Start of a new home

[badpenny]

  The sewer inspector was here this evening to give a "good to go" approval to my existing sewer system.  8) 8) 8) Tomorrow will be a trip to the county seat to apply for a building permit for a 22' x 32' house to replace my 40 some odd year old mobile home. This new house will be about 3' away from the mobile to start, and when livable, the mobile will be moved away{way away}.
  Next comes excavating for footing and foundation, lay up about 375 8" blocks, put a subfloor on, then the walls and roof, windows, doors, plumbing, electrical, heating, etc.  Not very many words, not too many steps, shouldn't take too long, right?  :D :D I hope to be "dried in" by 1 July, and livable before next winter.
   All the framing is cut and air dried for a year from my own logs. Trusses were bought 1 1/2 years ago. Subfloor, sheathing, roof deck have been in storage for a year. Electrical and plumbing parts are stored in marked boxes. Windows and doors are in storage. Gas fired boiler for in-floor heat is next to the plumbing parts.   Down side, siding is still in log form, as is half of the paneling for the interior. And rolls of insulation are still at the lumberyard. Its going to be a "work in progress" for a while, I guess.

[Handy Andy]

  Sounds like fun.  Did you saw your own sheathing or using plywood?

[WDH]

I like a man with ambition :D.

[brdmkr]

Sounds like a great project.  Nothing like building with wood that you cut yourself.  Keep us posted!

[badpenny]

   The sheathing is 4x9 sheets of "buffalo board" as its called here, siding will be vertical board and batten from my own logs. The most important purchase will be batteries for the digi-cam, 'cause no pics, didn't happen, right? :D My cousin, who is a contractor, is going to spend the last 2 weeks of this month helping me get started, as he puts it, straight level plumb and square. Concrete is $125 cyd delivered, cement is $8.49 a bag, 24 bags for 6 yds comes out cheaper by a long way, and I already have water, sand and a mixer. One of the goals of this project is to do as much as I can that I am able to, and hire done what I can't, wont, or am incapable of doing. I would rather spend limited resources for things I can't do, and invest my time(free) on what I can do. Part of the reason for not moving the mobile home is I can survive 1 more winter in it if I have to, but having a new place for next winter will be a great incentive to keep working. So, the adventure begins.

[Patty]

Wow! What a project. Best of luck to you. 

Building your own home is one giant adventure, one I would recommend to folks who have a stong will and even stronger marraige.  ;)   We are 4 years into this project we call home, and it just keeps getting better..

[Qweaver]

We are doing much the same and are finding it very satisfying and fun...hard work but fun.
We're on our second year (third if you count the first year of preparing the land, felling trees and building sheds) of a similar project and we hope to have it livable by this fall.
Good luck!

[badpenny]

   Building permit went well, issued over the counter in exchange for hard earned $$$$. Just one of the things I can't make or do for myself. Will be breaking ground this pm if the D-4 cat will start.

[scgargoyle]

Here in the South, we'd keep that ole mobile home as a right 'n proper place for kudzu vines to grow. Kinda makes its own little eeko-system! :D :D :D Good luck on the rest of your project- we're going to enter our own construction project in a coupla years.

[WDH]

Badpenny,

I did the same thing you are doing.  Started out on the site living in a trailer.  You walked out of the trailer, off the little deck, down the steps, over 5 feet, and up the steps into the new house.  Since I was always there when I was not working the day job, I worked on something in the house every night and on the weekends.  Subcontracted out some stuff that I was not good at, did the rest myself.  A hard way to go, but it paid off for me.  Your post brought back a lot of old memories (most of them good ;D).  That was before I had the sawmill and the woodworking equipment.  I can't imagine what it would have been like to have had them.  All in all, I did amazing well with the little bit that I had.  With you own wood, you can do a lot of things that most people can't do in a new house.  Go for it 8).

[badpenny]

   First, thanks for all the encouragement and support. This has been a dream of mine since age 14 (will be 56 in June) to have a home on this property. My folks gave it to me when I came home on leave from boot camp. When I retired from Uncle Sam's Canoe Club 15 years ago, the mobile was the way to go to get a house quickly, and it has served it's purpose.
   The D-4 started just fine, and 4 1/2 hours of pushing dirt yielded a hole 25 x 35 with sloped ends, and 45" deep, so footings will be below frostline. It was dark and stormy looking, and rain started  about 15 minutes after I shut down the cat,
so the pics I took came out to dark to see anything. Today will be form boards for footings, and maybe pour some concrete.

[badpenny]

   Going to try a photo, with different editing software
   

     

    Okay, the pic posted, I have forms in and am pouring footings with my hand mixer
     

   And have started laying blocks for foundation

[Raider Bill]

Are you mixing all your footers that way? WOW!
Will be watching with interest. Digging my basement first of next month.

[sawdust]

Ambition Yea! I looked at that 3 cubic foot mixer and those forms and my back started to hurt. You will look back and love what you accomplished. congrats.

sawdust

[Tom]

How difficult is it to get each of those 1yd pours to bind with one another?

[badpenny]

    Tom, not hard at all if you just keep going  8) :D  Seriously, the west end, 22' was one pour, the north and south sides, 32' each, were each one pour, and when I stopped each time, I "stepped" the end so the next pour would have a scarf type of joint to begin with. I left the east end undone so I can get in and out with the Bobcat and a pallet of blocks. Once three walls are done, I will pour the last footer, and set the blocks from inside. Unorthodox, yes, but it works for me.

[Tom]

I remember my Uncle would wet the face of a joint before the next pour to help it stick.  It has to be wet a good while before though.  That's one of a bunch of building things I don't know, concrete work.  :D

[Raider Bill]

That's a bunch of work brother! Like Tom says my back is aching just thinking about it.

[sawguy21]

Yup, I remember footings and a wheelbarrow all too well.  :D Dad would also run planks along the outside of the wall form for the wheelbarrow. A few loads did not make it to the intended destination. That was DanG hard work.

[Handy Andy]

  I always thought the footings were the hardest part of the whole job.  Keep the pics coming!  Jim

[badpenny]

   The footings are easy, set the mixer to dump each load in the forms, swing it back to load and mix, sit down for 5 min while it mixes, dump load, repeat. About every 3 loads, move the empty mixer a foot or so to a new spot on the forms. The wheel barrow is for the bag of cement , they sure are heavier now than they were 40 years ago. Must be "global gravity increase" or something. :D

[Raider Bill]

I've noticed many things are packed heavier these days. Used to be a 80 lb bag of cement was 80 lbs, now I believe they are closer to 180 according to my back anyway.

[badpenny]

   Today's update, 3 foundation walls done, vent windows are in place
   

last short footer is formed up, ready to pour in AM

   

    And I remembered to move the boiler inside with bobcat while I could still drive in and out, it weighs about 175 #, and would be difficult to put in through a trap door. Still have to form up 3 pier support bases, then lay about 90 more blocks, and can then start putting on the subfloor cap. We had .83 inches of rain/pea sized hail Fri nite in about 45 mins, so progress has slowed somewhat.

[Loghead]

Badpenny
Want to wish ya the best on your project!
my back feels for you, I laid 1100 12inch blk for my cabin and said i would never do it again.
on the last 2 rounds a friend who was like 83 yrs old showed up and started throwing them block up to me on the scafold
and boy did I feel like a wiiiiiiiner    but truth be told I would do it all over again 
I'm not too far away (Akeley on the crow wing chain.) if you need any custom tile work let me know my company is Crow wing tile.

[Don_Papenburg]

Badpenny ,    I thought long and hard about the crawlspace in my house .  My conclusion was that as I get older I dislike crawling more and more . So my crawls are all 7foot to the ceiling and have smooth concrete floors

[WDH]

Good progress badpenny.  Got any skin on the end of your fingers?

[badpenny]

   Loghead, I may do a custom shower which will need tile, time will tell.
   Don, the option was there for a full basement, but not the $ for extra blocks. I bought enough for a crawl space two years ago, this spring price per block had gone up $.43 each, adding over $1100 to the total cost. I know, proper prior planning prevents poor performance.
   WDH , still have skin, just not a lot of print lines, had to go to gloves to keep my dainty skin from drying out and cracking. This work thing sure is the curse of the drinking class.

[DanG]

Hey!  Slow down there, Badpenny!  Yer makin' me look bad! >:(

[Radar67]

How is your project coming DanG?

Stew

[DanG]

As a hole, pretty good. : :D  Actually, it's real, real slow.  Been doing as much digging as I'm able to do, lately, and I'm getting close to being ready to pour the footings.  I ain't even considering doing it Badpenny's way.  This one figgers out to 27 yards of concrete!  I gotta haul some water out there to soften the ground enough to put grade stakes in.  That clay is so hard with all this dry weather, I can't pound them in without busting them. :

[TW]

About joints between pours in a footing or foundation wall.
An elderly building engineer taught me to put in one and a half the normal amount of reinforcement bars at the joint. The extra bars should be long enough to extend at least 1 metre into the concrete to either side. The surface of the concrete should be scraped off and then it should be kept wet for quite a while before the next pour.
He said that experience shows that this will be strong enough for ordinary loads. Of cause it cannot be done in concrete beams with free span ;D This method is not mentioned on our present building code but it was in a older version.

By the way
Good work. Good luck with the project.

Edited to correct a error in the text

[Handy Andy]

  Hey TW, what's a meter measure.  We are aMericans here. 

[DanG]

Not all of us are Americans, Handy.  We have valued members all over the world, and TW is one of them.  He hail's from Finland, and I'm sure a Mbf is just as strange to him as a cubic metre is to us.

[TW]

andy
I could have given the measurements in verktum as well. (verktum is Swedish inch, shorter than imperial inch)

[Handy Andy]

  OK, just don't appreciate metrics.  Need 2 sets of everything.  And the gov thought they could make us housebuilders use metrics.  We showed them! 

[badpenny]

   Finally finished the block work, have been dealing with on-off rain for two weeks. Half of the floor joists went up today ( from my own lumber 8) 8) 8)) My cousin will be here Sat am to start framing walls, then raising them, and maybe by Sun pm, we can set trusses

[Don K]

Your smoking when the rain lets up.  If you were having my weather, you'd be moving in Sunday. :D :D

The Parched Don K

[WDH]

Way to go badpenny.  Pretty soon you will have a roof over your head .

[ScottAR]

One really dry year we used angle iron for grade stakes...
Man it was hot that year... 

[badpenny]

   Cursed by the weather gods again! Thought the threat of rolls of plastic would help break it, but no such luck. On the up side, Greg showed up yesterday and today, got the floor joists finished, all the 3/4 decking down for the sub-floor, remembered to leave a trap door for access to the crawl space, and the first long wall is framed up and square. It's still laying flat on the floor though. All I have left to do is put on the 1/2" celotex sheeting, and it will be ready to raise. Dang, you said to slow down, so we did. This fat old(er) guy does not handle 90º heat and 90% humidity with no wind to help cool off. Lots of breaks and lots of water helped. Temps have been upper 40's at nite, and high 60's low 70's during the day for about 3 weeks, today was warmer for a change. Lots of little things to do,  waterproof the exterior of the foundation blocks, back fill a little at a time, rough in the main sewer drain pipe (left a hole in the foundation for that) general cleanup, etc. Maybe this week will be better. Sure is a good feeling to see some progress , and using some of my own lumber is just icing on the cake. Am going to work on some more pics this week, need more electron storage cylinders for the camera. The definition of a flash light---- a round storage tube for dead batteries---- could be adapted to my digi-cam real easy.

[Loghead]

Badpenny get yourself a set of rechargable ones ! mine have lasted 4years now and only takes a half an hour to recharge.

[badpenny]

   New batteries (rechargeable), and help from relatives and friends resulted in a few new pics. All the rafters got raised yesterday, along with most of the roof decking on one side of the roof.
   

   
WARNING  the next pic may be traumatic to some
   

[WDH]

Looking good Badpenny.  The house, that is ;D.

[badpenny]

   Thanks, WDH. That's why the warning! ;D :-[

[badpenny]

  Just an update, spent some time working over the last year, and with $ in hand the project continues. Rough-in electrical insp was done Tues 19th, I have the circulating pump for hydronic heating left to wire up, everything else is done. The shell has been weathertite since last Sept, doors and windows installed. Tomorrow, I go after my outdoor boiler, helping a co-worker remove his old one(mine now) and install his new one. That will cut down on propane for heat. Still have plumbing to do, but this is a basic plan, one bath,kitchen sink, and laundry. Water supply is in the crawl space behind a shutoff valve, just have to run supply lines.Septic tank has a run of drain pipe from tank to inside of crawlspace wall.
   I also got 10 rows high, 11'6" long bedroom interior wall,covered with v-joint done today, from white pine lumber I milled 2 years ago. Am doing horizontal 50 inches high, then diagonal from there to ceiling. Ceiling will also be pine v-joint.
   With any luck at all, it should be livable in a month or 6 weeks tops 8) 8)

[badpenny]

    8) 8) 8) 8) The electrical inspector gave his blessing to my wiring skills today, and put the final inspection sticker on the breaker panel door. 8) 8) 8) 8) The bedroom ceiling is done, next is insulate walls and ceiling,  plumbing drains, then water supply lines, and I can move in while finishing the rest.