First floor subfloor

Last week I ordered 48 sheets of Advantech sheeting for the first floor subfloor. I’ve tried to get a good deal on material for the subfloor, but the guy I’ve been buying lumber from hasn’t had any Advantech for a while. He offered to get what I needed from his supplier at his cost which ended up being about $2.50 per sheet less than what I would pay elsewhere.

I picked up the material on Sunday so that Jon, Dad, and I would be able to start putting down the subfloor on the main level of the house yesterday. I spent a couple of hours getting things ready Sunday afternoon, moving things out of the house and smoothing out the ground under the house – I needed to put plastic in the crawl space.

So, on Monday morning, we began by caulking gaps along the sill plate and boxing on the foundation walls, a job that was partially done last week. When we ran out of caulk (we were most of the way around, and I bought more caulk at lunch time so we could finish the job), we started putting plastic on the ground in the crawl space. I bought some 6 mil black plastic on Sunday for this purpose.

The plastic comes in a 20 foot width. So, we rolled out enough to go from the front to the back of the crawlspace with a little to curve up onto the wall. We had to cut it to get it around the piers the timber frame sits on. We securely taped it around each pier. It took two widths to cover the main part under the house. We taped the seam together in the middle where the two pieces met.

After putting plastic down under the kitchen and under the mudroom, we began hanging radiant barrier insulation along the crawl space walls. This is a reflective material with bubble wrap in the middle. The idea is to hang it from the top of the crawl space wall so that it hangs down and curves out onto the plastic. This material’s insulation value is not diminished if it gets wet (I don’t want it to get wet, of course) unlike fiberglass insulation. It should help to keep the crawl space temperature moderated and allow us to capitalize on the thermal mass of the earth below the house. If we insulated under the floor, this wouldn’t be possible.

I learned of this method of insulating a crawl space from an insulation contractor in the St. Louis area on a forum a few years ago when researching what to do for our house. He claimed that his experience is that the temperature in the crawl space is maintained within 10 degrees of the temperature inside the house.

Once we insulated the areas that were already caulked, we began putting down Advantech sheets for the subfloor. We had to cut around timber frame posts and modify lengths because I hadn’t laid out the floor joists in the frame as I should have. However, the process when quite well. By the end of the day, we had finished the floor in the timber frame and also the kitchen area.

We’ll put the floor down over the root cellar and in the mudroom area on Wednesday. We also have to put floor down on the straw bale wall toe-up all the way around. There’s also one section of porch floor in what will be the summer kitchen that needs to be put down. We should be able to finish all that on Wednesday and start putting in window and door bucks, too.

Porch floor

With the porch roof put on (only two ridge caps left to complete), it was time to start laying the porch floor. With my dad’s help, I started putting boards down on Monday.

In the spring of 2009, a friend let me cut down some beech trees on his property and have the logs. Dad and I dragged the logs out of the woods and staged them for milling last fall. Finally, a friend of mine brought his Woodmizer sawmill over to saw the logs for me early this summer. We brought them home and stickered (stacked with sticks between the layers so that air can get all around the boards) them near the house, waiting for the time when they would become our porch floor.

We hauled several over near the cut-off saw, and Dad began squaring one end. The design of the porch is for the floor to run from the house out. This allows the boards to be laid down without concern for their overall length, as long as they are long enough to allow some overhang at the edge of the porch. Once the boards are screwed down, I snap a line and cut them off to the right length with my circular saw. Then, they are all the same length.

After dad squared one end, I would put a board in place and then screw it down with deck screws. This takes a fair bit of time. We were able to complete almost 30 feet of floor along the front of the house on Monday. Yesterday, I finished up the last four feet and cut the excess off the edge leaving a nice overhang. It looks quite nice.

Today, Jon came over to work. He, Dad, and I worked on the porch floor on the back of the house. When I cut the trees and bucked them into saw logs, I was planning for the porch to be 9 feet wide. It turns out that it is actually 9.5 feet wide. So, some of the boards are almost but not quite long enough. So, we had to get creative.

On the back, we cut short lengths and screwed them near the house. Then, we ran longer lengths out from that. This made good use of our material with little waste, and it will work fine for the floor.

We completed the back porch floor and started on the east side of the house before quitting for the day. On Friday, we’ll continue where we left off.

Porch roof

Last week I was able to work during the first half of the week. The job at hand was the porch roof, continuing to install the sheets of metal.

For the front of the house, I cut three inches off of the metal so that the amount extending past the fascia board would be correct. I wasn’t able to extend the metal as far under the house roof as I expected. So, the full 11 feet I ordered was too long. They were quite easy to cut using a metal cutting blade in the circular saw. We cut 7 sheets at a time (I needed 14).

When I ordered the metal, I planned on using some of the 10 foot sheets I already had for the corners, expecting the color to be similar (I ordered “rainbow”). However, of the 50 sheets I ordered, 48 were galvanized and two were black. I used the galvanized metal on the sides, the front, and all four corners. Using it on the corners meant that I didn’t have enough to extend across the back.

So, I used some of the metal roofing sheets I already had. The only problem was that they are only 10 feet long, not eleven. This left a gap of about a foot at the top near the house. Although I planned to cut pieces and put them over this gap, I didn’t get that completed until today.

Before I began the roof, it occurred to me that I hadn’t planned for condensation issues over the areas the roof covers which are part of the house, like the kitchen, mudroom, utility room, and sewing room/study. I asked about doing so at the metal supply place, and they suggested using radiant barrier insulation under the metal. It turns out that this is a common method used by builders in the area. So, that’s what I did.

 

 

  

Three sheets

The weather today was much nicer than the preceding days. It was cooler (mid-80s), and the humidity was lower. There were several times I just had to stand still and enjoy how refreshing the breeze felt.

Dad and Danny helped this morning. Dad and I nailed on purlins while Danny cut the individual boards to length and handed them up to us. We were able to finish the east side, get all of the purlins on the back, and start the west side before lunch.

After lunch, Danny had some other work to attend to. So, Dad and I worked on finishing the purlins on the west side. We got them all nailed on without any problems.

Then, we laid out three sheets of metal on the front to figure out how they fit under the existing roof metal. We’re able to slide them up under alright, but we’ll need to cut off about 3 inches from the sheets on the front in order to make sure that the amount the metal overhangs is not too much. The metal can’t be slid up under the other metal far enough because of the rafters on the house (they butt up against these). I don’t need or want 4 inches of metal overhanging the edge. The goal is 1.5 inches, an appropriate amount for the gutters that I will eventually install around the porch.

After figuring out the front, we moved the sheets of metal to the east side to see how they lined up. They were fine. So, since we had them up there already, I went ahead and screwed them to the purlins. If we have no problems, it won’t be too difficult to get the rest of the roofing metal installed early next week.

 

Purlins and fascia board

Although I haven’t posted in a few days, I’ve continued working on the house. Jon hasn’t been able to come over to work since last week, but my dad helped me three days. I’ll be getting more done today.

Dad and I finished the porch on the west side of the house, putting up the two posts and the 4x6 headers. We also got all of the porch rafters up, including the corner over the root cellar and the corner that over what will be the summer kitchen. It’ll just be porch initially. Later, I’ll close it in for the summer kitchen (might only screen it – we haven’t decided yet).

On Tuesday of this week, I brought home some cement board siding. I have some more to bring home. I’d hoped to get it yesterday, but I had to change two tires on the trailer (one did not make it home intact on Tuesday). The tires are ready to go now, and I’ve unloaded all of the siding from the trailer.

On Wednesday, Dad and I started installing purlins for the porch roof on the front of the house. After we got going on that, we decided to put up fascia board all the way around. I had some 1x6s that worked great for this. We were able to put up all of the fascia board and get the purlins completed on the front and partially done on the east side.

The plan for today is to continue installing purlins so that we can start getting the metal roof on.

 

 

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.

Porch rafters

After three days of working on the house this week, the porch on the front, east side, and back of the house is now ready for the purlins. Yesterday, Danny and I installed the rest of the header beams that were still needed and worked on some of the rafters.

Before Danny came down the hill to help, I put up a header board across the front of the house to attach the porch rafters to. Originally, I thought I was going to attach the rafters on the front to the girts on the front of the timber frame. Previously, we put up the vertical stringers across the front, attaching them to a 2x4 we nailed to the house rafters. In order to attach the porch rafters to the timber frame, I would have to notch each one to fit over the 2x4 at the top of the vertical stringers.

It occurred to me that I could put a header up on the vertical stringers, notching it around the rafters under the metal roof. This actually worked well and was quite easy to do. Once it was up, the rafters, which could be cut to the same length as the rest of them around the house, were fairly easy to put up.

We used the porch rafters to assure that the porch posts were plumb toward the house. We plumbed them the other direction when attaching the headers on Monday.

After we finished the rafters on the front of the house, we cut the remaining headers to go on top of the posts along the back and the northeast corner. After putting these up, I laid out the location for the rafters along the back and the east side. We then attached the rafters that were nearest the posts in order to tie them to the house and to make sure they were plumb in that direction.

This morning, I had two posts to plumb and tie to the house with rafters. Once I had those two up, my dad came down to help me. Jon wasn’t able to make it, and Danny had another job to work on.

Before starting on the rafters, I cut several rafters to length out of some of the 2x6s I bought on Sunday. Dad and I worked on getting all the rafters up between the ones already attached near the posts. Once we had all of these done, we started on the rafters at the northeast corner of the porch.

The corners will have a hip roof. I’d previously set aside 2x6s of sufficient length for each corner. I’m doubling the rafters on the corners since they have a greater span and will be carrying more of the roof load than the other rafters.

We figured out the angles we needed and began by putting the first two 2x6s in place. Each of the rafters we’ve installed for the porch has had to be notched to fit onto the header. I’ve found that it’s easier to use a chisel and hammer for this than it is to use a saw. We would put each rafter into place, mark the outside edge of the header on the bottom of it, take it down, and then cut the notch.

For the corner rafters, the notch is cut at an angle. It wasn’t too hard to chisel it so that it fit tightly while the rafters met up at the corner on the house side. We left these 2x6s long to be cut later after we had the rafters that but into this main one installed.

We measured, cut, and put up the other corner rafters one at a time, notching them as we went. Once they were all up, we snapped a chalk line to mark where they needed to be cut off for the proper overhang. It didn’t take long to cut them.

After lunch we worked on the southeast corner rafters. We were able to finish this corner before we quit this evening. We also moved supplies to be ready to get the corner above the root cellar done next.

So, the porch rafters along the front, east side, and back of the house are all up. It’s looking good!