four of them…and I’m too exhausted to write anything more right now.
We have walls
Written by karen on July 13th, 2009Wall are coming
Written by brad on July 12th, 2009KC Panels is going to deliver our SIP walls tomorrow. The roof panels will be delivered a day later.
We’ve spent the last week preparing for the walls.
- We finished up the staining and sealing of the slab.
- We drilled holes in the slab for anchor bolts to hold down the 2×6 sill.
- We put down sill-seal and the 2×6 sill.
- We put down plastic to protect the slab while we work on the house.
- We ordered miscellaneous materials from the lumber company.
Drilling the holes for the anchor bolts was a much bigger deal that I thought. Years ago when I was doing this kind of work we bought a hammer drill that was amazing. When I saw a hammer drill for sale (cheap) at Lowes, I bought it. It was a lot smaller than the one I remembered, but technology moves forward while you’re not looking… err maybe not. It’s a fair hammer drill, but it would never have done the job. It took many minutes to drill one hole; sixty holes would have taken ages. It also started coughing up grease chunks within a few minutes. We had to go clear to Sierra Vista to rent a serious hammer drill. We got a big old Hilti hammer drill (about 15 seconds per hole). It was as just as a remembered.
Here Jonathon drills through the sill plate before drilling into the concrete.
Here Harrison mans the big old Hilti while Jonathon helps keeps it aimed straight.
Karen and I cut the bolts down to make it easier to put up the walls
Karen really took to the grinder!
Here is the slab prepped, covered and ready for walls!
The first order of business tomorrow will be to unload the truck, then we should start putting the walls up! How far we’ll get, I don’t know.
Once the walls are up, we will put hangers for the IJoists followed by the IJpoists and a row of blocking between the Ijoists to firm it up. As soon as this is done, we will schedule a crane/boom to come out and lift the roof panels onto the IJoists. At this point, we’ll have walls and a roof. After this comes details like parapet walls, stucco, metal roofing, etc.
brad
Eight hands are better than four
Written by karen on July 8th, 2009We are getting some good work done this week. Here is the progress report:
- The septic rework is done.
- The panels are due here Mon., July 13.
- IJoists, lumber, and other supplies should be delivered early next week.
- The floors are finished.
- The slab has been trimmed, and the sill is going in today.
- The driveway has been mostly moved to accommodate the new house.
- The greenhouse is making significant progress and should be done by week’s end.
- We’ve built a holding pen for cleared brush next to the composter.
We’ve worked out a schedule for while the boys are here that includes all four of us getting to the property by 6:30 or so (thankfully, Brad has taken the task of getting them up) and working until 9:30 or 10 (while it’s still cool). Then Brad runs me home to do my “other job,” and then he and the boys come home around noon or so. After some rest, Brad and I have been going back to the property to do a little more work from about 6 until dark, weather permitting.
I can’t wait until the panels get here. Then we’ll really be moving along.
A big event in town
Written by karen on July 7th, 2009July 4 is a big day in Rodeo. They have a parade, a community barbecue, and a dance. It’s quite an event; they even close down the one paved road here for it. Here are some scenes from the parade.
The boys opted not to go. Here is what they did instead.
Our house now is filled with the sounds of Jimi Hendrix, NBA basketball, and machine gun fire.
They’re here!
Written by karen on July 4th, 2009And work on the new driveway has begun. (Part of the existing driveway goes through where our new house will be so it needs to be moved.)
Big equipment on the ranch today
Written by karen on June 25th, 2009This is a part our septic rework in process. Should be done in a couple days.
Rush hour traffic
Written by karen on June 24th, 2009Playing with my new HD camera (for work, of course)….
The slab becomes a floor
Written by karen on June 21st, 2009As much as things went badly yesterday, today they went splendidly.
We got up 5 again to stain, and today the weather was clear. We set out to the property and began work. I’ll let the pictures and movies tell the story. (One minor sidenote: The rain seems to have brought up some of the Quikrete. We had to scrape and wash down the slab *again*. So Quikrete wasn’t the perfect crack patcher either. Maybe there isn’t one. Anyway, it’s good enough.)
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Staining the Slab
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(The color on the movie is a bit dark and orange. This picture shows the actual color.)
We just love Soycrete. It was so easy to work with and gave beautiful results.
We also did the final stucco coat on the greenhouse columns. This came out really nice too. For me, a lot of this was a practice run for the house. The color turned out really nice, and I would definitely use something similar for the house. (We will be going with a slightly different stucco, one that is plasticized, which we discovered since we bought this first batch, helps prevent cracking).
I finished the stucco two different ways. The first was more of a rough finish. The second was smoother (achieved by misting and sponge troweling it pretty aggressively). While we liked both, I think we’ll probably go with the smoother look. We may do either a different texture or even color on the “architectural details.” (Those are the parts of the exterior walls that stick out a bit to look more interesting.)
It might be faster to grow our own lumber
Written by karen on June 20th, 2009As I write this, Brad is on his way to Animas to give the contract (and accompanying big check) to the panel people and then to Deming to deliver plans to the person there who will be drawing the panel plans. We are hoping to be able to get these plans to approve before we leave for DC for NECC next week so that they can begin manufacturing. [Postscript: There is yet another problem with the panel manufacturer that might further delay things. Oh well.]
This has been held up for several weeks due to issues with the windows. Upon trying to get quotes for windows and doors, we learned that the window dimensions in the plans are not standard as we’d asked for. (Big surprise.) Everything has been further delayed by the fact that it seems to take weeks and multiple phone calls to get quotes on anything from anyone. I’m not sure what the lesson is on all this, but if we’d quoted out some of this while we were in the design phase, we might have found this out sooner. Of course, it would probably have taken even more time that way, so I’m not sure. At any rate, this is certainly as frustrating as I was warned and anticipated it would be.
The boys are due to arrive here July 3. The panels will not be here by then, but we have other things to work on, such as moving the driveway (it currently goes through our main house) and clearing areas for the pump house and patio. Hard work that should keep them all busy.
Brad and I got up at 5 this morning to stain the slab, but it was raining. It’s rained several days this week, not hard or long, but big winds and violent looking clouds blowing through. It appears that monsoon season has started, much to everyone’s glee. Hopefully, it won’t rain too much during July when we are hoping to get lots done.
We have also been making progress on the greenhouse. We’ve painted the wood beams and will be doing stucco this weekend.
And Brad finally cut apart that lovely insulated barrel contraption around our water lines. The bottom third was filled with dirt.
thar be turtles!
Written by brad on June 15th, 2009No, it’s not talk like a pirate week… I’m just excited to finally see a turtle.
We been hearing about the desert turtles since before we moved here. There are signs warning you not to run them over. There are roads out here are named after them, “Turtle Run”. There are even signs proclaiming love for the turtles. I never see them though… until yesterday.
I was driving back from our property when I saw a rock in the road that looked a lot like a turtle. I stopped to take a look and indeed, it was a turtle. Wow! I have a hard time believing they survive out here. It seems so hostile and they’re so small.
Here’s what one looks like in the road.
And here are a couple of close ups.
(In this picture, I crossed a line and he scrunched up.)
It was another interesting day for wildlife. I got a couple of nice vulture photos.
