It's a church!

Dad, Leah, and I got the West, North, and East SIPS on. The process went quite well - once we got a handle on the appropriate prep work to do first and not mash up everything together...we found our rhythm. Some panels would cause us problems, some of it was done in mud, some panels were pulled together with hook plates, some pushed together with the forklift ;) At this point we have a bit of a church on our hands...

"Hey there Old Boy, get on to your own church!"

Nah...Dad has been instrumental in getting the SIPs on. He's been there with me every step sacrificing weekend after weekend helping me get the SIPS up. I rented a tele-handler and we dangle the panels from a strap and plate and drive or do whatever we need to do to get the panel into position. I didnt like the panel companies spacing of the panels from the frame, so I tweaked that. So, some corner panels required going up and down a couple times, trim it, and back into place.

Well, I'll be damned if Lefty didnt come down for Sunday services! With the baby due any day, the time limit on the construction loan looming, and a winter that has yet to come, but will - I needed help. I whistled Lefty down from Minneapolis to come out and help us get the South wall up and the tongue and groove on the ceiling.
The paneling project was brutal but fun. Dad was the cut man, Lefty the runner, and I was up on the roof installing the T&G. My knees took just aweful punishment, I tore my sack, am bruised up and down - but it was fun to see it fly up when we had our act together.

As it stands, we have the T&G on. I dont see how I can get the roof panels on with so few people at my disposal. After I abuse my friends for a weekend, I basically run them off the property to never return. So, I am going to have to resort to having the roof panels put on by a contractor. I felt good about the decision...but now, I kinda feel like I've betrayed myself and the project. I dont want anyone else touching the house at this point and I feel some loss of pride. Shit happens.

Joists and Jack Rafters...Done with the frame.

Wow..its taken a long time to get the remaining timbers in place. The changing seasons have made for very few good weekends to get anything done. Jason and I got the floor joists in a couple weeks ago. I then spent quite some time tuning and re-cutting 3 of the 6 stub rafters. I then tuned the valley rafters...and then it was time to see just how well I did on the valleys and jack rafters.

When I first set out to do this, I designed the dormer as a shed dormer. Easy to cut - but I never liked how it looked 100%. I redesigned the dormer using valley and jack rafters. I took one look at that and though "I'll never be able to figure that out". I then got it in my head that I could never be a decent timberframer until I do some compound joinery. Compound joinery is tricky stuff - I'd like to revisit it again having some trig under my belt. I think once a guy can sit back and basically just visualize when and where angles repeat themselves - that it would be easier. As I was laying out and cutting these I'd have a-ha moments as this bevel or that angle had been used elsewhere on the stick.

During the first snow of the season - the jacks went up:



DONE! - there it is....well, I still have to put the garage up too.

Raising! Timberframe down! Raising again....

The frame, by all intents and purposes, is raised.

Leah and I assembled the inner bents, that went..well, it went well enough. We named each bent and wall by its major problems. Let see who we have in the frame..there's: Patches, Holio, The Artist (formerly known as Mr. Perfect), and Bartlebly (who kept preferring not to go together). There are more walls and bents - but fantastically, not entirely worthy of naming.

So, it was time to raise this thing. I rounded up my friend Jason - probably the smartest, hardest working, most genuine person I know to assist me with raising. I cheated us terribly here. 2 - 4 section high sets of scaffolding with one plank total for each. Hahahhaah..sorry Jason...I didnt feel terribly safe either.

Jason - the old pro:


























We got to work, raised one bent! awesome!!! raised another! Sweet!
SHIT!

























Well, that didnt stop us....we plodded on and raised our Lazarus from the dead...
RISE AGAIN (you sombitch):
























Well - two weekends go by, we got a decent amount of the frame up - but I was burning through too much crane time. It was basically just Jason and I trying to do this. We had Dad and Leah on the ground doing what they could. The crane operator, Dave, he was in and out of the cab doing as much for us as he could. He was great to have around and really was digging what we were up to. Anyways - It was time to call in reinforcements. I had budgeted $4000 for raising. After two weekends of paying extra high crane rates, and just not having the man power - I called Clark at Northern Lights Timberframing and discussed some raising assistance. Best decision I've made on this project to date..and best money spent (checks in the mail - I swear, Clark) on this project so far.

Enter Patrick and Lefty from Northern Lights Timberframing.






They jumped in, got the last interior bent up like it was nothing. I actually almost got misty - I knew I was in good hands and had an overwhelming sense of relief now that these guys were here. Then, it was time for the 42' wall Leah, Dad, the tractor, and I assembled the week before. This was cool. It was one of the slickest operations of the whole raising. Here it is going up:





















One of my favorite pictures from the whole raising was assembling the final girt in that long wall. Patrick and Lefty up top. Dave (the crane operator!), Jason, and I getting the kneebraces in.


























Once the rafters starting going up - they just starting going in right after another. I dared to attempt valley rafters, and was fairly concerned that I'd be ordering more timber and trying again, and then moving onto building a shed dormer if I just couldnt do it. So, the last order of business to was to fly up the valleys. Up they went, shucks..no good. A couple tweaks..and........success!

















This is another of my favorite pics, I'm glad Mom was able to capture it. Valley rafter #2 flew in, fit, and the Northern Lights crew declared victory.




















Here's the crew after the victory laps. Patrick, Lefty, me, Leah, and Jason.


















































Some thanks are in order for this: Leah - is always the rock who wont let me get down...just cuz your shaped like a rock right now doesnt have anything to do with that though.

And then there's Jason - you've really busted your ass for us on this one. Thanks a ton.

Mom and Dad - thanks for all the support, work, and food. We all appreciated it.

And to the Northern Lights TF crew - thanks for a job well done. The guys bent over backwards to see this job done. I had contracted them for two days, but they stayed four days to see this thing through. I told them they were not bound or expected to go beyond the two day agreement - but they wouldnt have it. You guys are true pros and we had a great time hanging with you fellas on and off the job.

So, one big job out of the way....more to go.....SIPS will be coming up....I havent even ordered them yet. Installing SIPs in the winter...stay tuned....

Summer - July

By July, the foundation was poured, septic tank was in....and hmmm what else. It was time for us to get to work. I had originally wanted to build on a slab, and never made any plans for a basement. However, the bank appraisal wouldnt go through w/o a basement. So...we pretty much winged what we were gonna do. I'm out of timbers, I dont want to buy more or transport them. So, we made some built up beams, some built up posts, and some dimensional posts to support the frame above. The basement posts and beams are a true hybrid of post and beam and timberframe. There are mortises in the built up beam and tenons on the posts. My dad, bro, Leah, and I installed these with no lifting equipment.

But, July was not to start hitting the ground running. We got hit alright. Lordamercy!

Working on the house with out the trusty Forester sucked. It holds all our tools, the damn

dogs...everything. For 3 weeks we switched over to our Ford Focus aka: Hocus Focus. I dont see a whole lot of construction crews working out of compact cars.

But, back to the house. I got the mudroom and basement plumbing installed. I had a ringer come out and show me the ropes. Plumbing passed inspection on the first try...I dont see any photographic record of that - so...on to getting the joist system

in place. Here's my bro (Chad), me, and Dad getting the built up beams and posts in place....

Another highlight and surprise of the summer was Leah's older brother, Josh, coming up for a week from Florida. He is not well known in any circle as being a high test carpenter. But, he was a great help to us and I feel we did an excellent job ruining his vacation.

Josh (a programmer for the worlds most popular football videogame franchise) and I (worlds most misunderstood network analyst) doing what we dont do best:

Lasers be damned - I dont go too far or do too many things without the trusty water level

.

Decked:

Oh, and.....

Summer - June

Summer hasnt been kind. Lots of rain - which hasnt stopped much of the work really, otherwise I'd have updated this blog, but working in the mud...It just makes things go sooooooo slow.

So, time to recap.

June.

We finally got to see and participate in a

timberframe raising. I figured I'd be hanging around with my hands in my pockets just kind of observing.

I ended up doing pegging and being in a bucket on a telescoping forklift screwing SIPS to the frame. It was a good time - and I picked up a ton of tricks of the trade. This was a project done by Buffalo Ridge Beamery - the only professional timberframers I know of in South Dakota.

Pegging and installing SIPS:

The biggest bent in place:

Foundation poured....

This weekends projects include waterproofing the foundation. I was gonna use a sheet membrane and do this myself, but its difficult to find concrete guys with forms that dont have a brick impression on them. If we used the sheet membrane, we'd have to have parged the entire house foundation to make it smooth. So, I figured - fine, we'll trowel on some liquid rubber membrane. NOPE! no place in town sells anything like that for below grade foundations. I was ready to start calling places from here to Omaha and Minneapolis and just drive to go get it. But, I settled on having a local contractor come out and do it. It wont be as thick as I'd want - I'm having him make two passes, so - its a near-miss almost happy medium of cost/frustration/etc.

Once that is setup, I'll be applying rigid insulation from footing to sill (under slab too - but thats next week). I need to get my basement plumbing septic lift basin in too and the corresponding below slab plumbing to connect to it. I'm just rough plumbing this in, so it wont have to be done later. We dont intend of having to use it. The main septic drain leaves the house in such a way, that everything should be able to be gravity fed out w/o pumps.

Adventures for next week: digging trench for water supply and the flatwork for the garage floor and basement floor. I think we'll just move in when thats done.

Footings!

Well, alright then. So, my passive solar slab idea is now my passive-aggressive 9ft basement. Hole was dug on Tues/Wed and footings are in as of Thurs. Wow! Its moving along. I'm totally thrilled so far with the contractors I've put together thus far.

House footing:

Mudroom:

Garage:

Fury....and then progress resumes

Well. I finished 98% of the frame in early May. I'm not totally finishing the valley rafters until the frame is mostly up - just so i can adjust if the frame is slighty skewed. So, I figured a quick call to the bank, and I'd be up and running to get a line of credit going in days. Wow. Was I wrong. First, needed an appraisal. Appraisals are taking ~30 days - Ouch. So, 3 weeks go by and the appraisal comes in. It just, just barely covers the cost of materials. I mean no room for labor - and certainly no 20% fudge room. So, here we sit. I had designed the house to be passive solar - i was gonna have 1/2 slab and 1/2 basement. The slab would've acted as a battery to hold heat and release it at night and temper large swings in indoor temperature. As soon as I axed that concept and said I'd do a full basement - the money was there, with slight room for some play. But still, the appraisal is basically all based on Vinyl this and vinyl that. Cheapest of the cheap. No extra allowances for higher quality materials or systems. Sure, if we did propane (insane in this climate - unless you want $300/mo heat bills), vinyl windows, vinyl siding, linoleum - we'd be gold. But, I wanted to build a green-ish house and do some cool things like geothermal heat, metal roof. Well, there is room to play - but frustrating as hell.

So, after sitting around dealing with bank related stuff for almost a month - finally things are

under way again. Yesterday Wally dug the foundation hole...Here he is putting on the finishing touches.

Wally surveying his progress from the dirt he's removed so far:

Yup, job well done boys....

The Boys

The boys havent had an appearance here lately..cant have that.

Valley Rafters

Well, the timbers I've been dreading: valley rafters and jack rafters. The compound joinery was a little intimidating at first, present, and past.... but I wanted to know that I could do it. I have two designs for the house - one with valley rafters and jack rafters, and one with a shed dormer in its place - in case I totally f-up the valleys and corresponding jacks.

One thing..how the hell does one cut valley rafters in the right sequence? In hind sight, I'd saw all the major bevel planes, but not cut all the way thru. I had a hell of a time getting the tenons of the valley rafters cut out. Just getting the valley groove and tenon cut has been about 13 hours per - And I'm proabably 2/3 done. I still have some pockets to cut and the ass-ends (traditional term??) to do.



















Then there are the jack rafters:




































Note:
I am soooooooooooooooo sick of the South Dakota wind. We learned how to remove things from eyes last summer at the doctors office. So, the other weekend, I was reclined in the Forestor passenger seat as Leah exctracted sawdust out of my eye - reclining is the key for the excavator to get under your eyelid and retrieve lost items. Good news though. We're almost done with the frame. Finishing up the valleys and then two small girts..and DONE.