Adventures with Marcy and Andrew: Building A House

Summer and Winter

2010-04-06T09:52:00.001-07:00

Super insulated Frost Protected Shallow Foundations, a proposed building technique by Andrew Johnson

2010-02-18T12:32:00.013-08:00

Disclaimer: I am not an engineer. Consult and engineer and get proper approvals before beginning any non-traditional construction technique.

In cold climates, a traditional foundation requires footings below the frost line so the foundation does not move and crack with frost heave as the ground freezes. A basement makes this easy, but for buildings above grade, this issue must be addressed.

Traditional foundations require what is called a stem wall or frost wall, typically 42" deep in Fairbanks, to rest on footings below grade under the frost line, and support the building above. Here's an example from the City of Fairbanks:

This is relatively expensive in both labor and materials, requiring as many as three concrete pours, additional types of labor, and additional types of heavy equipment.

The basic outline of construction is:
1. grading
2. excavation of trenches for the wall
3. forming and then pouring the footings
4. building the wall out of concrete blocks, formed concrete, or treated wood
5. applying insulation to the perimeter
6. backfilling
7. preparing a subslab substrate of compacted sand or gravel
8. pouring the slab

The Frost Protected Shallow Foundation is an alternative foundation that eliminates the frost wall. It is being adopted in the USA, and has long been used in Norwegian countries.

The basic outline of construction is much simpler:
1. grading
2. spreading and compacting Non-Frost Susceptible (NFS) gravel
3. digging, often by hand, a slightly deeper perimeter for added strength, since this part of the slab is the footing.
4. forming and pouring the monolithic slab
5. applying insulation to the perimeter

To avoid frost heave problems, the foundation is protected from frost in three ways:
1. Final grading is sloped away from the building to keep runoff water away from the foundation, so there is no water in the soil to freeze.
2. Non-frost susceptible (NFS) soils, usually granular gravel without fines, is used under the perimeter down to the frost line, so if it does freeze, it doesn't move.
3. Perimeter horizontal insulation beyond the footprint of the building is placed to keep the ground above freezing. In Fairbanks, this can require as much as 4 inches thick extending 60 inches away from the building at the corners. Additionally, heat from the slab perimeter escapes and heats the ground to keep it thawed.

The astute among you may see a pattern in that list: any one item would prevent frost heave.

This is true, frost heave only occurs if all three conditions exist:
1. Water saturated soils
2. Frost susceptible soils
3. Frozen soil temperatures.

Why attempt to prevent all three? Primarily because it’s a good safety factor. It's hard to predict what might happen over the life of a building. Clogged gutters, erosion, etc, can cause soils to become water saturated.

In today’s environment, striving to be as energy efficient as possible, we must seek additional ways to increase energy efficiency. At the same time, perhaps we can improve construction techniques to save time and money. We can do this with a slightly modified FPSF design:

The Super-Insulated Frost Protected Shallow Foundation design modifies the FPSF to reduce the heat-loss to the ground by fully encapsulating the slab (and thus the entire building envelope) in insulation.

This is done by adding insulation under the perimeter footings. Higher density XPS foam with a rating of 60 PSI is available. This is 8640 PSF, greater than most local soil bearing specs. Perimeter insulation is reduced to a single layer 24” out, primarily to aid drainage.

Additionally, extra care is taken to ensure the soil under the building is non frost susceptible and will remain dry. This is accomplished by ensuring a full 48” of excavation, lined with geotextile filtering fabric, with a drain system installed and filled with NFS soil, compacted in appropriate lifts, and graded carefully to ensure drainage.

You will note that there is a lot of foam under the slab, which could become costly. In addition to extra insulation in the hottest part of a building heated with in-floor heating, this also reduces labor. By building the thickness at the center of the slab, the slab can be poured on an easy to prepare, flat compacted gravel pad.

Due to the cost of foam, there are modifications that can be made to reduce cost. Concrete is cheaper than foam, so the slab can be thickened. Additionally, A very shallow trench can be carefully dug to accommodate one thickness of foam.

Previous design, real world application:
Experience has shown that digging an 8” trench to accommodate a 4” slab with a 12” parameter, and equal foam underneath, is difficult. Compaction in the trench causes the trench walls to erode, and fitting foam to the base of the trench and the trench walls is time consuming. There will be a slight void, which the concrete will have to span, so extra rebar at this area may be considered. This is how my garage was built, and two winters have shown no settling, but I think the flat pad or 2” trench is the way to go.

Xmas

2009-12-06T10:50:00.005-08:00

Yesterday friends Karen and John came over, and we headed out to the power line where the spindly Alaska trees grow a little better with more sun. Here's what we found!

Then today we put up 4 strings of LED christmas lights outside. They are the big C9 size, like I used to have on my house as a kid. I like the big ones, they make the house look more like a gingerbread house.

LED Christmas lights in detail:
LEDs seem to be the new thing. In this C-9 size they only use 20 watts for 200 lights, compared to about 1400 watts for the same number of incandescent bulbs!

Color:
The amber and red colors are not quite as bright as the old incandescent ones, but they are much more vivid. Green is about as bright and the blue bulbs are brighter since the old blue bulbs cut out most of the yellowish light produced by incandescent bulbs. For some reason the yellow bulbs are quite dim.

Brightness:
I have a couple 25-bulb sets of white incandescent C-9 bulbs in the back yard for yard lighting, and they are much brighter than the LED bulbs, but I could have 3400 LED bulbs and use the same amount of power. Still, the LED bulbs seem to be very visible but they don't really illuminate anything around them.As an interesting side note , LED bulbs happen to shine brighter and last longer the colder it is.

Value:
LED bulbs seem to be 2-4 times more expensive than incandescent bulbs, if you can even find them any more. The bulbs should last at least 5-50 times longer, but I wouldn't expect sets to last forever. Wires can crack, mass low cost manufacturing results in pretty low quality so sometime LED sets just die. All that aside,even if they outlast regular lights somewhat, they save installation time and tons off your electric bill.

Another shed

2009-11-14T15:10:00.003-08:00

Marcy and I did another craigslist weekend shed project to help pay the vet bill for Roland. This was a water shed. The floor is designed to hold 15,000 pounds, and the roof is designed to withstand falling snow from the house. It will get siding in the spring.

Happy Halloween!

2009-10-31T23:39:00.000-07:00

Here we are, Fry, Leela, and Nibbler.

Shed Building

2009-10-23T20:06:00.004-07:00

Paul and I (with some help from Ty Keltner) built a shed for his new house. Fairly simple, shed roof, no roof trim to save money:

I enjoyed it, so I put a craigslist ad offering sheds built, any style. I got a response and we ended up building this:

I didn't get any photos earlier, but here's some of the building process.

The temperature was dropping to about 20 degrees, so we were slowed down some by finicky nail guns. Also, daylight was short. Without those obsticals, this would have been a weekend project. As it turned out, we needed to spend a couple hours Monday and Tuesday evening to finish up.

The owner was very pleased and Paul and I made some extra money while getting exercise. We might try to do more of these next summer.

Dog house for the spoiled dog

2009-09-20T11:21:00.003-07:00

Roland is learning frisbee

2009-09-03T11:51:00.005-07:00

ASH

2009-08-05T20:26:00.000-07:00

smokey

2009-08-04T22:44:00.003-07:00

There are numerous fires burning around fairbanks, including one alarming one that just sprung up some 30 miles from our house. It was the driest July in history, I believe I heard. Tonight it has been fairly clear down at our house, but the smoke is rolling in and has made the sky a wild yellow color. This photo is with the white balance set at daylight, which would yield true colors on a sunny day, and slightly blueish colors on a cloudy day.

deck stain

2009-08-04T00:12:00.004-07:00

Finished re-staining the deck. I even sanded it first. After just two years it was pretty faded, but I think the second coat will last longer since the first was on bare wood. It was also worn from construction, and some boards had drips, so it looks really nice now. I also like a second coat because it gets into the screw holes, the first one was done before installation so it was less protected.

beer + floor sanding

landscaping etc

2009-07-20T19:37:00.008-07:00

First of all, I wanted to post a picture of our amazing new butcher block that Christen and Troy Bouffard gave us as a housewarming gift. Thanks guys! Troy does oustanding work. This is Purple heart and Maple.

Very nicely joined

As promised, here are some photos of our yard and landscaping work. I never thought we'd even really do a yard but here it is, mowed grass and all!

the yard from below, near the edge of the maintained part. There is 1/2 acre fenced in, the part behind me is natural treed but not very dense and has pathways. There are lots of low bush cranberries around, and the little treed area towards the left of the photo has some nice raspberries that should really take off with more sun now.

here's the view into the yard from our deck.

Marcy's garden is starting to take off, but we could use some rain!

Our boardwalk to the front door is basically done, with gravel I sorted from the driveway, the garden, a green strip, and a little retaining wall. I still need to cut those posts flush!

I finished the final part of the deck over the weekend, consisting of a small landing for another flight of stairs near the garage. This will be nice for bringing in firewood. Here also is one of the four gates into the yard (one on each side of the house, one by the driveway and one by the power line)

I also completely redid the top of the rail because I didn't like how it turned out the first time. The corners didn't touch. The I was a little short on wood due to my error (a 16' wide section of deck needs LONGER than 16' of rail because of the corners and overhang). I used all the wood for the landing, so nothing was wasted. Also, now the right side is up. Decking should have the end grain look like a smiley face, not a frowney face, so as it ages it cups in a way that it will shed water. It may be counter-intuitive, but this is how it works. Luckily I did the deck the right way.

Next step: Restain the decking, but other than that we can just enjoy our house!

This blog needs an update!

2009-07-20T10:56:00.002-07:00

We never really seem to stop working on the house, but I've been lazy about updating the blog. Tonight I will try to take some pictures of the new fenced in yard, the new stairs and landing on the deck, and Marcy's nicely growing garden.

Grass seed planted

2009-06-03T23:06:00.004-07:00

After a lot of hard work, the grass seed is finally planted! Now we just hope for some rain. We cleared a large area below our house but kept plenty of trees for privacy and shade. I used heavy equipment to pull stumps and haul trees up our steep lot, and then churn up the topsoil so we didn't have to bring in 50-100 yards of topsoil which would have cost a couple thousand dollars. After that it was a lot of hand shoveling and raking and clearing additional debris to smooth everything out. I'm getting in good shape doing this! I finally got so worn out I posted a craigslist ad for some help and had two guys shoveling and raking within an hour!

Here's the view from the deck

Here's a new footpath I bulldozed, the slope straight down is too hard to walk down. The guys I hired did a good job smoothing this out, it was pretty rough form the dozer.

Including what we had leftover from before, we now have about 5 cords of wood stacked. There's still an additional cord or two in smaller stacks elsewhere. About enough for 3 winters.

A change of pace, sorta

2009-05-27T23:58:00.006-07:00

So, since our house is basically done, we had a change of pace... and worked on friends Cameron and Millie's house instead!

We had 8 days in Portland to hand out and work on the project. The time estimate was 5 days, and three of those were supposed to be partial while waiting for drywall mud to dry. Well it turned in to a little more, like 7 long, full days and one partial (like 7am to 11pm a few days). This was mostly because I'm not good at estimating these things (I'm known for saying every little task till take 15 minutes when it actually takes hours). There was some little slowdown at almost every stage, like drywall screws not setting properly, batteries running out, etc.

In the end though, I enjoyed myself, and we did a great job turning two small rooms with small closets into a large master suite a huge window into the back yard and a huge walk in closet.

Demolition was a little slower than expected. The walls had a combination of drywall, soundboard, and the most difficult to remove: plain ol' plywood. However, this stage revealed a pleasant surprise: Beautiful clear fir wood floors under the carpet! At least it will be beautiful after it's refinished. It's all covered in paint and drywall texture.

We also made a slight plan change, which required a trip to the permit office, and added a little time and complexity with the post and beam, but ultimately made a much better layout in my opinion.

Then there was the first inspection, which covered the framing and was supposed to cover electrical as far as we thought, but apparently there was one simple form that needed to be filled out. Really, the inspector could have had this with him. Another trip to the permit office while we added hard wired interconnected smoke detectors, which the first inspector told us we needed since we exposed the ceiling and made it doable...

Also, I was slowed down by being unfamiliar with some of the 1940s construction methods. Most noticably the electric. Durring demo I labeled a wire "power" but later discovered it came directly from the light fixture, so I assumed I mislabeled it. I thought we had pushed the power through the floor, but there was only a 240 volt line for the heater down there. I did some load calculations and saw it was possible to power the room off that circuit, and assumed they must have wired it that way, off one 120v leg of the 240v circuit. This made wiring a bit complicated, but I finished it this way.

THEN, when cutting the previously labeled POWER line which only went to the light fixture, we were all shocked (pun intented) by a huge spark when we thought all power to the room was off! It turns out this part of the room was a continuation of the living room circuit, and the hot power went through the light fixture (most commonly there is only power to a light when the switch is on!) So I had to rewire, which actually simplified it and let us properly dedicate the 240 volt circuit to the heating, like it's supposed to be. Luckily, the spark didn't hurt anyone or anything, I just shorted the lines with the cutters. We probably burned an extra day in all with the electric.

Yay, real wood under the carpet! See that wire there, touching me? Later we found out it was hot.

after tearing everything out, we first put in the new closet wall (this is later, after wiring and some drywall

Attic access. I spent far too much time up there. Very hot.

the post goes through the floor to a foundation footer. I got to crawl around down there a few times

applying rounded corners to the beam

it was usually like this, with several people working hard together

drywall taped, drying for first top coat of mud. The door on the right is the closet entrance

mudder fudders

John sanding away. Messy, dusty work

Texturing. This is about 3 hours before we thought we had to leave for our plane (turned out to be 5 hours). And I still had to connect outlets, smoke detectors, thermostat, and a light switch!

new post and beam in the forground where old closet and wall used to be, new closet wall and doorway in the background. This is pretty much what we got done. Framed, wired, rocked, textured. Cam and Millie still need to prime, paint, hang doors, patch floor, refinish floor, trim. Lot sof work, but I know they can do it and it will make a really nice room!

Yard

2009-05-12T09:08:00.007-07:00

First I cut down about 20 big trees and a lot more small ones to extend a natural clearing. After cutting them down we realized it looked really nice without flattening, so we decided to keep it naturally sloped, which makes the yard much bigger, less erosion prone, and faster to make.

Last weekend I rented a Cat 277C multi-terrain loader:

This is about a 10,000 pound machine with a rubber track

The first attachment I used was an industrial grapple fork. I used it to haul tons of trees, about 3 cords, up the very steep slope. It also was sturdy enough to push over stumps and grab a few at a time, along with other brush, and pile it out of the way. All in all about a summers worth of hand work in 5 hours.

Not my picture, I didn't get any pictures during the process

Then I used a Harley Box rake, which is a high powered attachment. Think fast spinning 500 pound steel rolling pin with carbide spikes. This churns the soil, mixes in debris and rotten wood, and leaves behind a flattened mulch.

Again not my picture, but this is the tool I had

After 10 hours in the machine over the weekend, we ended up with this. It's at least half an acre (22,000 square feet), we haven't measured it yet:

Looking East, 7am

Next steps are doing some final cleaning and raking by hand, then planting fieldgrass. Finally we'll fence it in and have a large dog park for Roland!

new stuff

2009-05-02T12:44:00.004-07:00

We've been looking for a nice table for a long time, with no luck. I considered building one, but we finally found this on craigslist. It's all real cherry, and not stained so it will darken with age and any scratches won't show a different bright wood underneath.

I'm also working on a boardwalk from our parking area to the house to make a more welcoming entry along our raised garden, and cut down on dirt and mud getting into the house. I still need to flush the boards on the right side, and then we'll plant grass along that side between the boardwalk and the garden. I screened all the gravel I dug during the process through a metal shelf to get 1" and bigger rocks, to make a nice approach and fill the spot between the boardwalk and the garage to the left. Still a little more to do.

Changy mcChange

2009-04-24T10:53:00.002-07:00

Have you lost all hope? Do we keep changing too much? Does it seem like we don't listen? We do, there are just too many choices!

The below is rising in the ranks for several reasons. It's not too much for most people, like the red was. The green was a nice color but could have clashed with all the different types of wood we have. An accent wall may have been too much. A solid color seemed overwhelming. In this one, the color pallet goes with the floor, wood, and furnishings. It's kind of a masculine and conservative color - funny, I'm neither. The split tone serves to section off the lower floor from the cavernous vaulted ceiling. It makes the living area a little more cozy and contained.

red might be out

2009-04-23T23:09:00.001-07:00

Decision...making...hard...

It is fun hearing people weigh in though. For every yes there is a no, for every no a yes. Other than the crazy stripe color, now that my dad has voted white we have every color voted for!

A choice may be emerging

2009-04-22T18:03:00.002-07:00

Marcy and I are both starting to like this one. A safe, neutral, but rich color for the main walls with no two-tone, and a stronger bold accent wall color. Looks like green might be out, despite everyone, including Marcy and I, liking it. I cleaned up the Photoshop work a bit, and added dynamic lighting for a slightly more realistic preview

Little consensus

2009-04-22T09:32:00.007-07:00

Thanks so much to all for the comments on colors, and please keep them coming!

There has been very little consensus, and we got several back-to-back comments or emails with opposite opinions!

red bad! - John
RED GOOD! - Cam

split color good- Stephanie
yes, split color good - Carol
split color bad!- Jess
yes, split color BAD- Kara

Gray looks like a battle ship - John
Gray is gloomy - Kara
Gray looks nice! - Carol

Then there are votes for most colors - red, burgandy, blue, green, sage, cream, chocolate, gray, black

So far the only color to stand out with any consensus at all it sage. And no votes for keeping it white

Personally, I think any color darker than white helps draw the attention to the floor, ceiling, furniture, windows, etc, and takes advantage of our excessive accent lighting. Now the good things provide the light and aren't drowned our by the big white walls.

I definitely like the chocolate color in the kitchen. There are highlights of that color in the counter Green matched the counter too strongly and looked bad.

I think the 2tone looks OK, but not up the stairs like the one photo.

I'm leaning towards more of a neutral color to go with the tile and ceiling, a warm gray or more chocolate perhaps, with a contrasting accent wall, maybe of that nice sage. The brown could continue into the kitchen. The sage wall is opposite the kitchen, which has a similarly colored counter top.

However, I know Marcy thinks one color on the big wall is too dominating. Any thoughts?

Update:
Below: The above photo changed with Marcy's input (and color corrected on the blinds):

Hmm, and another open, more bold, but doesn't overwhelm the room like doing the whole thing in burgundy

Paint?

2009-04-20T18:00:00.016-07:00

So, I thought maybe our great room could use some more color. We had the drywall guys paint it asylum white. To see what it would look like, I painted it a whole bunch of different colors, took pictures for you, my faithful readers to see, and perhaps share your input on. There are, of course, many more colors available, but I can only paint the living room so many times.

Any that don't make the cut for this room could go elsewhere. Marcy and I are currently leaning towards 2tone gray on the great room, sage in the kitchen, light blue in the bathrooms, and maybe something more bold in the office/loft.

Update: I've added colors, reduced the image size (click for full view) and removed my cheeky color names just to make it easier to see the colors side-by-side.

current color white, cream

beige, gray

sage, lighter sage

2tone gray/sage

half&half gray, choco / gray

2tone gray

light blue, dark blue

burgandy, red

Here's a color option for the kitchen that Marcy and I like, along with the 2tone gray/sage living room.

And this would be a view of the whole great room. At first I had the loft a different color, but 4 colors in one room seemed too much.

Like it, love it, hate it, vomit?

And here's another option, as suggested by my sister. I like it.

accent wall

Energy usage continues to impress

2009-04-02T12:53:00.002-07:00

The coldest winter in many years is nearly over, and our 12 month fuel usage for heating the house, separate 2 car garage, and hot water generation, is 560 gallons. Next winter will likely not be as cold, and I'm putting a small wood stove in the garage. I could also burn wood more in the house, but it's difficult with working full time. Either way, I'm very happy with the low heating bills!

Landscaping?

2009-03-25T12:31:00.009-07:00

We would love to have a yard and better area for Roland, but do we want to spend the time and money? It's a lot of work, but then again we know we're capable. Last year we put in a treated wood 70 foot retaining-wall raised garden, and a brick retaining wall path in just one weekend. I've sketched out some rough plans from an overhead view. The things that don't currently exist are:

footpath
boardwalk
brick steps
lawn
fence

The fence is about 500 feet long. That alone could be a lot of work!

Click for a closer look (updated with dog house and split rail fence):

Below is a cross section of the dirt work plan to flatten an area. Essentially I'd be cutting out a triangle from the top and placing it on the bottom.

Update:
I've made an updated version as an option. This moves the yard higher, more accessable from the house. It should work as long as there is a row of natural trees between the steep slopes below the parking area and above the lawn to prevent any erosion

The darker shaded grass represents the steep slopes, and the lighter shade is the usable lawn area

Blinds

2009-03-22T22:00:00.002-07:00

I just installed some wooden blinds to help control some light, and warm up the living room some. I lucked out, a couple custom cut returns were the right size so I got them half off. Only needed a little shim, which will get hidden behind the top trim.

winter pictures, future plans

2009-03-22T10:51:00.004-07:00

This blog doesn't have many pictures from the outside of the house, so here are a few new ones I took this morning.

This summer we're debating whether we should flatten out a spot below our house for a lawn.

Original land. It's fairly steep, though it doesn't really appear so.

I photoshopped a flat area to the right, with the spruce tree in the middle of it.

It's easier said than done. Since our lot is steep, we'd need to make a switchback path, stairs, or both just to access the lawn. We'd have to remove some trees, but there is a natural clearing, and we will still have great privacy. If we cleared an 80x150 foot area, we could flatten about 40-50x150 foot area. The rest gets used up on the inslope and outslope needed to create the flat area. Basically above and below the flat area become steeper. Still, this is about the size of a city lot, and it would be nice for summer get togethers, playing with the dog, etc.

Hindsite is 20/20, but had we anticipated this, and our budget, we might have built the house with a daylight basement, wich could have walked out onto a lawn without the steep slope.

Last fire of the season

2009-03-21T20:31:00.004-07:00

Today we had what is probably the last fire of the winter. When it's above zero, the house gets too hot with just a small fire going, especially this time of yyear when the afternoon sun helps heat the place. I didn't want to end the season with small fires, which can build up creosote, so I had one last hot fire. We also rearranged the living room a little, and I like it a lot, it makes the stove more of a centerpiece and seems more open. Roland, as usual, likes his rug and the fire.

Irksome detail finally finished

2009-03-02T19:04:00.002-08:00

While we've finished 99% of our house, a few tiny details remain. One that has bothered me is the baseboard trim. It's not that it wasn't installed, it just wasn't completely done. We painted it and installed it last year, and then caulked the seam . The caulk remains flexible, and as a side effect is slightly sticky. Because of this, it attracted dust like a magnet. Or something, magnets don't attract dust. And our house has plenty of dust, dog hair etc, thanks to Roland. But anyway... We finally took the time to move furniture, thoroughly vacuum, then clean the baseboard, caulk the nail holes, and then paint it. I had to get some paint matched since the store we originally bought paint from went out of business.

updates coming!

2009-02-26T12:16:00.002-08:00

I know our blog has been really dead lately. The house and garage are basically done, and we've been hunkered down for the winter and enjoying our nice place!

However, I'm getting the itch to start some new projects. Some might be small like paint touch-up, some might be fun like building an entry-way storage bench and adding storage to the entry closet, and some might be big (overkill?) like tackling some major landscaping. Check back to see progress and help with ideas.

Updates soon to come...

Aaaaand now it's 40 above!

2009-01-15T21:40:00.001-08:00

Another year of odd weather. It's now above freezing and everything is melting. We'll enjoy it while it lasts!

Cold snap!

2009-01-03T14:09:00.002-08:00

Fairbanks is one week into a major cold snap, and the week-long forecast shows no end. Lower elevations have seen -50 or colder. We often are 30 or more degrees warmer at 950 feet elevation, but lately it's only been about 10. We saw a new low for the house of -37 degrees!

I've had the fire going constantly but amazingly enough it still heats 90% of the house to 70-75 degrees on low, with 2-3 armloads of birch per day. The spare room needs a little heat to keep warm when the door is closed, but it does get some heat from the rest of the house still.

I carefully keep track of our fuel usage to see how much benefit we get from the wood stove. In the last 4 weeks we burned about 40 gallons of fuel for heating. 3 weeks were around 0 degrees and the last week dropped to -30 or colder. That's less than 3 gallons a day on the coldest days, and most of that is for the garage which has no wood heat (yet). Compare that to about 10 gallons per -30 degree day to heat the house and garage normally, and we're saving $15 a day, which could double quickly if fuel costs go back up.

The best thing of course is having a cozy fire to read by, and our house it much warmer than we might keep it without the wood stove.

Wood burning

2008-11-05T09:40:00.003-08:00

I've always liked heating with wood, having a place to warm up or sit and read by, so I'm really enjoying our wood stove. I'm actually looking forward to a cold snap of 30 below or colder. Our house is so efficient, I can hardly keep the stove cold enough when it's not below zero out.

So far the Jotul F400 stove seems like a good choice. It's very simple, with no damper, just a + /- control for air. It's also the easiest stove I've used to light. It's efficient, with a secondary burn chamber. Not quite as efficient as a catalytic converter model, but less finicky. It burns about 6 hours with 3 ~5" logs, so I can run it on about 2 easy arm loads of wood a day. I'm trying to burn whenever it's 10 degrees or colder to offset heating costs, though fuel oil is almost down to half the cost it was when it peaked this summer.

The big glass door is nice for viewing the fire, though it cleans itself best when running above minimum temp, which is why colder weather will actually be welcome.

garage completed

2008-11-02T19:29:00.003-08:00

I've been working away on the garage, mostly on weekends, and it's now basically done. Outside is fully sided, lights and outlets are installed, and my dad came up do help wire the place inside, which went smoothly.

Then he actually came up again for a weekend because the lake was freezing early so he needed a place to stay, so I had help building the workbench, which turned out really nice. It spans the full 24 feet of the garage. There is abundant storage in the garage as well, big shelves up high on each side, and one full wall of shelves, plus another couple metal shelf units. There's a lot of space under the workbench too. All this, and both cars still fit fine, with room to work at the workbench.

With all the shelves done, this weekend we spent moving boxes of camping gear, garden stuff, sports gear, luggage, and all the crap we seem to have out into the garage. This included the tools that were still in our living room, so now our house is more like a house!

In the process of organizing stuff, we found the little bed Roland used to sleep in. It was on the floor, and he climbed right in. He actually managed to fit, it seems like he can make his body just slightly larger than his head.

pictures of recent work

2008-09-27T14:49:00.008-07:00

Just a few more rows of siding now that the insulation is done. The hole is the access for insulating, installing ceiling-hung shelving supports, and falling through the ceiling.

Garage door partially installed. It came damaged, so work will continue Monday with replacement parts

Last night and this morning I installed the snow stops on the roof. It was snowing both times.

The stack is taller than it looks, about 8 feet. The box in the back holds 1/3 a cord of kindling, leftover scrap from the building projects. One more row will fit and be protected from rain, totalling 3.5 cords of firewood. Maybe 2 years worth depending on how much we burn.

Remaining firewood in the driveway to stack. There are still several piles in the woods.

Our new Jøtul F400. We've had two of the three break-in fires. The stove seems to work beautifully and makes pretty flames.

"Why isn't it on?" Roland immediately laid by the fire when we first lit it last night.

New stove from upstairs. We may build a hearth another time. Next summer perhaps. It has a long stove pipe inside and short chimney outside, which helps keep flue gasses hot for good draft.

Here in the garage, the heat tube manifold. Notice the shitty drywall work.

I took the house lockset off and put it on the garage, and got a new one I like better for the house.

Getting ready for winter

2008-09-25T13:24:00.004-07:00

Pictures coming...

We got our first frost a couple days ago, and we're getting ready for winter just in time.

Firewood stack: Marcy and I cut all our firewood, which turned into two huge space-hogging piles in the middle of our driveway. Marcy just finished stacking the bigger pile, and should get the rest done this weekend. Of course there are more small stacks around the property, but this is the bulk of it. We should have about 3.5 cords of wood under the roof overhang. This is all from our lot, and would have cost over $1000split and stacked, here in Fairbanks. Also, it will offset about $1700 in heating costs. There's another two cords or so already cut on the lot.

This brings me to the more exciting news: We finally got our wood stove! We had this picked out a long time ago, and should have bought it then because the price went up. It's a Norwegian Jotul F400 Castine, sized to efficiently heat our entire house. There's a 3 day break-in process, but we'll post action photos when that's done.

The Garage slowly continues. It is fully insulated and the exterior is done. Much better than the October siding we did on the house. It was way too cold.

I hooked up the floor heat. Everything works well, but I had a small 1 drip an hour leak in one of my connections. Turns out I damaged an o-ring when installing it. Simple fix, and I guess 17 out of 18 leak-free connections isn't bad for a non-plumber. The Rehau pex tubing and manifold is a very high quality and easy to use system.

The manifold has little flow meters and thermometers on the supply and return side to help determine how much fluid is moving through the floor. From this, it's easy to determine how much heat is going into it. As I hoped, there is about twice as much heat as is needed for the coldest day, so at -50 degrees, the heat should only have to run half the time.

Update to the drywall:

2008-09-21T08:45:00.003-07:00

The drywall is done, and in the end it looks like it won't be that bad. It turns out, by dumb luck, my biggest concern of the ceiling sagging under the weight of the insulation is moot. Since I happened to get the material (technically gypsum wallboard; drywall is a brand name) from Uresco Building Materials, I got the Georgia Pacific ToughRock brand, and the 1/2 stuff they gave me is specially reinforced with fiberglass to be as strong as 5/8" ceiling board. Had I known this, I would have ordered all 1/2" board and eliminated at least the problem of the wall ledge.

On the more humorous side of things, I stole the stupid award from the contractors. I was in the attic insulation space above them, and I fell through. At least one leg did, kicking off half a sheet. They crew looked at me really surprised, and I said, "Hey guys, I was upstairs and I thought I'd drop in."

Never any luck with contractors

2008-09-19T19:59:00.005-07:00

Warning: Rant alert

I decided to give us a little bit of a treat and pay a crew to hang the drywall in the garage. We're tired of building and could use a break and it would be nice to get things done sooner. Drywall hanging is hard work, but with a lift rented for $40 Marcy and I could have done it in a long day. The sheets for the ceiling weigh 115 pounds, and the ceiling is 10 feet up.

Anyway, I put an ad on craigslist for $300 to do the job. I knew the crew that did the house could have done the job in 2 hours, so I thought it was a good deal. Other people did too; I got 5 responses in a couple days.

Unfortunately I don't think anyone that called knew what they were doing. I gave the job t the second caller since the first never called back. They're working now, almost done after 7 hours.

They aren't doing a great job.

Several things are wrong.
Normally, thicker board goes on the ceiling, and the ceiling goes up first, so I had the drywall stocked with the thick stuff on top to use first. But they put that on the walls, and when that ran out they started putting the thin stuff to finish the walls, so there's a ledge where it changes thickness.

Now with the 1/2" on the ceiling, there's a risk it may sag some, especially since we will put so much insulation up there.

Also, they used my circular saw to cut the drywall, so my nice Freud blade is probably dull.

Also, they set some screws too deep. I just never have any luck.

And finally, the icing on the cake: While I was walking the dog, cooling down before I told them everything that was wrong, I got the sixth call: From the same guy who did (a fine job) the house.

Update 7:41pm:
Well, it got worse. He called me out there, asking what to do with the 25.5" space all around the perimeter at the ceiling when there should have been a 24" space (for half a sheet of drywall). That's when I realized he didn't set the drywall on the 1.5" high ledge I made at the bottom. I told him about this, and left a note about it. Time to take it all down.

Garage progressing

2008-08-28T20:57:00.004-07:00

Just a little progress this week. Marcy and I caught colds and also have our real jobs to deal with.

However, yesterday I put in all the fiberglass wall insulation, mostly to get it out of the way and brighten it up in there.

Today we painted the one side so we can stack firewood there. The long LP spart lap siding only takes one and a half pieces to span the entire length of the garage. It was pretty quick work.

One side foamed, sided, and painted up to the eves. I'll paint those with an airless spray gun later.

The eves vents. The gap below makes up for the thickness of the additional foam insulation we put on the exterior.

I quick painted one section for a photo. The sprayer will get in the hole better. Drilling 48 2.5" holes wasn't particularly fun, but it's recommended to have at least 1 square foot of venting per 300 square feet of roof, with half at the eves and half near the ridge. This allows cool air to flow above the insulation to keep the roof cooler so it doesn't bake in the summer and so it doesn't form icicles in the winter.

exercise in patience

2008-08-25T22:29:00.002-07:00

Despite a lack of posts, the garage is progressing nicely. I'm also, of course, busy with my real job.

However, with the help of Marcy, we've:

completed the eves venting which looks really nice. The holes have a rounded edge we did with a router. They also serve as trim for the top of the siding. Pictures to follow will explain.
foamed and sided the south side where firewood will stack, so we can paint it and get the massive firewood stack out of our driveway finally. The OSB lap siding is much faster to install.
I completely finished the roofing which still needed rake trim and a ridge cap. It looks better than the pro job on the house!
I put on most of the foundation flashing which covers the foam and makes an attractive termination at the bottom of the walls. This was labor intensive, lots of digging.

Also, a little adventure in patience. I ordered most of the remaining materials for the garage, and discovered that price shopping is always worth it. I order many things from SBS because they are competitive and offer free delivery, and some of the best lumber around.

I almost ordered 90 pieces of siding from them, but $14.79 a piece (with my contractor discount) seemed steep. I called lowes, $13.79. A little better. Plus Home Depot and Lowes promise to beat one another's prices by 10%, so you find the lower price and buy from the other store.

Usually their prices are nearly the same, but Home depot was $10 per piece! So I went to Lowes for 10% off of that, a savings of almost $550! Well worth it.

However, it was such a good deal, they didn't believe me, OR the Home Depot rep when they called. They thought it was a different product and they will only beat the price on an identical one. After working my way up the manager chain, I finally just went and bought one piece from Home depot to prove it was the same thing. This all took about 3 hours, not to mention overloading my trailer with too much weight and too-long boards, which caused scary swaying at speeds over 40MPH. In the end though, I think $500 was well worth it.

It's nice not being so rushed as with the house that we can have more time to save money.

day 5, 7:30 pm

2008-08-18T19:31:00.006-07:00

So I was wrong, we only had two more hours of work! And we were able to finish tonight. That's right, both my dad and me. He was planning to leave, but there was some hazardous waste spill on the parks highway that prevented him from leaving, so we were able to finish the roof together. I had to go to work today, but I got off at about 5:30 and we finished the main roof metal sheets at 7:30.

Also, you may remember the cement truck left a 2 foot deep ditch in our driveway. I convinced the company to deliver a load of gravel for free if I bought the gravel, for me to do some fixing. I was also able to use it for a storage area for the snow machine trailer which has always been in the way, and a little spare parking area near the road for extra guests or in the winter while we wait for the driveway to be plowed.

I gotta say, we were really lucky with weather. My dad was originally going to come up a week earlier, but it's rained the 3+ weeks prior to this weekend. It pretty much stopped just in time for us to build and it's been mostly really nice!

Roofing on! We are waterproof. The last of the "urgent" projects are done. We don't have to work on the house to get money and we don't have to work on the garage to prevent water damage. The building is definately a good size, I don't think I knew it would be quite so big.

Garage view from up the road.

Extra spot for the trailer

The trailer is not visible from the road. Repaired driveway section to the left.

Extra parking spot. 3 cars can cram.

Day 4, 10pm

2008-08-17T22:59:00.003-07:00

Success! At least almost 100%

Today we fully sheathed the roof which includes the under-eave finish material, we attached the drip edge, laid the roofing felt, and finally were able to put half the metal roofing on (the more difficult half too!). 4 more hours and we would have made it to be fully protected from rain. However, the felt will do until I get the rest of the metal up there. My dad pointed out that had the trusses not been 4 hours late, we probably would have fully achieved my goal.

Still, framing, sheathing, and just 4 hours away from complete roofing is not bad for a 2 man crew over a 4 day weekend.

We're both sore and tired, and the office chair seems mighty inviting after a weekend like this.

Day 3, 9pm

2008-08-16T22:14:00.003-07:00

Long day.

We finished sheathing the entire exterior and spent the rest of the day getting ready for roof sheathing by framing the roof overhangs on the gable ends and attaching the fascia board on all four sides. This is all a very time consuming project because the fascia is one thing this early in the project that is actually visible so it has to fit nicely.

Also, I joined the something like 30,000 people per year and sustained the classic American construction injury: I shot myself with a nail gun. The safety devices prevent what people usually imagine like shooting yourself in the head or leg straight on. I did what's more common: I had my hand too close when shooting into a board and the nail bent 90 degrees inside the wood because of a knot and shot out the side into my hand, right between the thumb and forefinger. It only hurt because there isn't much flesh there and the 1/8" penetration was enough to hit the bone. Also a big of tendon seems to have come out the hole. It made Marcy squirm both before and after I showed her.

Day 2

2008-08-15T17:08:00.008-07:00

Update: Day 2 7pm
Trusses arrived at 7pm and we set them in about 80 minutes of frenzy. The boom truck driver was a super hero monkey (like me) and jumped from truck to truss and back to help set and brace the trusses. Long day for him. When he delivered trusses for the house, it was something like 4:40 am. Guy works some serious hours!

This time we ordered gable trusses to save on our labor. For the house we framed those walls ourselves. This entire project was designed to be as easy as possible. It's almost like taking a break compared to building the house!

4pm
Today we got some more lumber for some framing details and lookouts (roof overhang) and truss bracing, and I also picked up the metal flashing which covers the foundation foam. Though it was temping to just leave it exposed. The pink foam sure is pretty!

We did a few final framing things, like blocking for drywall, and adding metal corner ties to the top plate, since it's only a single top plate. Then we sheathed all we could at this point and braced the walls in preparation for roof trusses. They were scheduled for 4pm, but it could be more like 7pm or so. They are running way behind. The top sheathing overlaps the trusses for strength so we do that later, but it was nice to have time to do the odd pieces and cutout for the door and window already.

The open framing above the sheathing is the additional 2 feet of height on the building, which we did for added storage shelves up high to keep the floor space free for cars and work area.

Here's how the garage sits in relation to the house. It's on the north side, where we only have a small window for ventilation, and there is no view or sun anyway.

Day 1

2008-08-14T18:08:00.005-07:00

Update: 7pm
All four walls are up! Tomorrow: Sheathing, setting trusses.

5pm
Got rained in for the moment, but we'll probably raise the last wall this afternoon. Sun is coming back out as I speak. Notable for the day: we used precisely all the wood I got delivered, and had none left over.

Extreme Garage building

2008-08-13T13:04:00.002-07:00

4 days to completely frame and roof from the foundation up!

8-14 through 8-17

Can we do it?

Stay tuned...

Garage has shrunk

2008-08-12T09:24:00.004-07:00

Not only did the garage foundation cause damage to my driveway and end up with a bad finish on the slab, but it turns out there's more!

Why oh why didn't I check the foundation before they poured? I just trusted that they knew better than me. However, the garage foundation turns out to be incredibly out of square, and one side is a whole 3 1/2 inches short. For reference the house foundation (which we did) is within 1/16th of an inch.

You can correct for an out-of-square foundation to some extent by hanging the walls over the edge, but not 3 1/2 inches! So I had to shrink the garage by 2 inches. This makes it a little difficult down the road since 24 feet works out just right for six 4 foot sheets of OSB, foam insulation, etc. Luckily the important dimension was accurate enough so the trusses bear on walls where they're supposed to.

Last night I figured this out and corrected it, and bolted down the accurately squared treated sill plates to build the walls on. That's one of the harder parts now done. We'll be framing this weekend, and should even have the roof on by Sunday!

garage slab pour, chaos.

2008-08-04T14:17:00.006-07:00

Today they decided to go ahead and pour. The first cement truck had no problem, dumped, left.

The second truck went off the side of the driveway and sunk in. Bad driver. His right wheels were dead center in the driveway. It looked like he was going to tip, and a tipped cement truck is a very bad thing. However, a few broken chains, sweated bullets and finally a huge semi-wrecker later, they pulled him out and he was able to unload with time to spare.

However, it was no easy day. While driver #2 was stuck it started to rain, which makes this type of work difficult. Then when it was time to powerstrowel (think big lawnmower with really flat blades that smooth concrete) the starter cord for the machine broke.

In pictures:

As a side note, it's pretty neat to see the guys turn a rocky slurry into a smooth surface. They work quickly and efficiently. Here's a couple video clips.

As a side-side note, I think the one guy is the incomprehensible chicken farmer from Napoleon Dynamite.

Update: Slab poured, Chaos

The slab has now been poured. It rained durring the pour and for 14 hours after so power floating (which brings the "cream" to the top for a smooth strong finish) added water which weakens the surface, and power troweling happened too late so a nice smooth surface couldn't happen. Structurally it's all fine, but it doesn't look great and may chip a bit.

Garage underway

2008-08-02T11:10:00.004-07:00

The garage is underway, though slow as we wait for record rains to pass. Today it looked good and the foundation crew even scheduled a cement truck but had to cancel.

As with the house, we're trying to insulate as much as possible. The traditional slab design uses a perimeter frost wall around the.. uh.. perimeter, which extends below frost line and keeps the foundation from heaving. This is relatively expensive. It required an excavator and a mason crew. The modern alternative is a monolithic pour, but it has heat loss because underneath the perimeter is usually left uninsulated to heat the ground slightly to avoid frost heave.

However, frost only happens when all three of the following are present: Moisture, frost susceptible soils, and freezing weather. We've eliminated two by using well draining gravel under the garage and large roof overhangs with good drainage design around the land. Because of this, we were able to use a unique design and place foam underneath the perimeter footing. This seems odd, foam is supporting the weight of the building. But with standard 25PSI compressive strength foam, you get 3600 pounds of bearing strength per square foot. This is more than the soil is rated at. Just for safety, we used 40PSI foam, which I think is a good idea. Even though we very carefully leveled the perimeter, there may be some small voids underneath the foam.

This is the sectional drawing of the perimeter. I had an engineer check just to be sure.

A rather large looking load of foam insulation. I got some funny looks pulling something twice as tall as my car.

Foundation mostly formed before the rains.

Foam placed, rebar in the perimeter trench and reinforcing mesh not quiet in place

Heat tubes placed. There are two 300 foot runs of 3/4" tube placed 12" apart They're placed a little closer together in front of where the workbenches go for added comfort.

Flood

2008-08-01T11:19:00.001-07:00

Near record rains. Fairbanks has declared emergency. Boy are we glad to be up on a hill!

Garage and other stuff

2008-07-30T17:02:00.005-07:00

So work has begun on our garage. Thankfully, it's work being done by someone other than me this time. We are having some contractors do the garage foundation. Below is what it looks like right now.

Also, my garden did pretty well below are the plants that are already bearing some fruit.

Peas

Yellow squash

Chop'n Broccoli

Finally some current and past Roland cuteness. In that order:

Catching some zzz's on the fouton (only piece of furniture he is allowed on)

Sometimes we just can't help ourselves...

Final steps done, just a few days till closing

2008-07-17T19:07:00.005-07:00

We now have everything required for closing done! The last of which was the as-built survey which was just completed. That's the last of the stress for me! Now we know the house is officially recognized as occupancy-ready, recognized as built to the highest standards and energy efficiency, and no parts of it encroach on any property lines. We only have to wait one more week for the notice of completion, then we can close!

Then, on to a much more fun project: the garage...

update: Closing time set: Monday July 21st at 3:30pm!
update: Closing went great! Funds dispersed on the 24th, which is Marcy's birthday.

Fun!

2008-07-15T16:04:00.003-07:00

Last Friday Andrew and I actually had some good old quality time together. We went on a short hike and took some candid pictures of our puppy.

Roland looks more heroic then Rin Tin Tin

Nothing like a 40 after a 3 mile hike.

Sad Andrew hugging sleeping Roland. Too much cute for one picture!

Where did our puppy go?

Inspection done

2008-07-10T17:43:00.001-07:00

Inspection done, passed with flying colors! Blower door tester guy said it was the most air-tight house he's tested. Hurray!

All coming together

2008-07-08T12:37:00.002-07:00

Tonight we finish (we MUST finish) the final details to "complete" the house. This is gates on the deck, a tiny section of custom railing inside,and two outlet covers. I hope.

Tomorrow is final inspection day! We also get our energy rating done. If we're 5 star plus, we should get a $7500 rebate from Alaska Housing Finance Corp. This was unexpected, and as you can imagine, a very pleasant surprise!

We have been dealing with getting our mortgage so we can pay everyone back and have one simple monthly payment. First we got the house appraised. I had been very nervous about that for a few months. It would tell us if we made money building this house.

We got appraised for $224,000, which is quite good! It's the upper end of what I thought were my optimistic hopes! It also lets us get the best loan available with only 70% loan-to-value ratio, and we'll still have enough to build a garage this summer.

There are a lot of other little details required. We needed to file a notice of completion with the borough so anyone can see it and put a lien on our house if we owe them money. We got a water test done, even though we don't even have a well. They need to be sure our holding tank isn't tainted. We ordered an as-built survey to be sure we don't encroach on any property lines. We got our septic system DEC stamped paperwork. We also had to compile all our receipts for the loan.

It's lots of work getting a loan on a house! At the end of this week we should be done and we just need to wait 15 days for the notice of completion to set in. Then, we should get our check! Hurray!

Cable Rails in and Garden is growing

2008-06-21T08:38:00.006-07:00

the whole cow

2008-06-03T22:38:00.009-07:00

You know the saying don't bite off more than you can chew? Yeah.

Instead of finishing the few things remaining required to get a mortgage, we undertook a major landscaping project. This is partially because I really wanted to make a retaining wall to avoid erosion on a steep slope near the foundation that had me worried. Since this virtually required renting a mini excavator, I figured why not use it for other projects.

So, we decided to make the retaining wall, and go ahead and make the 60 foot long raised garden bed we had planned for the future, and also dig the utility trench to later connect the house to the garage.

Not a huge amount of work? 16 posts, 1000 pounds of concrete, 55 50 pound blocks, lots of hand digging, 13 hours of machine time, 32000 pounds of gravel and 20000 pounds of topsoil later, we beg to differ.

In the end, we prevailed, though I was up until 2 am and then back at it at 7am to maximize machine rental time and finish so we wouldn't need to rent again. On Monday, I could hardly move.

Here's the story in pictures:

One of 16 posts, set in concrete in a sonotube

all 16 posts set, earth torn up.

first three rows of treated 2x12s attached, me in the background hauling gravel. The gravel goes under the topsoil so the soils drain well.

backfilled with gravel, reinforcement structure to be compacted under silty gravel.

topsoil in place, tops of posts will be cut flush

This is the parcially backfilled utility trench which will go to the garage. A PVC conduit for electricity goes in next. These are pex tubes for heating glycol to heat the floor of the garage via the houses boiler.

Roland helps by sleeping sprawled on his back

Me digging out any silt that may disturb the first course of stones for the stone wall. Gravel goes in the trench and then gets compacted and leveled. These machines are fun. Just like playing with Tonka trucks!

Bringing in gravel after a couple courses layed. The gravel gets compacted with a vibratory plate compactor after every 6" course of block. The machine I'm on is a Boxer brand track loader. I got this because it has retractable tracks so it's just small enough to squeeze between the deck and garden wall. You stand on it and hold on as it whips you around.

five courses of block layed

all 6 courses (at the lowest point) and topsoil layed in place. A staircase from the deck will step down to the flat area created by this wall.

Here's another project we've been working on: Deck railing. The space between will be cable rails.

Sided and Painted

2008-05-23T13:35:00.006-07:00

Last weekend Andrew and I had some amazing help from my Mom and Dad. They came up to paint and ended up doing numerous other tasks. Like helping us finish the last bit of siding and dog sitting our puppy. Together they painted 2 sides of the house on their own! It really was just the extra push we needed. So thank you Mom and Dad for your help!

Dad Painting, I didn't happen to get a picture of Mom painting but she was working really hard too!

Dad on one side Andrew on the other.

I don't know if you can see this very well but the color difference between the primer on the house and the color we painted the house are very similar. The new color was just the slightest bit more chocolaty. Kudos to Mom and Dad again because the house really was tough to paint. When the house paint went on wet it matched the primer color, so you had to wait a few minutes for it to dry before you could tell if you made any mistakes.

Below are pictures of each side newly painted and sided. All we have to do now is put up the last of the roofing material around the soffets and the deck railings and the house will be finished enough for our mortgage!

Below are the dormer sides.

And because I can, more Roland!

Here is a picture of the new family together!

The above picture is courtesy of Andrews camera going wonky. However, I thought it was kind of cool and artsy. So I put it on the site.

Last but certainly not least I got this super cute picture of Roland today. He sits when I ask him too most of the time. He has gained 3 lbs in a week and has already lost his infant puppy wrinkly nose. Sigh...he's so adorable!

It's a boy!

2008-05-12T22:31:00.004-07:00

Today we added an important piece to the house: a puppy! We picked him up in Anchorage this morning and drove all the way to Fairbanks. What a chill dog! We thought he'd have difficulty with such a long drive, but he just relaxed, slept, and never even peed in the car. We stopped a few times to play outside and those were the only times he pee/ooped. In fact it's pretty easy to predict. 30-60 seconds after eating and he goes. And after waking up. And before going to bed. And most of the time.

He doesn't seem to have any problems with our tile and laminate flooring, and our flooring doesn't seem to have any problem with his housetraining. He's really friendly to people, very calm, and just seems like a nicely mannered dog. Of course we've only had him for an afternoon, but we're happy to be dog owners.

Oh yeah, we named him Roland, after also considering Winston, Atticus, Pippen, Grimble, and several others.

Marcy and Roland in his pen. We'll put him in there when we're both at work, about 5 hours while Marcy is on half time. Those stains aren't from the dog, they're from me. No, not that, it was a dropcloth for wood finishing.

Roland in his cat bed

Roland with Uncle John

cooking propane lasts a long time

2008-04-30T12:23:00.004-07:00

We finally used up one of our two propane cylinders after four months of heavy winter use. This is with a little 4 gallon standard sized tank like many grills use. We cook nearly every night, sometimes two dinners since Paul is on a different schedule than us, plus we have baked fairly frequently. We were considering renting a 90 gallon "pig" for $6 a month, but even that might not be needed since we might only use about two little tanks a year, and they're easy to fill right down the road.

two sides ready for paint

2008-04-27T21:37:00.005-07:00

Today I did the last of the siding on the west side, and the vent is in so birds and squirrels don't move in for spring. Marcy and I finished the soffits on the north and west side, along with the blue metal subfascia wrap.

Kitchen finally 100% done (except the matching fridge)

2008-04-27T21:16:00.003-07:00

... and a tiny piece of trim.

Other than that, we finally got our drawer pulls and door knobs.

Siding with Fibercement: A Pain

2008-04-23T09:44:00.008-07:00

Fibercement is considered a high end product. It is made from wood fibers impregnated with cement. We're using Hardiplank brand. It lasts a long time, offers some fire protection, is rot resistant, can be painted unlike vinyl but paint lasts a long time unlike wood. We chose it because of this, and installation does not require much special skill. However, it's a pain to work with! It can bend when not carried carefully, it's very heavy (think cement), and it creates dangerous silica dust when sawn.

This summer we're building a garage next to the house and we want the buildings to match, but I'm tired of fiber cement! Lucky for us, there's another product that looks the same, called LP smartside lap. It is a treated OSB product covered with resin saturated, primed paper. It cuts like wood, is longer for fewer seams, weighs half as much, and costs less. I don't trust it as much for moisture resistance and longevity, but the garage is shorter, with longer roof overhangs, and no moisture producing showers inside to permeate under the siding.

Despite all my complaining, we realized recently that that at $4 a square foot, all this siding would cost us around $7000 to have installed. It's probably 7 good weekends of work, so we're not making a bad wage!

We want your comments on colors
Speaking of siding, we need to choose color soon! Any suggestions to go with our blue roof? The primer gray, which is slightly warm actually looks pretty good. I'm leaning towards something similar but darker, or maybe more brown-gray. The window frames can not be painted.

Siding Adventure: Updated X2

2008-04-19T21:18:00.010-07:00

We are beginning to dedicate the entirety of our weekends to the house again. Yippee! We've been trying to work on the siding the last couple of weekends but have had some blips here and there. Winter seems to want to stick around a bit longer then normal. I'll put up some pictures in chronological order.

Below you'll see the siding that Paul and Andrew put up on a gorgeous Friday afternoon two weekends ago. Andrew and I spent some time chopping wood after work during that week.

Below is the back side of the house that Andrew and I did last Saturday.

The below pictures are from today. Here's us getting set and ready to begin siding up high on the door side of the house. We're using ladder jacks and made a platform to set on them so that we didn't have to move our big heavy ladders around. Setup actually took us the better part of the morning because we had to shovel snow off of everything.

Below is us getting to work finally (after we took a short break for a game of Settlers). Andrew looking cute as he runs around on the platform. The platform makes me nervous. I'm ok going up on the high ladders but for some reason the scaffolding makes me a bit shaky. I guess because it wobbles alot. The second picture is pretty much where we finished today. We only got about 7 rows done. Setup took most of our time but tomorrow we won't have to worry about that.

This is me wearing those big red sound barrier ear muffs. Thank you to Lou for sending them to us, so far there hasn't been a day that Andrew and I haven't worn them.

Update 4-20-08: Starting to take shape
We worked all day today too, but only got 9 rows! It slow work up high, with windows to cut around, and roof angles to deal with. We also dug (chipped) out soffit material from the snow (ice) and cut the pieces and put up two. The 16 foot platform I made is heavy as hell, but it really helps to be able to nail all the way across without moving ladders. I plan to work a little every evening this week and we'll post pictures as we go.

Update 4-23-08: Soffit, Fascia
On Monday I worked alone and did just a bit. I put up two more soffit boards and a couple pieces of the aluminum lower fascia wrap, which is one of the low (or zero) maintenance parts of our house. Nails, caulk, etc. should disappear with paint.

Tuesday we didn't work at all because of a game of Settlers of Catan, and today we got back to it and are nearing the top of this tallest side of the house.

Winter... With a Vengence

2008-04-18T10:18:00.002-07:00

Gee gads folks! We just had two 6+ inch dumps of snow, and it's snowing again! Winter is dieing hard this year. I seriously doubt we'll finish this month, but maybe by mid-may! This weekend temps are supposed to reach mid 50s, so we will try to get some major siding done!

Year in review

2008-04-10T10:48:00.011-07:00

It's just starting to warm up enough for us to finish outside, but some recent late snow has slowed us down. It's now been about a year since we just began clearing trees. Here's a quick review of what's happened. It sure seems like more than a year! What's next? I still hope that we will finish 100% in May, exactly 1 year after the foundation started. Stay tuned...

Unadulterated land

Adulterated Land, March 2007

Driveway with topping, May

In the footing hole

Foundation beams, June

Floor joists

Picture window wall

Setting trusses

Great room taking shape

300 pound window installation

Gypcrete radiant floor, September

Siding in October before it gets too cold

Tile work, November, just before move in

Important first finished room, December, just after move in

Important second room to finish, January 2008

The great room nearing completion, February

Playing cards

2008-04-01T13:54:00.007-07:00

I'm the kind of guy who calculates almost every decision carefully. It's like playing cards. Sometimes you do well, sometimes not so well. Recent heating oil prices have made me think about this.

good: Insulating the snot out of the house and sealing it super tight
not so good: Holding off on fuel oil delivery betting that it will go down in spring like last few years
good: Having a wood stove on the first floor so it can heat entire house

It goes beyond heating. Point at any part of the house and I can tell you both how good we did and what we might have done better.

good: A full guest bathroom
not so good: 1 more foot on master bath would have been nice (I told you so privileges go to Dustin and Barry)
good: squeezing 1 more foot into the kitchen to let multiple people work more comfortably
not so good: dishwasher and oven doors conflict
good: gorgeous stairway
not so good: Saved $20 on stringer material which twisted a little and added hours to trim work
good: tile
not so good: dropping glass stuff on tile
good: nifty pendant lights for the bar
not so good: they're so nifty people want to turn them on more often, but the switch is over by the bar

The list goes on... But in the end, we absolutely love our house, and it's well built, cheap to heat, and just right for us.

Little things

2008-03-28T15:10:00.003-07:00

We're trying oh so hard to finish all the main stuff inside this weekend. No real deadline, but it's good to have goals. It's the little things, however, that take so long! Plus, for each thing I check off my list, I think of two more. Things like plug wood screw holes, touch up drywall, little bits of trim here and there, wood finish various non-finished pieces, clean the dust from the 20' high ceiling fan, buy tiny little parts like washers or baseboard trim for the sole remaining 36" piece, etc.

cable rails

2008-03-27T23:45:00.004-07:00

Got the cable rails in on the stairs. We'll do this outside and in the loft as well.

You can see one in the loft, the others are being made by Dad.
Also, notice the tread and riser screw holes are plugged.

Energy update

2008-03-25T14:15:00.004-07:00

Total fuel use this winter: 320 gallons for comfortable heating and hot water for three, with no wood heat. This is very good for a house like ours!

If we paid Anchorage natural gas prices, it would cost us $36.75 a month on average to heat and create hot water!

This works out to around 450 gallons for the whole year. Next year we'll have our high efficiency wood stove, which can heat the entire house. Burning on the 3 coldest months could cut our usage in half.

Nearly there!

2008-03-17T23:09:00.011-07:00

The blog has been quiet for some time now, but we've been busy. All the final little things take a long time, but we are now very close to completion inside. We finally installed the last of the lights for the dining area, kitchen sink, stairs, and some nifty pendant lights for the bar. These were going to be a track light, but pendants looked better so I drilled two big holes in the drywall, added two ceiling boxes and fished the wires through.

our new pendant lights, and a Photoshoped fridge
(ours is a white hand-me-down but we will get a new black one eventually)

We have LOTS of lights!
Wide angle lens distortion. Our house isn't this huge

After that, I spent a long weekend in Big Lake at my dads shop. He had already made the stair railings by laminating ash and mahogany, which I helped finish by hand planing to shape, since we don't have a shaper. It felt like I planed a mile worth of shavings. We also made a few miscellaneous parts like floor transition strips, and newel posts, which have holes drilled for a cable rail to come, and the upstairs railings, which are flat rather than profiled. They also have a Mahogany inlay.

Stair railing. Cables courtesy of Photoshop. Screw holes still need to be plugged and finish coat applied to stairs.

Upstairs balcony railing and our dusk view

35 degrees above zero

2008-02-14T18:01:00.001-08:00

wow

-40 below

2008-02-07T10:25:00.000-08:00

I thought I'd say something since Andrew has been doing most of the posting lately. This post will be utterly unhouse related. It is cold in Fairbanks today, it has been cold for the past week. -44 below at my work. I've lived in Fairbanks for about 8 years now but I'm still surprised when I'm expected to go on with daily functions during this kind of weather. Why doesn't Fairbanks just close down? That's just a rhetorical question as I know that some people have to go to work or we wouldn't have electricity, water, heat, etc. My window faces a Fire station and EMT unit. When it gets to be in the -40 or -50 below weather those guys are in and out of the building all day long. Which tells me that there are significantly more emergencies then any other time of the year.

On a personal level I think the administration of our University should give it's employees and students the option to stay home. But they don't, your expected to be here. If I stay home I have to use my vacation leave. I can't even take leave without pay. So what are my options? Use my precious benefits or come to work. Risk breaking down on the road (which could result in many other problems) or just stay home and use my benefits. Most individuals don't even have the benefit of vacation time. So people who work minimum wage jobs and are without benefits have more pressure to put themselves at risk in these temperatures. They could loose their jobs if they don't go to work. Hmm, this would make an interesting Fairbanks sociological study. Look at the influence of temperature on accidents and then of those accidents what are the individuals involved economic status.

I always find it amazing how much pressure the acquisition of money puts on us. Risk your life at this moment or risk your future. This post may seem a little dramatic and whiney. But sometimes I feel this way. Especially when I'm walking up a hill, at -44 below, because I don't even get to park close to my building.

Garage plans already

2008-02-06T16:37:00.001-08:00

I'm such a nut. I've already priced out every last piece of the 2 car detached garage, which is the project for this summer. About $20k, done right. Super-insulated, radiant floor, etc. I'm excited about building something so easy. Each major part will take one weekend: Foundation, Framing, Roofing, Siding, Insulating, Wiring, Drywall! No crazy 21 foot walls, odd angles, hanging lofts, 900 square feet of tile, etc.

But, is it worth it? Most places, a garage ads little to no value to a house. In Fairbanks, it's almost a necessity. When we get our loan, I'll ask the appraiser.

Our Jenn-Air stove kicks butt

2008-02-06T14:44:00.000-08:00

We went all-out with our stove and spent a fair chunk of change (at least we got 30% off by buying all our appliances at once and signing up for a sears card at the same time)

I really enjoy cooking, and especially enjoy cooking on gas. It heats up and turns off instantly. But it can have some problems, like difficulty turning down enough without the flame going out.

Not a problem on this stove. All four burners are different, and one turns down to a "melt" setting. It also has a super burner to boil water quickly, and one extra wide, dual ring burner for big fry pans or woks.

The grates remove easily, and underneath is a smooth glass surface that's easy to clean and doesn't catch grime in hard to get at holes.

Also, it's a downdraft vent, so no vent hood is needed. It sucks the smoke and grease down, and it actually works pretty well except for tall pots.

Marcy is more of the baker, but the oven part is fancy too. It has a convection fan which blows around the air so you can cook multiple sheets of cookies at once, or cook other things about 25% faster.

Most importantly, it's pretty!

Value

2008-02-04T13:52:00.001-08:00

Soon we're going to have to get an appraisal done on the house, which is both exciting and nerve racking. How did we do? Did we effectively work all year for $20 an hour? $40? negative $20?

The magic number we're hoping for is $210k. That lets us take out a really good 80% loan, pay off everyone, build the garage, and have a little left over.

We've put plenty of money into the house, and it's gotten fancier as the process went along. We didn't originally know we'd have radiant heat, or cherry cabinets, or nice built-ins, etc. We know we could have built a simpler house just to make money, but I'm glad we built a truly nice house.

We're starting to get glimpses of what the house might be worth. The insurance company thinks it will cost $240k to rebuild just the house. Add on land value, and we did really well! But I don't think it would sell for that much. The City appraised the unfinished house for $194k. This is really good. Houses here sell for more than the city appraised value. And that's without siding.

All we can really do is wait a couple months, and finish the house!

Microposts

2008-02-01T13:16:00.000-08:00

It seems like some of you actually enjoy reading this blog. Since the stairs were the last big thing on the inside, and we won't work on the outside until May and then the garage maybe in June, I thought we'd start doing some little microposts about various things we really like (like the Jenn air stove) and things we don't like, or screwed up on, or would do differently.

It might be interesting, or it might help if you are thinking of building your own house some day. Stay tuned...

Stairs!

2008-01-30T20:12:00.000-08:00

Our stairs are, for the most part, in! We need to finish two of them and then do the railing, but you can get an idea of what they look like. These were essentially a gift from my dad. He bought the wood and spent weeks finishing them offsite at his shop in big Lake. Another big thanks to Dad for all the help on the house! They are very stout, made from solid Ash with a mahogany inlay. You can really jump on the cantilevered portion with no worries.

Here's a closeup and also a new angle of our great room to show how the loft hangs above the kitchen and everything integrates together.

Kitchen

2008-01-13T19:32:00.000-08:00

Our kitchen is in and mostly functional! I installed the sink and dishwasher today, which finishes off plumbing for the house. A certified installer is coming tomorrow to hook up the propane for the stove. It's only $90 - well worth it considering the risks. After that, we're good to go and all we need to do is a little trim and a couple lights.

We really like the kitchen, and we better because it's the one element of the house that went significantly beyond our estimates, like double. But I think in the end it's worth it.

Instead of buying in stock cabinets, we ordered nicer cherry cabinets. Then there's the Jenn-Air stove, which is very expensive to begin with and I didn't have time so paid someone to install the downdraft ventilation, which is so tricky that it took a couple days.
Granted, it does save the cost of a stove hood, and it looks super nice. Plus we bought a cast iron sink, and a fancy faucet. But it's all part of our philosophy with the project, which is building small and efficient but very nice.

Also, a while back we finished the downstairs bathroom, so our room mate Paul can shower and stuff, but I don't think we ever posted a photo.

One of us is a reader

2008-01-06T21:06:00.000-08:00

Marcy was happy to be able to fill our big built in bookshelf. She left one spot for me, but I wasn't quite able to fill it so she put some of her extra books in there as well. My books include such classics as "Do it yourself homebuilding" and "residential plumbing"

The Kitchen Begins
Also, our kitchen is finally underway! We can't wait to be able to - what's that word? Oh yeah, cook! Brandon, who has helped with trim work and roof sheathing, it setting the base cabinets and did the Jenn-air duct work, which is a major pain. Hats off to his patience. He does a wonderful job.

Merry Christmas!

2007-12-25T23:52:00.001-08:00

We had our first Christmas in our unfinished house, but it was very nice. Our living room has been construction central, but we finally cleaned up some of the tools and ladders for photos. Plus, today we cut down a tiny birch shrub as a Christmas tree!

Since our last post, we've finished our built in bookshelf with Danish oil and two coats of polyurethane. It's real cherry, which was very expensive but it looks awesome and will darken with age. Some of the wood has some really excellent curly figuring, and it almost shimmers in the light, a phenomenon called chatoyance or directionality.

Here it is in relationship for our office upstairs in the loft.

Also, we made our first furniture purchase! Part of our plan with building a small house involved leaving enough to invest in nice furniture right away. We weren't going to buy this so soon, but I surprised Marcy and was even able to sneak it in the house while she picked up her folks at the airport. It's very comfy, but we'll have to cover it up while we make more dust.

Thanks everyone for your continuing support and we hope you had a wonderful Holiday!

Superceding Andrews Energy Blog with Pictures!

2007-12-14T16:04:00.000-08:00

Andrew and I have been pretty lazy lately with the blog posts so guess what...you get 2 in one day! Sometimes I forget that Andrew is a photographer until he takes super sweet pictures. He makes our house that, in reality looks pretty messy, into a land of unicorns and fairies. We have actually been working on stuff in our house these last couple of months. We swear. It's hard to believe that we only just moved in about a month ago. Anyway, I don't have much else to say so enjoy!

Below is our upstairs bathroom. It's so close to being done, there are only a couple more things to do yet. How do you like our super awesome inset linen closet with the open shelves? The towels and stuff give it some color. Plus my days as a house keeper come in handy now. I can fold our towels all fancy.

So next is our upstairs bedroom. As you can probably tell we don't have much furniture. Currently we our using our plastic moving totes as bed stands and such. Check out the super cute mini-bifolds! They're on the window that looks down on our living room, from our bedroom. You know, the pants less oration window. The mini-bifolds are one of the custom doors that the finish carpenters did for us. Also I think our closet looks pretty neat. We got some of those nice wooden blinds for the windows. I think they match the rest of our wood really well.

Lastly you have the mock kitchen that I set up last weekend. We don't get our kitchen cabinets in until after New Years. Sorry Mom and Dad, we'll have to take you out to dinner on Christmas or cook a turkey in our microwave. The hall way picture shows our front door and the doors opening into the downstairs bathroom and Pauls room on the right. You'll notice the awesome tile floor. This is my favorite aspect of our house. I think it came out stupendously. All of the grouting is done, boy was that hard work. And the last picture is of our Utility room. It seems we can do our laundry but can't cook a decent meal.

That's it, more to come when we get more finished. Plus we now have super fast DSL so that may mean more blog posts. Yippeee!

Energy shock

2007-12-14T15:04:00.000-08:00

Our first energy bills are starting to come in, so we can begin to see if our efforts have paid off...

Most people are feeling the effects of high energy costs, especially those here in Fairbanks. Not only do we have high demand thanks to -40 degree weeks, but energy sure costs more than it used to. Both electricity and heating oil are about 50% more than a few years ago.

We were aware of this in the planning and building of our house, so we took great measures to build an efficient house.

We added 50% more insulation value to the walls. 100% more in the ceiling. Our boiler is 90% efficient. Our radiant heating feels like 70 degrees when the air is only heated to 67. Our vapor barrier has 1/6th the normal number of penetrations, and all of these are double sealed with acoustical sealant and special tape. Fresh air will be brought into the house through an HRV, which extracts 80% of the exhaust heat, compared to 0% for older houses which get fresh air only through leakage. All indoor lighting is energy star compliant fluorescent, which uses about 1/4 the energy. Our front loading washing machine uses 1/3 the water while washing better. The list goes on.

So has it paid off? Hard to tell at this point. Our first 35 days of heating and producing hot water had an average outside temp of 10 degrees, which represents 1/7th of the average annual heating load for Fairbanks. During this time we used about 70 gallons of heating oil, which could be off some based on the tank filling method.

This number is quiet good, but not at all outstanding, which was our goal.

However, during that time, construction was (and still is) very much underway. We had only a temporary door half that time, which was completely unsealed. The HRV has not been installed, and without it our extra-tight construction causes a buildup in humidity (due to wet paint, showering, etc) so a window was cracked most of the time. We also did painting and other wood finishing, and opened several windows for about a week total to exhaust the fumes.

We're now locked down a little better, the HRV should go in this weekend, and we're expecting some of that great cold Fairbanks weather, so the next months should give us a good feel for just how well we did. Stay tuned.

Moved-in

2007-11-15T09:26:00.000-08:00

Apologies to all for this pictureless post. Andrew and I are now moved into our house. We finished up the final cleaning at our rental on Wednesday at 5pm. Our house wasn't as finished as we would have liked when moving in but that's just how things go I guess. Since the last post we were able to lay all of the tile, but not grout everything. We got the guest room, downstairs bathroom, and half of the living room grouted. Again, thanks to Craig, we got the boiler running and light switches in. Then the rest of the time has been spent moving and cleaning out our other place. Plus we both have a cold, so we have been super grumpy. Moving, working on the house, and colds are not very good combinations. But it's done now! Which is exciting. We can just fall into bed after working on the house.

Funny story: So for the entire summer I have managed not to go "Number 2" on our land. As I had at one point stepped in somebody else's leavings. Last night, as a form of celebration, Andrew and I went out for Thai food. Which commonly gives us stomach problems and eventually we both end up in the bathroom. So after Thai food Andrew was installing the toilet and I had to go to the bathroom really bad. Ironically the night we were installing the toilet is the night that I baptized our land with my poop. Sigh.

Flooring

2007-11-05T08:43:00.000-08:00

This weekend we did some fun stuff! Drywall and painting is done so finish work begins! We installed laminate flooring upstairs in the loft, bedroom, and two closets. It's Pergo "Colby Walnut." It goes fairly fast, but is actually hard physical work because clicking it together takes some muscle. We're sore. But, other than being dirty already, it looks awesome and makes the place start to look finished!

Then we did tiling downstairs, which is even harder. First we put down a primer and then final coat of RedGuard, which is a waterproofing and crack prevention membrane for the tile. It provides some flex as the heated floor expands and contracts at a different rate than the tile. Thanks to John, we went pretty fast after the critical first row. I spread mortar, Marcy set tiles, John mixed mortar, cleaned globules that got on the tile, selected tiles and handed them to Marcy, etc. It's a good 3 person job.

siding, drywall

2007-10-28T22:13:00.000-07:00

The drywall and painting crew is nearly done inside. They have primed and are doing a bit of touch up work but should paint soon. Since there is nothing we can do inside, we are working outside. We finished the wraparound deck (except for railings) and did siding on one and a half sides of the house this weekend. The hardiplank fibercement siding is fairly easy to install but has nasty dust when cut. Lou's mustache protected him. Lucky for us, the primer gray it comes in looks good enough to keep for the winter. Thanks so much Matt and Lou for coming up to help!

Outside and Stuff

2007-10-22T09:29:00.000-07:00

So here is the news since the last time we posted. The drywall has been hung, every last bit of it. We can actually see what each room will feel like as far as size. They are now mudding and taping and say they will be completely done by this Friday. That means our house should be painted by Friday!!! The only work left on the inside is....a lot. To give you an idea: flooring (hopefully will be done before we move in), light switches, base and ceiling trim, install wooden window ledges, hang doors, install corner shower walls, toilets, sinks, kitchen cabinets, bathroom cabinets, light fixtures, etc. Outside: siding, deck stairs and rails, vents, etc. So there is a ton more to do before we are finished but we have about 3 weeks to really push for things like flooring.

Right now we are banished from the inside of the house because the mudders and tapers have taken over. So we have been working on some projects outside. Andrew and I got matching Carhartt full body suits that seem to be doing the job of keeping us warm. However they don't stay super dry and with all the snow lately our knees and butts have been getting pretty wet. It's starting to get dark around 7pm now so we usually don't stay much passed that time. However, we do have a huge work light for those nights outside that we really want to finish something. I'm starting to get anxious to move in. Even though we won't have much in the way of amenities at the beginning it will be nice to come home and work instead of driving back and forth between the two residences. What an all encompassing project.

Lou Logans up again to help us with the house (and work on Patricks website). Andrew has taken a couple days off to work with him. Full days of work really make us feel good, 2 hours at the end of the day just doesn't get lots done.

So far we have finished some of the front deck. Now we don't have to climb into the front door on rickety, construction stairs.

We have almost finished the back deck as well. It's just missing some stairs and we are going to have to buy some more cedar boards to finish it up. Check out Andrews wet butt in the first picture, hehehehe.

Another day, another $19,000

2007-10-06T16:35:00.000-07:00

Its snowing today. Last time it snowed, M&M was out digging. the foundation. It must be their queue, because today they came out to install our septic, fuel, and water tanks. We're home briefly to pick up a trailer, so more pictures will come, but here's the septic tank going in.

Also, here's a picture Marcy snapped of me crawling in the insulation space through a gable vent

Other than this, things are going well. We're fully insulated, and by the end of Sunday should have every last thing in the walls. Drywall will go up this week! Today we built the front porch, and when the water line is in we'll attach it to the house and build stairs up to it.

Racing against time

2007-09-26T22:36:00.000-07:00

We continue to work away as hard as we can to beat winter. There is just so much that has to go in the walls before drywall can go up, and we need drywall on the ceiling before we can finish insulating there.

Plus we were waiting on plumbing before getting the septic system, water tank, and fuel tanks installed. We now got enough of that in for the dirt crew to come in, which should happen by the end of this week.

We are making progress though. Wiring, including thermostat and HRV control wire is complete, walls are fully insulated with a one layer of fiberglass and one layer of foam. Caroline Haggard, friend of my Dad from Big Lake helped with that, among other things this weekend.

We also ran most of the HRV ducts, only leaving out one or two that go in after plumbing drains. An HRV is a heat recovery ventilator. It exhausts air from the kitchen and bathrooms while bringing fresh air into the bedrooms from outside, but it keeps the heat from the old air. These are needed on modern construction which is so tight the house doesn't breath and would have stale air.

I cut holes for the ducts with a Rotozip, which is a terrible tool. It's loud enough to hurt your ears even with earplugs, and it sprays sawdust into your eyes even with safety goggles. And it doesn't work very well.
My dad, up for the third time to offer even more help, had an equally bad job of cutting the ductwork. Marcy assembled duct pieces and taped them, because she does that sort of thing better than any of us guys.

Dale Haggard, Master plumber, was also up from Big Lake. He put together a superb heating system for us, and requested payment only in Crown Royal. We couldn't be more grateful for all this help. Thanks everyone!

Dale working his magic

Pike as big as a whale, you say, extraordinary!

2007-09-26T09:55:00.000-07:00

So in the interim between blog posts I thought I'd post a picture. Pike have been introduced into the lakes around the Matanuska Valley where my parents live. They are both avid fisher persons and haven't ever caught one in the lakes here in Alaska before, until now. My Dad is now on a one man mission to catch as many pike as possible and eradicate them from Alaskan waters.

GO DAD GO!

We're Back in business!

2007-09-25T10:07:00.001-07:00

Stay tuned...

2007-09-17T12:10:00.000-07:00

Andrew: "So... We're out of money."

Marcy: "Yeah...."

Toasty Toes

2007-09-11T17:36:00.000-07:00

Our house will have in floor radiant heat, which is exceptionally comfortable and exceptionally efficient. The colder it is outside, the toastier your feet get.

First we laid the tubing. It took about a day. There are six 200 feet runs. Some people would have done four 300 foot runs, but this setup allows more than double the water flow, which results in evener heat, a faster heating floor, and a better load on the boiler.

The tubing was very unwieldy. Marcy handled the 1000 foot roll of it, and ended up bruised on her arms. I operated the stapler, which looked like a big bike pump, except using it it reminded me of catching a fast pitch softball. There were 500 staples. All the tubes terminate in the utility room.

Today the gypcrete crew poured the floor on top of the tubes. Here's three of the crew, loading sand, emptying bags of gypcrete, and operating the mixer. Our truck is in the background. We borrowed a 325 gallon tank which saved us the expense of a water truck.

Here is the fourth crewmember beginning the pour. It comes out fairly liquid from a hose and is mostly self-leveling.

About halfway done. We had 1.5" thick poured. It weights about 12,000 pounds. Don't worry, our floor was engineered to support 18,000 pounds of concrete, but then we added 50% more joists just to be safe.

All the gypcrete has been poured and is being screeded to a final finish. The whole opperation only took about 2 hours, half of which was setup and teardown.

To the window.... To the wall!

2007-09-04T13:23:00.000-07:00

We've been busy since the last post. Well, we're always busy. But here it is:

We did the last few details of rough framing, like closets and finally the stairs.

We couldn't get a good picture of the stairs yet because there is a bathtub temporarily in the way. These construction temporary treads will be replaces with hardwood which will cantilever to the left about 12".

Our windows finally came in, so we rented some suction cups and a nifty material lift and installed them over labor day weekend. The five sided center window weights near 300 pounds and was extremely scary to install. I gave us about a 50% chance of dropping it, but we ended up successful.

One reason the windows are so heavy is they are triple pane for energy efficiency. In fact, even with all those windows, that big wall will loose less heat than a standard insulated wall with no windows at all.

This window is 6 feet wide and almost 8 feet tall. Here are the finished "wall of windows" which readers helped choose.

More window (and sliding door) photos

Inside view of front window wall, loft, and bedroom windows

Meanwhile, my dad was up again and he wired the whole place, down to the service entrance. The inspector signed off his inside work and GVEA signed off his outside work. Thanks again dad!

Service entrance. We went with 200 amps. Just in case we need to run the hot tub, an air compressor, and a welder at the same time, you know.

Main breaker panel and all the wires coming in to it.

As much as I want to be done with tree clearing, I had to clear a path to the power line.

Ode to the Crowbar

2007-08-22T17:17:00.000-07:00

So I thought I'd post some musings of mine since so far it's been all business when it comes to our posts. This house has been a crazy experience. I don't think I've loved an inanimate object this much in my entire life. Except for our crowbar. The crowbar is my new best friend. I remember a time at the beginning of the summer when Craig was cursing the fact that Andrew and I had no crowbar to offer him (he was trying to lift a wall with physics). After said moment we acquired a blue crowbar. I'll never again be without one. It is my favorite tool in the entire universe. I can lift myself with it, remove nails from any surface with practically no effort, use it to remove sticky stuff, or maybe you need something pried apart? Anything you ask of it the crowbar can achieve with ease. Plus, after reading some of "A Zombie Survival Guide" by Max Brooks it seems the crowbar is also a premium zombie fighting weapon. Who knew?

So what has building this house done for me? Aside from all the obvious benefits of financial gain and not having to rent? Confidence. That's right boys and girls after you learn to wield every kind of power tool imaginable you can do anything. If you add exhaustion into the mix it just makes everything in the world seem so much simpler. Having difficulties at work? No problem. I'm up until 10pm every night working on a house so anything else is just not a worry. You become a person who can say, whatever happens just move on to the next thing.

Sure Andrew and I have our emotional roller coaster moments. Sometimes, we both lay awake at night running through all the things that have to be done the next day and see no end in sight. But Andrew and I have become closer then ever through this experience of building a domicile. It takes a lot of trust and respect for your partner to take on such a huge project. I'm really happy that Andrew could trust me enough to even suggest that we do such a thing. When Andrew and I decide to do big things like going on the Appalachian trail or building a house people tend to say things like, "This experience will make or break your relationship." Well it seems that it is making our relationship. I sure do love that boy! Would this be considered to much PDA (public display of affection)?

Regardless we would not be able to do a lot of the things that we do without the love and support of our friends and family members. So thank you everybody who help us keep our sanity.

Also the installation of the fan was a crowning moment for Andrew and I. Whenever anyone comes to the house we plug it in for them and ask them to marvel at it's splendor. Although, by the looks on their faces they don't seem to realize why we're so excited. "See, do you see the fan spin and the lights turn on...isn't it GLORIOUS!"

The Deck!!!

Wide open spaces

2007-08-12T21:46:00.000-07:00

click to enlarge

This weekend we were very excited to remove the scaffolding over the open living room to expose the tall ceiling and open design. It looks awesome! We had to finish the ceiling over that part first, and even install the ceiling fan even though we don't have anything else finished or electricity for that matter. That didn't stop me from temporarily wiring a plug onto the fan lead so we could see it run and even use it as a work light.

We also finished the last of the fiberglass insulation, which is a relief. It is a rather miserable experience to handle that stuff. We installed almost all the vapor barrier, some of the next layer of insulation, which is polyisocyanurate foam, and some of the 2x4 furring strips which go over that to create channels for wiring.

This photo shows various stages: Fiberglass with vapor barrier on the left, then the staple holes and seams taped in the bottom, and the foam insulation on the top. Note the black chimney support which shows the location of the wood stove.

Fully operational ceiling fan!

Overdue Update

2007-07-29T19:17:00.000-07:00

Since the last update, we've made a lot of progress thanks to all the wonderful help we've had. We made the framing for the soffit details, put up tyvek (the Fairbanks siding of choice), stained all the tongue-and-groove for the ceiling, wired the ceiling, installed much of the vapor barrier on the ceiling, installed a chimney support, put up a lot of the stained tongue and groove, blew in some of the cellulose insulation, burned off some cellulite while doing that, did some long overdue site cleanup and tool organization, fixed the muffler on the truck,

What's next? Check our calendar lower on the page. A few highlights: Several pieces of work we're contracting out happen. August first the roofers come, a week after the plumbing is roughed-in, then we finish insulating, then do wiring, then the drywallers come, and with luck by mid-september we'll have the radiant floor poured and get heat installed.

Mom hauled 1800 pounds of 2x4s. Twice. Then she carried 200 pieces of tongue and groove.

First several courses of wood ceiling tongue and groove.

Early winter? No, I'm covered in cellulose insulation.

Ciao Italia!

Thank you

2007-07-25T10:40:00.000-07:00

We have been so busy and tired that we forget sometimes to stop and thank all those who have offered help, advice, support, and more. So, Thank you so very much, we appreciate everything!

We are still making progress and we will post photos when we get a little break.

Starting to look like a house!

2007-07-06T09:51:00.000-07:00

We've been busy the last two weeks, but no one more than my dad who has worked on the house about 12 hours a day constantly because Marcy and I had to work day jobs and could only help afternoons, evenings and weekends. Thanks dad!

dad

We also had wonderfull help from Jess, Maeve, and my mom who all did a lot of dirty work like hauling wood and running errands, plus they carefully cut and then stained the cedar decking for later. It looks beautiful.

In this past two weeks we did some of the most complex framing I've ever seen, raised some very tall walls (one peak reached 25 feet in the air), built interior walls and did some insulating, set trusses and sheathed the roof. The latter is somewhat of a load off my shoulders, because we've been fighting the frustratingly wet weather, and the sheathing sheds water pretty well while we prepare to finish the roof.

Sheathing was some of the most physically challenging work I've done. Sheet after sheet of OSB, lifted over my head, held in place while nailing down, all on top of a 32 foot ladder on a steep roof. I'm beat.

Fairbanks Truss came at 5:30 in the morning, which saved us about $500 on delivery with a semi since the trusses are so tall. Paul and John were nice enough to be up that early for us.

Trusses were set three at a time with the boom truck.

We had all the trusses set in about an hour! Sure beats framing a roof, plus we have more insulation space.

Here is the current status of the house. Next up is to finish sheathing the walls and get the roofing on.

Now I make everything sound pretty positive, but this wouldn't be honest if I didn't mention some of the mistakes. Even professionals make mistakes, and considering how amateur we are I think things are going pretty well. Everything has been fixed and nothing was critical, just frustrating.

Some Mistakes:

1: Pouring concrete over rebar (see previous post)
2: Mis-measuring (and mis-double-triple-quadruple checking) for a rake wall which required about a day of notching look-outs for the roof.
3: trying to save $250 on an extra non-structural truss requiring framing an extra rake wall standing up between trusses at the pitch change rather than laying down, which is tedious and slow - another day gone.
4: Ordering Dormer trusses rather than regular trusses for the pitch change, which tweakwed the layout and added a little complexity to the roof sheathing.
5: Removing a truss brace when other side wasn't braced, knocking them all down, which turned the boom trucks handy 1 hour of work into an extra day and a half for us to stand them back up manually.
6: Designing a house with such a steep roof in the first place - not so much of a mistake because it will look super cool, but I would guess I could frame a regular two story house with a flatter roof in 1/3 the time.

trusses coming! Help?

2007-06-26T16:53:00.000-07:00

Our trusses are getting delivered at 5:30 AM, yes, the butt-crack of dawn, on Friday the 29th. We could really use some help setting them for at least two hours. Anybody? Anybody?
...

2nd Floor

2007-06-26T10:09:00.000-07:00

We are stilling "making progress" as Craig likes to say. As of yesterday we now have all of the walls up and the 2nd floor almost completely done. Soon we will sending out for the trusses and the roof. Once the roof is on we can work all the time, in rain, sun, sleet, snow, any kind of meteorological event you can think of. The below pictures are kind of old but you can see some of the recent things we have done.

Big Picture Window............2nd Floor

Looking down from 2nd floor

Weird bug I saw

I decided to put these pictures up because last weekend I participated in a community race called the Midnight Sun Run. They also have a costume contest, my friend Cameron dressed up like Luigi, I was Princess Peach and my friend JohnT was Mario. It was one of the coolest nights ever.