Window bucks and other things

It was hot again today. That seems to be the way it is around here this summer.

After doing some garden work this morning, I did some work on the house. My first task was to put a pipe under the footer on the west side of the house. When I was doing the foundation work previously, I forgot to provide for bringing in a water line. I left an outlet hole for sewer, but that’s higher on the wall than I wanted to bring a water line in, which would make it more susceptible to freezing.

So, I dug down and under the footer in one place and fed through a section of 1.5” black pipe. I should be able to tie in to this later on when bring the water line down the hill.

The next task I undertook was installing corner braces on the northeast corner post of the porch. I could have nailed some 2x4s on at 45 degree angles, but I wanted something a little better than that. I used a 2x4 I milled out of cedar a while back for the brace, and I set it into the post and header on the corner. It took a little while to cut and chisel the pockets for the braces, but I’m pretty happy with the result.

When I finished with the braces, it was time to eat lunch. Because of the heat, I felt tired and worn out. I rested for a little while, and then decided to get back to work. Thankfully, I could work in the shade.

I cut 2x4s and constructed five window bucks. I put these in for the windows in the living room and Anne’s and my bedroom. I made sure they were square and plumb and securely attached them to the vertical stringers. After putting them in, I added some short stringers underneath to which siding will be attached later.

Speaking of siding, I’ve decided to use cement board siding on the house. The guy I’ve been buying lumber from got a trailer load of it and has offered me a pretty good deal on enough for the house. It will cost a bit more than the shingle siding, but it will go on a whole lot quicker with less work.

Perimeter wall footer forms started

I set out this morning to get the concrete forms for the footer that will support the perimeter block wall completed today. The first task was to get the bottom of the trench leveled off at the right depth. Because the house is on a slope, I’m not putting all of the footers on the same level. In fact, there will be four different levels. The front of the house is about 2 feet higher above the ground than the back of the house.

Using a shovel, a grub hoe, and a grape hoe (the latter two are wonderful tools I bought from easydigging.com), I removed some dirt from the bottom of the trench where needed and added some in other places where needed. I had my boys tamp the loose dirt firmly into place. By lunch time I had made it all the way around the house.

After lunch, I started putting wooden forms in place. I drove stakes I cut into the bottom of the trench, measuring from the string I had previously strung to get the tops of them to the proper level. Then, I screwed some 2x3s onto the stakes, making sure they were level and the proper distance below the string. The string gives me the final height for the block wall.

I was able to get the forms in the back of the house and along one side mostly completed. Along the side, I had to step down almost 8 inches in two places because of the slope. Malchiah joined me after I had started working, and I put him to work tamping dirt on the outside of the forms.

Across the front of the house, there will be six courses of blocks. There are footer levels for five courses and four courses on the side while there will be only three courses on the back. I’m trying to make all of the different levels match up so that blocks could be laid continuously around the house. However, I may treat each level separately, laying blocks for each one independent of the others. They will all be surface bonded later and won’t be visible. As far as structural integrity, there should be no problem considering their purpose.

We’ll continue work tomorrow and Friday. It’ll be next week before we have the concrete delivered for the footers.  

Perimeter block wall footer excavation

Last evening I moved some of the top soil piled near the end of the house (it’s been piled there for six years already). I didn’t move it far – just a few feet. This was so that I would have enough room to maneuver the backhoe to the rear corner of the house and start excavating the trenches for the footer upon which I’ll build a short block wall to enclose the crawlspace. The wall will also help support the porch floor and straw bale wall.

I continued the excavation from the other corners this morning, trying to dig the bottom of the trench level. That’s easier said that done. However, it came out within a few inches over any given length.

After finishing what I could with the backhoe, I threw some dirt out of the trench with a shovel and knocked down a few high spots. After that, I stretched and leveled a string from one corner of the root cellar walls all the way around the house to another corner of the root cellar. This allowed me to get an accurate measure of my depth in order to figure how much more excavation or filling in is needed.

I plan on working on constructing forms for the footer tomorrow. It will be 14 inches wide and 8 inches in depth. After the forms are in place, I will raise or lower the bottom of the trench to ensure the thickness of the footer will be as intended. If I get this done tomorrow, I hope to have the concrete delivered Friday (I’ve got to bale hay on Thursday).

The blocks around the perimeter of the house will be dry stacked like the cellar walls. I may only surface bond the outside because there won’t be any real lateral forces on this wall. I’ll decide for sure later.

Here are some photos taken this evening of the work that’s been accomplished so far:

 

   

Backfilling around the root cellar

I worked on the interior walls earlier in the week, getting three of them coated with the surface bonding cement – all but the long wall on the house side. So, yesterday, I began the process of backfilling against the walls of the cellar. It was nice to have the backhoe to use; it would’ve been overwhelming to do this job with a shovel.

I situated the backhoe behind the house near the corner of the root cellar and began moving dirt from the pile on the hill. This went fairly well. I could reach about 16 or so across the back edge. There was one problem: a few jerks with the hoe caused the bucket to slide over against one house post. I didn’t like that, of course. Initially, it wasn’t clear to me how to get it away from the house. I couldn’t back up because one rear tire was on the edge of the hole. I was able to move it without causing any damage to the house.

I was able to position the backhoe at a few different locations on either end of the cellar and put fill dirt in around almost all of the walls. I took it easy, knowing I didn’t want to knock into and mess up the walls.

On the house side of the cellar, there was about 14 feet of wall which the backhoe couldn’t reach because of the house frame. I had to use a shovel. Thankfully, the area to be filled here wasn’t to wide and didn’t need to be filled to the top of the blocks.

Here are a few photos taken after I finished today (the pvc on either end is for air vents):

Root cellar: concrete forms in place

Although it was overcast this morning, it didn’t rain today. The sun finally came out from behind the clouds around noon. I worked in the hole all day. This morning the damp clay in and around the work area stuck to my shoes all the time. With the sun out this afternoon, I didn’t have any stick. Either the sunshine dried things just enough or this clay is allergic to sunshine.

I didn’t use the backhoe today. I moved a fair bit of dirt with a shovel and a grape hoe, though, in order to get make sure the bottom of the hole was level. It was close, thankfully. There was some dirt along the edges that needed moved so I could set the forms.

For the forms, I used some boards Danny salvaged from an old mobile home he helped demolish. They are fat 2x4s, measuring about 1-3/4” x 4-1/4”. I had to pull some old staples out of them, and then I was ready to set them in place. I also cut some stakes from some scrap boards I had near the house.

I started in one corner and leveled the forms from there. By lunch time I had one end and over half of both of the long sides done. Since it’s important to put the outside corner of the root cellar walls in the right place, I had to take some measurements from the west side of the house. Determining the precise location of this corner is somewhat difficult. However, using a ladder strapped to the floor joists in the house, I was able to measure eleven feet out from that side of the house and set a stake at the inside corner of the root cellar.

To figure the outside corner, I measured from the stakes I had set previously. It soon became apparent that I didn’t have things laid out square. It was time for lunch at that point, so I left it till this afternoon. Armed with an exact measure of the hypotenuse of a right triangle with two eleven foot sides and a framing square, I adjusted one of the corners on the forms I had already set. Once I did that, the diagonal measurements came out correct – things were square.

It didn’t take long this afternoon to finish the forms. I built a small box to go around the floor drain. I’m not sure exactly what the usual way is for pouring a floor with a drain. I figure that I can pour everything around and up to the form around the drain with enough slope for water that ends up on the floor to head for the drain. Later, I’ll cut the drain pipe at the right level, mix and pour some concrete, and fill the last section of the floor around it.

The next step is to dig a couple inches deeper near the forms for the footer and lay out some rebar in the footers and floor. I don’t think that will take too long. Once that’s done, we can have the ready mix truck come out. The only thing that may interrupt the timing of things is rain. If we get too much rain, I’ll have to wait for things to dry out before the concrete truck can get close enough to the hole. I hope the weather cooperates so we can pour the concrete next Tuesday or Wednesday.

Root cellar: second excavation

On Monday I had a neighbor haul a friend’s backhoe to our place. This is the same backhoe I used a year ago to excavate the root cellar. Since I didn’t get the floor poured and walls built last summer, the winter rains washed a lot of dirt and debris into the hole. I started shoveling it out by hand, but found the task daunting. The backhoe has saved a lot of time.

I was able to move clay-dirt from one pile near the hole on Monday, but then it began to rain. I didn’t work with the backhoe on Tuesday, but yesterday I was able to get at it. It was a little muddy on top still, but I wanted to get the job done.

Today, I plan on finishing with a shovel, moving the dirt left in the hole out of the way. Then, I will begin building the forms for the concrete. If the weather cooperates, we’ll pour and finish the floor next week.

Plaster samples

Two weeks ago, my dad and I worked on some gardening tasks. We had nice weather and the ground dried enough for it to be worked. Gardening tasks are important, and it’s that time of year. My dad has agreed to do a lot of the gardening work in order to free my time for working on the house.

Right now getting the root cellar floor poured and the blocks laid for the walls is what’s standing in the way of significant visual progress on the house. As I’ve been down in the root cellar hole shoveling out dirt that’s washed back in with the rain, I’ve wished greatly that I would’ve been able to have done the concrete and block work last summer. It would’ve saved time right now. I cleaned out about half the washed in dirt a few weeks ago, but you wouldn’t know it now. It actually seems like it’s worse than it was before. I shoveled out a bit last week, but it was frustrating because it was wet and kept sticking to my shovel.

However, as it stuck to my shovel and I complained to no one in particular, it occurred to me that this might actually be a good thing. Why is this dirt sticking so badly? That is one of the properties of clay – it’s sticky. As I continued to grow in height while working in the hole (I had a couple inches of the mucky goo stuck to the bottom of my boots), I became more excited about the possibility that I might be mucking around in the plaster for my straw bale walls.

With this in mind, I collected two samples: one from the bottom of the root cellar hole and another from a pile near the cellar that was excavated from it last spring. I put these samples in jars, added water (and a little salt), shook them vigorously, and left the contents to settle. With this process the larger aggregates and sand settle first, then the silt, and finally the clay (adding salt can help speed up the settling of the clay which can take a long time). Once everything settles, you can determine the relative percentages of the different materials in the soil.

It seems like there is a lot of clay in my samples, so much, in fact, that I cannot clearly determine the lines of demarcation between the different strata. When working with the dirt in my hands, there are clearly some small rocks (aggregate) mixed in, but nothing too bad.

The next thing to do was to try making some sample batches of plaster with this dirt. I brought some up the hill along with a hay bale from the barn. I cut the bale in half with my chainsaw so that I would have twice the surface area to try out my samples of plaster on. Then, I mixed two batches of plaster using dirt from the pile near the cellar.

For the first batch, I mixed on part dirt, one part washed masonry sand, and one part chopped straw (not pressed into the measure, just loose). I plastered a section of the side of the first half bale with this mix. Then, I mixed the second sample using on part dirt, two parts sand, and one part chopped straw. My younguns helped me put this plaster on another part of the same surface as the first plaster.

The plaster actually felt good, and we enjoyed putting it on the bale. The second batch felt a bit sandier, of course. Both went on nicely. They’re not dry yet, though. So, I haven’t determined for sure their suitability for the walls in the house.

The weather’s a bit cool, so it’ll take a little while for them to dry completely. At that point, I’ll see how well the samples adhered to the bales and check them for other desirable qualities. In the following photos, you can see the texture of the samples and the chopped straw in the plaster. The one on the left is the first batch (one-to-one mix) and the one on the right is the second batch (one-to-two dirt/clay ratio).

It will be really neat if we are able to plaster our walls with dirt harvested from our building site. Previously, I figured that I would buy bags of pottery clay for the walls. This new possible method will save some money and will just be better in many other ways. Even so, in order to get the desired wall color inside our home, the final coat on the walls will probably use kaolin clay bought from the pottery supply store.

 

The root cellar and some porch posts

Yesterday morning, I shoveled some more dirt out of the root cellar. It’s getting much closer to being ready to form the footers for the block walls. I still have a bit more dirt to remove, but I didn’t go back to it today. I have some sore muscles, including my right shoulder which I strained throwing some firewood a week ago. In the photos below, you can see the current state of the cellar hole. I have to take some proper measurements and lay out where the footers need to be. To this point, I’ve just taken some quick measurements to figure out approximately where to excavate to.



Yesterday afternoon, rather than excavate more, I headed out with my Stihl MS250 to fell a few cedar trees. The trees I selected will be milled into 6x6 porch posts. I need 20 posts all together. I spent a little time with Google Sketchup the other day laying out the spacing for my porch posts. They don’t fit exactly on eight foot centers. So, I needed to determine where they should be in order to have them as close to that spacing as possible. On the front and back, they’ll be on 8’ 1-1/2” centers. On the sides, they’ll on 7’ 10” centers. Close enough to eight feet to work, I believe.

The first tree I cut yesterday was one near the house site that had lost its top in the recent ice storm (at least I think that’s when – I hadn’t noticed it before Sunday). I walked up on a nearby hillside and felled three more trees.

Today, I limbed the downed trees and bucked them into nine foot lengths. With a couple of trees I already had down, I have enough for 12 posts already. They all need skidded out of the woods and to the location in which I’ll mill them. I should be able to do that within the next couple of weeks if the weather permits. I’ll need to select a few others, but having over half of them already down is good.

Just a quick update

Sorry, no photos this time. I just wanted to provide a quick update on what I've been doing the last few days.

Last Friday we made a trip to Lowes to buy some rebar for when we pour the footers and root cellar floor. We also bought some 3" pvc for the drain line from the root cellar. While I was loading the rebar, Anne noticed a "damaged" one-piece tub/shower unit sitting outside that was marked down to $50. It had a small hole in the tub edge and some small cracks in the acrylic of the bottom, both of which I should be able to patch fairly well. So, I offered $25 which was accepted, and we have our second tub/shower unit. We spent less than the price of one for two, because the first one we bought a few months ago was marked down because of slight damage that won't even be visible once it's installed.

Sunday was a nice day since the predicted rain didn't show up. With the backhoe, I dug an 80 foot long trench for the drain line. This is for a floor drain in the cellar. At the end near the cellar, the trench was nearly 8 feet deep. It ended up at 2 feet deep at the other end because of the slope. This provides about 30 inches of drop over the 80 feet. My boys helped glue the 3" thinwall PVC together and put it in the trench. Then, I used the backhoe to fill in the trench.

Yesterday, I dug up a culvert on the drive going to my barn. The one there just wasn't big enough to handle the amount of rain water that washes through there on days like today (it's raining right now). I had some eight foot long 12" concrete culvert sections that I had dug up previously. I was able to put two of them end to end (they have a bell end for connecting them) and one of the 6 inch PVC culverts I dug up back in place. It should help keep the runoff from flooding across the drive.

I also planted 1/2 acre of wheat yesterday afternoon. It was dry enough so that I could disc the field last week, then we received about 1/2 inch of rain. It was dry enough yesterday that I could run the disc over the field one more time. Then, using my hand-powered broadcast seeder, I spread 100 pounds of hard red spring wheat over the ground. Then, I ran a friends cultipacker over it to help push in into the ground a little. With the rain we're getting today and will get tomorrow, it should be sprouting soon!

Today, I've been calculating the number of concrete blocks I need to acquire to complete the foundation walls and root cellar walls. I have 238 blocks I've already collected. I need another 750 or so. I'll also need to order six yards of concrete for the footers and floor once I have everything ready. That'll be after it dries out a bit. It's spring and is still wet here.

Digging it!

I've had a new experience this week: operating a backhoe. You see those big machines at different places and think it would be cool to run one. It can't be that hard, right? Well, I got my chance.

Contemplating digging a 10 feet by 20 feet (roughly) hole five or six feet deep with a shovel moved me to seek an alternate approach to the digging, preferably one that was mechanical and high-powered. I thought about renting a small backhoe. In hindsight, that would not have been a good idea -- the rental charge is $160 a day, and I would've needed it for several days, if it could even have done the job (too small). I thought about hiring someone to do it. I even called a guy about doing so, but he's a busy man. I called another friend who owns a backhoe to ask if his brother would be interested in my hiring him. That didn't work out, but the next best thing did: he agreed to let me borrow and use his backhoe.

So, last weekend, I drove 18 miles to his weekend home where he keeps the backhoe to get the keys. I was making arrangements to have another guy haul it here. Those arrangements were taking too long (I didn't want to waste the good weather early in the week). So, Monday morning my dad and I drove to the backhoe, and I drove it the 18 miles home with dad following. Even with stopping for fuel in town, it only took about an hour.

With the machine here, I started on the work that needed done Monday. The first thing was to figure out the controls. I dug up a couple old concrete culverts which I intend to reuse elsewhere (they are crammed full of dirt at the moment). Then, I began to move some of the top soil which had been pushed off of the house site nearly five years ago. This gave me opportunity to become familiar with operating this big machine. I used the hoe to loosen the dirt in part of the pile so that I could drive the backhoe around to the back of the house where I needed to cut back the hillside and dig the planned root cellar. With it loosened, I could scoop it up with the bucket and move it out of the way. It took a little bit to not only learn the controls but to also figure out how to manipulate them efficiently to obtain the ends I desired.

Once I moved some of this topsoil out of the way, I began on the hillside at the back of the house. It was actually quite easy to break up and move as it was basically just topsoil also. I tried to cut it back and taper the slope so there will be plenty of room for the porch at the back of the house plus a bit extra. I don't want a steep slope there, but on one end it will be because of how the slope lies -- it's higher at one end of the house than the other. This work would've been done earlier if I had anticipated changing the plan to include a rear porch. Change has been an integral part of our project, and that's actually been a good thing, because we are happy with our plans and the changes we've made.

Digging the root cellar took more than two days. It would've gone faster but for two things: hydraulic leaks and the need to keep moving the dirt. An older backhoe like this one (a Ford 555) will invariably have its issues and leaks. That's okay. However, one of the flex lines feeding the main cylinder for lifting the boom ruptured and drained out most of the hydraulic fluid. So, I took it off and had a new one made.

The next significant leak occurred on a hard line running to the cylinder which moves the shovel on the hoe. I tried tightening it and polishing the compression fitting, but it gradually got worse. It was still usable, but I stopped using it yesterday when a steady stream was spraying out of the connection. I took it to Glasgow (Kentucky, not Scotland) and had a replacement made today. I'll put it on and continue working this weekend. I wouldn't feel right about returning the machine not working as it should, and since he's lent it to me, I want to return it in better condition than I got it. it's still a whole lot cheaper than renting one or hiring the work done.

The other aspect that's slowed down progress on the root cellar is the need to stop digging and move the dirt every little while. There isn't room near the hole being dug to put it all. I also won't need it all for backfill. So, I've used the excess to fill a ditch that had washed out and which has been here on the property since before we bought the place. I've also put a lot of it in front of the house. This will be used to make the slope in front of the house more gradual. I also had to make sure access for pouring the concrete for the block wall footers and the root cellar floor wasn't blocked. After I build the block wall, I'll hire someone with a bulldozer to come for a day to backfill, fix the front slope, and move the topsoil over it all. Then, I'll be able to proceed on the next part of the housebuilding: the porch.

The whole for the cellar is eleven feet wide and about 23 feet long. I dug it approximately six feet deep so that the ceiling will be at least seven feet high after the floor is poured. It looks deeper because the hill slopes upward to the back. The back of the hole is closer to nine feet deep. I still need to clean it out a little more and then dig a drain line. I'll put a drain in the floor and run the line to daylight. Digging the trench for that will be interesting since I need to maintain a proper slope so it'll drain properly. I'll do that next week.

In the photo above, you can see the hole (I'm standing in it, in case it's hard to tell). You can also see the slope I adjusted behind the house. I need to work on the edges and clean out some of the loose dirt in the bottom. One of the amazing things is that I didn't dig into a rock ledge. There are ledges all over around here. In fact, just above this location on the hill, there is rock at the surface. I dug out a few rocks floating in the dirt, one the size of a desk.

Hopefully, I'll have some more photos later after I finish things up a bit more. The photos in this post are compliments of my dad. I've been otherwise occupied so that I haven't taken pictures this week.

The digging continues . . .

Yesterday was a beautiful day with temperatures in the mid-70s. So, I had some more shovel work to do.

Before I began on digging for the block wall footer, I had six fruit trees to put in the ground. We ordered several fruit trees from Adams County Nursery along with four other families, because, if you order 25 or more trees, the price per tree is basically cut in half. As it ended up, the price for each tree averaged right at $12. And, these are nice trees, too. We ordered several from them two years ago and will order some more this fall for next spring.

I used the post hole digger to help dig the holes for the fruit trees. While I had the tractor running, I went ahead and dug a series of holes along the east side of the house to help with digging for the footer on that side, as it was to be the next side to be completed. After getting the trees all set, I started digging. In the photo you can see my older son helping out. He and his younger brother have helped with the digging and moving dirt from the trench. The concept of digging is one that they seem to love, but when it comes to it being a form of work, they have a much more difficult time. I had already dug out the trench around the corner at the time I took the picture.

I had several sore muscles from my digging the day before, but I figured the soreness would work itself out as I continued with what needed to be done. So, I dug for several hours. It's a slow process when you have to move tons of dirt a shovel-full at a time, but it does get the job done. By the end of the day, I had completed the east side and along the front of the house. I still have sore muscles today, but that just goes along with such work.

About ten feet from the front of the house, I stepped the depth of trench down eight inches. The house is on a slightly sloping site, and I dug the trench along the back as deep as I reasonably could (about 30 inches or so). I want to keep the footer deep enough along the sides and front, and that requires that I make them at least one block deeper there.

As I've been digging, I've decided against a rubble trench with a drain. The ground here drains very well -- there was no moisture below the first few inches, and we've had enough rain recently that if there was a problem with drainage it should've been apparent. So, I'll just pour a footer along the bottom of the trench to lay the concrete blocks on.

As I contemplate digging the root cellar and terracing the hill behind the house, I'm wishing for a backhoe. I may see about hiring some of this work done. Although it will cost money, it will also save some time and a lot of work.

Using a "misery spoon"

I finished the trim on the front of the cupola this morning. That didn't take long. So, I started on the next part of the project: digging a trench around the frame.

It was afternoon before I started digging. I drove to my friend Gill's house this morning to borrow his pto-powered post hole digger. I used it when digging for the pier footings two years ago. With the 12" auger, it helps to loosen the soil, making the digging easier. So, I borrowed it to use it for this part of the foundation.

I started on the back of the house. This will be the deepest trench because there is a slope toward the front. The only problem was that I couldn't get the tractor behind the house to use the auger except on the ends. The hill that rises just behind the house was too steep for me to comfortably maneuver the tractor and auger into position. I had to accept being able to drill three holes on each end.

I worked for about 3 hours with the shovel, a tool that someone once called a "misery spoon" for good reason. I'm sure I'll be sore tomorrow. I expect I'll work out some of the soreness while digging. The trench for the footer that will be under the concrete block wall I'm putting there must go all the way around the house.

The foundation for this will will employ a rubble trench. I'm going to put rock and a perforated pipe for a drain in the bottom of the trench, and then more rock. On top of the rock I will pour a rebar reinforced concrete bond beam six or eight inches thick. Upon this I will lay concrete blocks to the desired height. This concrete wall will help support the straw bale walls and the inner side of the wrap around porch.

In addition to the trench, I'm going to dig for a root cellar. This will be located under the pantry and mudroom. Then, I need to terrace the hill behind the house before I can frame the porch because the hill is in the way. Originally, there wasn't going to be a porch on the back, but there is now, and I've got to move some of that hill. It can be done with a shovel, one scoop at a time.

More digging to do tomorrow, and the next nice day, and the next, and . . .