

 

 

And here’s a recognizable feature: The front walk and pad for the stairs off the porch. I thought about mixing bags of concrete for the posts, but after calculating that I’ll need over 60 bags, I decided to pay a little extra and have a truck come out. And, as long as I was bringing out a truck, might as well pour whatever I can. Hence, the footing and walk.

This is a smaller structure off to the side that will be a storage shed in the beginning and then will morph into a dog shed.  This will be a traditional pole barn project, with the exception of the roof. I’d like to experiment with an earth roof and so may do that here. However, at 150 pounds per square foot compared with 40psf for a traditional building, an earth roof requires a great deal more materials to hold up the extra weight. On the other hand, an earth roof is cheap and lasts for as long as, well, dirt. We’ll see how this turns out.

First step was digging 28 holes. Most were 18” in diameter and a couple were 30”. The reason for such large holes is the limited carrying capacity of the soil: Clay. At 1,000 or 1,500 psi, you need a larger foot print at the bottom of the hole to carry 2,000 – 4,000 pounds per post. So, with the larger hole, I can pour a collar around the base of the post, which provides a larger surface area for the soil to carry the weight.

Also, at the bottom of each post, I drilled 1/2” holes at 90 degree angles from each other and drove one foot long pieces of rebar, forming a cross. This will provide a positive connection between the concrete collar and the post.

In this area of the county, digging by hand is nigh impossible, especially for an old out of shape man like me. Answer, skid steer with auger attachment. Very efficient at digging holes, but at $400 a day, not the cheapest solution. Here’s a short look at the 30” bit in action. (Note that during the video you’ll hear the bit hitting rock (surprise!). To get the center post deeper than what the 30” auger would go, I drilled further with the 9” bit.

After digging the holes, we set the posts into the holes. Here’s where my good friends saved Connie and me a ton of work (actually, we wouldn’t have been able to do this alone). Matt and I were lifting a 16 foot 5x5 treated post into one of the holes. He let go to come around the front, and the post just kept getting heavier and heavier until I was on the ground feeling very weak and un-manly. So, the help was wonderful.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Some of the holes have two posts and some have three. Most have just one. Most of the posts will simply support a beam, constructed of four 2x10’s nailed together. But to allow some of the posts (one at each corner and an extra post along the back wall and one on the front) to go through the floor and into the wall framing, I used multiple posts. For the corner post, I used two posts, one short and one long. For the long posts along the wall, I used three posts: one long and two short to support the bean.

Here’s a shot of all of the holes dug, all of the posts in the holes, and some of the posts set and braced. Now I’m just praying for dry weather until I can finish setting the posts and getting the concrete truck out here. Hopefully, by Tuesday or Wednesday. Once the concrete is poured and the holes are backfilled with dirt, I’ll breath easier.

 

 

 

 

 

I’ve been helped a lot this week by some very dear friends from the branch who showed up and volunteered to help: John, Cameron, Matt, Tommy, Ben, and Mike. Great help and just when I needed it. I’m sure Connie appreciated it because she would have been on the other end of those posts—and they’re heavy.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here’s John, Cameron, and me showing what manly men look like at rest (notice the large lumber pile holding up our back sides). Just to be clear, they ate watermelon too. I didn’t hog it all for myself.