Slippery When Wet

Spring in the Northwest can be a crapshoot: clear and warm one day, raining and hailing the next. Or storming in the morning and beautiful all afternoon. It keeps Ed on his toes. Every time he gets his tools out he has to guess how much time he'll get to spend actually using them.
     Last week he and Rick started putting the plywood down for the second story subflooring. Every time they began working, it started to rain and they had to stop. Safety is paramount, and the sheets of plywood get really slippery when wet.

After stopping and starting several times, they finally got the plywood down for the whole second floor.

After that, they moved the lumber that will be used to frame the north and south walls  up to the second story subflooring.

Finally Ed took a minute to catch his breath and take a picture of what the view will be from the second story balcony. It will be stunning!







Now that the second story subfloor is down, the downstairs has a whole different look..well, sort of.  It's still soaking wet. The rain drips through the upper subflooring onto the downstairs subflooring, then seeps through into the basement, where it has to be swept out. This is not Ed's favorite chore.Once the roof is actually on and shingled, we won't have this problem, but until then, it is a real sore spot.
The ladder is in the middle of my kitchen, and behind it and to the left.

 Today after telling Rick to stay home because of rain, it stopped after 3:00 p.m., Ed finished his layout for the upstairs eyebrow dormer and cut out the header for that window. If it;s not too slippery and wet tomorrow, he will try to get some second floor walls up.

There's No Place Like Home

I've been in California for over a month, helping take care of Mom, and Ed has been at home working on the house and taking care of the animals. He's been making great progress. Ed has been sending me pictures as he goes, but it's just not the same as being there and watching it go up. Needless to say, I miss being home, but am grateful for the opportunity to help Mom.

When Ed and I came home from Hawaii the first part of March, he went to work on the framing. Once he got the perimeter walls framed, he framed up the load bearing interior walls. I was surprised how fast it went up.
Then he and the neighbor, Rick, began hanging the plywood shearing on the outside. Suddenly the house has become tangible. Ed says at this point the house looks like a hacienda, which isn't what it's going to look like when it's done.

After the plywood was up around the perimeter, Ed and Rick started putting up the gluelams. Some of them were small enough that they could lift them and put them in place with the tractor.

Then came the Big-Boy gluelam. This required help from neighbors. So Ed went down the road, and recruited as much help as he could find on a Sunday afternoon and got that monster up. It wasn't easy but they were able to manage it without anybody getting hurt.

At this point Ed needed to frame in the stairwell before putting on the floor joists for the second floor. There will be a small run of stairs to a landing. At the landing will be a little bench, then another run of stairs to the second story. There will be a little window at the landing that may be just perfect for a stained glass panel.

Finally the floor joists started going in for the second story. Ed says the view from the second story is going to be spectacular. I can hardly wait for the plywood to go down over the floor joists. We can put a couple of patio chairs up there, climb the ladder with an adult beverage and imagine it all finished....as soon as I get home.

Kaiser Permanente-Survive..er..Thrive

   Sometimes Life's road is uphill. This time it is not only uphill but full of switchbacks and rockslides. I've been out of state for the last six weeks helping my sister take care of Mom. At 88, Mom is usually an energetic, independent woman. With one misdiagnoses after another, she has been through a very tough time. We hope to get her home this week and back on her very busy two feet.
   Ed has been home working on the project as the weather allows and has made amazing progress. As soon as time and energy allows, I'll  post an update..hopefully later this week. Thank you, everyone for your prayers and patience.

Once Around The Block(ing)

     The first of several lumber deliveries came early one morning. There is so much lumber to this project that there isn't room to stack it all, so Ed has it divided up into sections. The first delivery included the rim joists for the basement, glue lams and floor joists for the first floor, and the OSB for the first floor...floor. The driver shows up with this stuff and decides where he wants to drop it. Now the OSB is on the bottom, and the longest floor joists were 37' long, and on the top. I think they do it that way because when you're building, the joists go in before the OSB goes on, so you work your way through the stack, top to bottom. Makes sense....
     The driver had a tilt bed on his truck. Ed says "How are you gonna unload that?"
     The driver says, "I just tilt it until I feel it start to slide, pop the clutch, and go like Hell."   I smiled because I thought he was kidding. He got in the truck, tilted the bed, stuff started to slide, he popped the clutch and hit the gas. Lumber hit the ground just like butter off a hot knife...and except for that horrible crunching sound, it all looked good.  Ed and I exchanged of  those Tracy/Hepburn glances. The driver jumped out of the truck, and as he ran to the back he says "Oh, that didn't sound good."

We looked it over as best we could, considering it was still tied together, and didn't think any more about it.
    Our neighbor, Rick has been working with Ed on this portion of the building. The next morning they started putting up the gluelams. Once again, the tractor earned it's keep.It picked up those gluelams as easy as anything, and lifted them into place. With Ed on the tractor and Rick on the ladder,it looked so easy!
Once the gluelams were in place, they framed in the stairs going from the first floor into the basement, and started putting the rim joists in.

First of all let me say, house plans don't come with a manual. I mean, there isn't anything that says "Do this step first. Don't forget to (fill in the blank). How do they know what comes next? It's a mystery.
Anyway, Rick and Ed lifted those rim joists up, carried them up the ladder and then stood them up on the edge. And it has to be straight.  And level.

At this point the whole goal for Ed is to get the OSB on and covered with vinyl sheeting before it rains, and he's working like a madman. The problem is that the cement work we had contracted is so badly out of level, that the basement now fills with about 100 gallons of water every time it rains. No, really...100 gallons. the basement floor was supposed to be sloped out the back door. That is now the highest point in the basement.
You've heard the term "pushing water uphill"? Two adults with pushbrooms can actually do it, but it takes an hour and a half. Ed is not happy. As soon as we get the building sealed up a bit more it will cease to be a problem, but in the meantime, every time it rains we spend alot of time just prepping to do the day's work.
Once the rim joists were up, the floor joists could go down. This was about the point where we realized that dropping lumber off a truck is probably not the best idea. The OSB is tongue and groove. And some of those grooves had lost their mojo. About a third of them had damage. Some of that could be used on perimeter of the building, but not all.









 And one of the floor joists was all chewed up as well. Ed thought he could use most of it as blocking, but it slowed him down when he really needed to plow ahead  at full speed.
It was a little creepy watching those guys hang the floor joists. They balance on the gluelams, with a 9' drop to solid cement (ok, 2" of rainwater and solid cement) and nail those things in. I decided to go inside the house and find something to do.

Once the floor joists were all in, they started cutting blocking. I think it was about 160 pieces of blocking, and nailed them in. Just the blocking took a day and a half. This wasn't one of those really fun jobs, like say...framing walls. The weather was changing, a storm was coming, and the OSB may not get down in time.
Ed re-read the instructions on the glue for the OSB. It says "May be used in water or frost." Cool! We're covered!

The next morning, it's raining pretty steadily. The wood is as slick as vaseline in the rain, but Ed and Rick decide to try to get some down anyway. They haul some OSB up there, get the nailgun out, and start pumping the glue onto the floor joists.  It laid there like a slug on a wet sidewalk. The rain picked up, and two things became apparent. #1. The glue wouldn't work with this much rain. #2. It was too darned slippery to work safely. Ed called it for the day and Rick went home.  Thursday morning  was a lot drier. Ed and Rick worked frantically all day to try to get it done. By 1:00 they had about 2/3 of it done. By 6:00, it was getting dark, the rain was starting up,
and they were soooo close to being finished. But they were too tired to work safely, and they still wouldn't get it all finished. Ed threw in the towel and realized the rain was just going to get inside once again.
It rained all day today . It is, after all, Washington. Tomorrow we should have some clearing. With any luck, Ed will be able to finish tomorrow, and we can get it covered in plastic. Monday we leave for a long-overdue  vacation, and the project will be on hold for several weeks. How will Ed stand it?

Sand, Cement, and Swans

Once Ed and his helper got the darned ICF wrap to stick he wanted to make sure it stayed stuck, so he got some kind of tar-goop (a technical term) and painted all the seams. That stuff isn't going anywhere now! It is water sealed at the bottom, tacked at the top, and ready for the exterior perimeter drain.

The drain is a big perforated tube, covered by a fabric sock, that should let the water in, but keep the dirt out. Over the drain goes gravel, then another sheet of filter fabric. Once that filter fabric is on, there shouldn't be much that gets through but water.

We had a crew come in to deliver the rock and dump it in over the drain. The kid on the skiploader was fearless. Doesn't he know the edge of that dig is just waiting to crumble in? Apparently not because he whizzed around like a kid on a skateboard. But whiz he did, and they got rock all around. Ed got the fabric on top of that and they were ready to start loading sand into the inside of the basement for the floor.

   Ed decided to put the same type of drain down in the inside of the basement to vent any possible radon gas or other nasties. Radon is not common in this area, but it's not unheard of. Since the basement has no windows we thought it was easier to just cover all the bases now. If we found a problem after construction, it would be a monster job to fix. The sand they brought in is dredge sand from the shipping channel in the Columbia River, and it is very clean.. Ed did happen to spot and retrieve a very nice yellow agate though.

Once all the sand was loaded into the basement, they moved a cat inside and began moving it around. They compacted it down and screeded (is that a verb?) it level, and their job was done.

Wednesday, Ed got inside and put down water barrier plastic,  and with his helper, got the screed boards for the cement down. By the time they were done with that, evening was becoming night.

     The cement guys were due first thing in the morning, and darned if they weren't on time.  The basement floor took 26 yards of cement. That took a pumper truck, and two and a half cement trucks. We had locked up the cats in the barn, and Abby, the dog was subjected to a leash. The worst thing that could have happened was a squished pet, but the cement guys wouldn't have been very happy with a  cement covered dog. Frankly, I wouldn't have been thrilled either.  They worked on the finish until about 5:00 p.m., a hard day's work. Now if the rain will just  hold off for a few days...  Rain now will make the finish go all wonky.
     Ed says. " I need to sweep the debris off the top and tighten down those j bolts."
    "Ok," I replied, oblivious, "I've got some stuff to do inside the house." I was inside hearing the sound
of debris hitting cement. "Wow," I thought to myself, "He's really energetic about that sweeping."

  Then I looked. Sometimes it's just better not to. With the Grand Canyon on one side and Devil's Slide on the other, he's humming and as happy as a pig in mud.

  At this point there is the feeling that the immediate pressure is off. Ed and I took a day and drove over to the coast. We've been able to cast our eyes in a different direction and focus on the beauty around us. Sometimes the process of building can get so consuming that we forget to enjoy this wonderful place where we live. I saw wild swans for the first time. We're a little further from family than I would prefer, and we still have a lot of building to do, but we couldn't have found a more beautiful place to do it in.  

Two Steps Forward, One Step Back

The day after the cement was poured we went out to look at the new cement walls. Surprise!

They looked the same as they did yesterday. I kept thinking, "I can hardly wait until the forms come off so I can see how it looks.....oh wait...these forms don't come off."

What did come off was the braces and the scaffold supports. The scaffold boards are 2x12x14 (more or less) and wet. Do the math:

Really wide board x really long board x really wet boards ./.two guys working in the rain

= a slugfest of ugly hard work.

It's that new math. Every board and every brace had to be hauled out that opening and down the wet goopy road that had by then turned into a clay soup that would suck the shoes off a mule.

First of all, let me say that this was the day after the terrible earthquake in Haiti. I was not able to look at this cement in the same way that I had a week ago. Every piece that I picked up made me mindful that the work I was doing was without desperation, without despair or grief. I had gloves, tools, plenty to eat and a safe home. Each piece of cement that seemed too heavy was prayerfully placed in the back of the gator or in the bucket of the tractor.

We made countless trips back and forth through the field with load after load

of cement.

I picked up the little pieces, Ed picked up the heavy ones. The gator has a dump bed on it, and that thing is really a work horse. Once we got the pieces back up to the job site, we

started laying them down in the mud.

It's sort of like making a giant m0saic. Try to get the pieces to fit together. Only, you'd better put them down in the right place the first time, cause you don't want to have to pick them up and move them. The area right by the basement access door is where the cement guy dumped the excess cement, so we had it made there.

Since I'm a wimp, I wasn't able to haul much over the size of a laptop or a basketball, so the next day Ed had Taylor come down to help him. Now, we started to see some progress! Once the base of old cement is down, we can fill it with crushed rock and make a decent work surface.

The next sequence of events (more or less) will be to put in the drain around the perimeter of the building, put in the floor joists, pour the basement floor, and backfill the basement walls around the outside. But (and isn't there always at least one of those?) before that can happen, the vapor barrier needs to go up. This will be on the exterior of the basement wall, where the backfilling will occur.

Greg Prestegard, our supplier for the ICFs and the vapor barrier told Ed to be sure to put the vapor barrier up on a dry day. OK, but we get 100" of rain a year, so we won't have really dry-dry days until...well..July.

"Oh," he says, "and once you peel the paper off the back, do NOT let the sticky side touch itself, or you're done." Yeek.

Around here, if there is no rain actually falling and making dots in existing puddles, it counts for a dry day, so yesterday, Ed and Tyler primed the ICFs and started hanging it. Tyler cut the drops and lined them up ready to go.

There was a bit of a learning curve...ok, so it was a learning roller coaster because if you goof and let the sticky side lap over and touch another part of the sticky side, it's stuck like bubblegum in a 4 year old's hair.

Here's how it went: Ed took a roll, peeled the paper backing off about 15", hung over the edge from the inside, leaned over and positioned the drop. Tyler, in the trench on the outside, made sure it was lined up, and started peeling the paper in an even pull, and sticking it down. The trick is to keep it straight and not pull off too much backing at any time. Then once it's almost to the bottom, it has to go over the step of the foundation. Tyler brought the paper backing to the front, rolled it up and off, and pushed it in place.

Meanwhile the clouds were getting thicker and it was beginning to mist. This was not good.

By 2:30, Ed decided it was getting too wet, and they called it quits. We packed the cut and rolled drops in out of the wet, and went inside to dry off. Ed said "My worst nightmare is that all that work, and money, will slide off and be in a soggy pile in the mud when we get up tomorrow."

This morning we got up and it could have been better, it also could have been worse. The ladder they left leaning against the wall kept the whole thing from peeling off. Ed and I managed to get it back up and he tacked it in place with wood strips and screws. This afternoon is supposed to be sunny so we'll try to get up the rest.

Let's Cement The Deal

Yesterday, the union stewards checked out the scaffolding before the big pour. Gotta make sure everything is shipshape and up to code. After bribing them both with a little piece of ham, they signed off the job.

Today we pour the basement walls. It's Washington, so it's raining. Since it's not freezing rain, it's not a 5" storm, and there are no gale-force winds, the pour will happen.

Ed placed some knock-out tubes through the ICFs for the sewer lines, water, power,phone and other utilities. The tubes are an inch larger than the conduit he will use. Once the cement is set, he'll knock out the tube (hence the name), which will leave a place to put his conduit or pipe through, then seal any remaining space with canned foam sealant. No struggling with jamming a pipe through a tight fit.

It was supposed to be relatively dry this morning with increasing rain in the afternoon, so Ed scheduled the pour for 8:00 a.m. We awoke to the sound of the rain dripping off the roof and knew things would be a bit damp. Everyone showed up on time, and the job was on.

It's sort of like that old song,"The kneebone is connected to the thighbone". The concrete mixer hooks to the pumper, which pushes the mix through the boom, and into the forms. Tom-the-Pumper, Greg-The-ICF Guy, Ed and Tyler and Tayler (not twins) from down the road scrambled

around like squirrels.

There is nothing more fun than a boy, some really messy mud, and a giant power tool. Since Ed was the one with the checkbook, he got to play with the biggest toy. He had the business end of that boom, and shot the wet concrete.

It's a little tricky. You have to be sure the concrete stays in the form and your feet stay on the scaffolding, that you don't leave any voids in the wall. By 10:30 all 45 yards were busy making a basement.

The pumper truck was still cleaning up in the driveway and Ed, Taylor and Tyler were going around the perimeter placing the rim joists and foundation bolts. Ed had pre-drilled these, lined them with the foam weather seal, and placed the j-bolts in the board. After that it was a matter

of turning them over onto the top of the forms, making sure they were in the proper place and seating the bolts.

Ed checked the walls for level and square, made some adjustments and called it good.