Roofing

Got back to work yesterday.

Yesterday, the sheeting of the roof on the garage was completed. And setting the trusses continued on the house. Even with a holiday weekend, some illnesses and the birth of Guy's baby, some work continue. Mostly the house trusses. A lot of work putting these up, but its still a lot easier than the "stick built" roof we were originally planning.

Today, we continued trussing, and started sheeting the house roof. The most impressive was installing the gables on the front of the house above the porch. You can really see what the house will look like. The best part is that it no longer looks like a taco bell. Also here you can see Keith and Chris working on the trusses.

Garage Roof Sheeting

Today we had just Keith and Steve working here. Chris and Jessie went to work out some window issues, and Guy's wife went into labor. Keith and Steve started sheeting the roof of the garage. For appearance sake, we are using some ruff sawn plywood in the exposed portion of the soffits, and OSB where you won't see the material. So the garage is really taking on its final shape.

I'm heading to Sacramento for a long weekend, getting back late Tuesday afternoon. Anxious to see how much the place will change while I'm gone.

House Trusses

The house trusses arrived on time today. So most of the morning was taken up with sorting and unloading the trusses on the house. There was some problems with the front porch. After considering and pondering for several hours about the placement of the post blocks, it was finally decided that the trusses were to short for the porch, and will have to be redone.

Another issue, Keith discovered today that the engineer had change the specs on the header beams for the garage. Although, we have 4 inch walls in the garage, he changed the header specs to call for 6 inch material. I'm going the have Dennis contact the engineer and see if we can get a correction. I will also have to go back to the county and submit a change on the approved plans. Oh bother.

Ceiling Panel Install

The boom truck from Lumberman's came in today. We got to have it for 4 hours. This morning before the truck arrived Josh's crew put up the last of the glue lam beams. We then used the truck to install the vertical panels that support the ceiling panels. Then placed the ceiling panels. With the truck and the lessons learned by the crew, we had it all done in less than 3 hours.

The rest of the day was spent screwing the panels in place and adding a top plate to the ceiling for the trusses.

Front Porch Foundation

Today, Chris, from Cline Construction, came over and formed and poured the front porch foundation. We had this done now to enable us to use the permanent porch beam and posts instead of a temporary.

We continued to ready the house for the truss arrival on Wednesday. The top cap for the exterior walls were installed, along with some of the support structures for the ceiling panels. Tomorrow we get the use of a free boom truck from Lumberman's and will use it to put up the ceiling panels.

The front of the house now looks like Mexican restaurant. All I need to do is install a bell on the upper level.

House Interior Framing Start

Attention was turned to the house interior framing today. The house trusses will be arriving next Wednesday, so everything to ready the house for them needs to be done.

Beams to support the roof panels are installed. This is how it's done when you don't want to spend the money on a boom truck.

There are very few walls inside the house, so the interior framing won't take long. Just a few of the walls remain to be completed on Monday. Suddenly the house looks small again. Amazing how it expands and contracts with each major step.

Garage Trusses Arrive

With everything ready, the trusses arrived on time. By the end of the day, most were in place.

House walls continued to be worked. For earthquake bracing, 4 brackets are installed in the guest bedroom north wall. The brackets are connected to some long "J" bolts that extend a foot into the foundation, through the mud sill, 11 1/2 inch floor panel and wall plate. The bracket is then attached to lumber inside the panel. Because of the shear strength of the foam panels, no other earthquake strapping in necessary. For the garage, there are only 4 external metal straps.

Garage Ready for Trusses

The garage is read for trusses. The top caps have been installed and the walls braced to ensure they are square.

The house walls continue to go up. Each of the panels have three runs of "Mastic" between them to ensure there isn't any air infiltration between the panels. The stuff is a blue goop that sticks to everything, especially where is isn't supposed to stick. There are blue tools, blue clothes, blue floors. Everything have been affected by the stuff. Since the color is so close to being the same as the Smerfs, its been dubbed Smerf poop.

Eileen's view, out her hobby room window of the 12th tee. Less the brace, of course.

Dining Room View

Work on Friday continued with the garage, and starting the house walls. We need to have the garage ready for trusses on Wednesday. Three panels left on the garage today, interior framing and caps remain to be done tomorrow.

The house is going together better than the garage. Experience plus a better platform with the floor panels makes it go a lot faster. Ran into an issue with the bump out window in the dining room. They are higher than the rest of the windows in the dining room. I will check with the panel people tomorrow about the best way to bring them down to the correct height.

Here's an idea of what our view will be out of the dining room. You can see how the bump out windows are to high.

House Walls Arrive

A better day today. The house walls arrived today, only 2 1/2 hours late. But this time they told us they would be late, so I didn't have people standing around.

The weight of the walls is just about 16 tons, and we put the entire load on the house floor. Not a creak or groan out of the floor. Not much construction today. It was an all hands event to unload and sort the load. The delivery truck couldn't make it up the driveway, so we had to unload on the road. Then the boomtruck moved them up to the house. Then sorting and moving the panels around the house by hand. Remember they weigh about 16 tons.

Start of Garage Walls

With the floor completed on the house, we started installation of the garage walls. Some trimming of the panels is needed to conform to the concrete. Also, the "J" bolts washers had to ground off on the edges so the panels would fit flush with the mud sills.

SIPS Panels Arrive

Yesterday, with a delivery time of 8:00am, the floor and garage wall panels arrived at 3:30pm. We sorted an restacked the panels for use the next day. The house exterior walls and some of the ceiling will arrive Thursday morning.

Today we started installing the floor panels. With 11 1/2 inches of solid foam insullation, we shouldn't get much heat transfer from the main house to the wine cellar. The installation is going good. 90% complete today. We have an issue regarding the end spline on the remaining pieces that can't be resolved until tomorrow morning. Apparently, office workers knock off earlier than my carpenters.

Floor Joists

For those of you in California, that haven't seen this before. Here the normal method of building is a raised foundation, rather than slab on grade like you probably have, so floor joists (to support the floor, and the building's "live" load) are necessary. Today Josh and crew installed the joists and did some preliminary framing in the basement. They also did some leveling of the mud sill to ensure the building is level.

We also had our first overnight guest. When I got there this morning I noticed our uninvited visitor. He is a mountain beaver, and fell into the basement during the night. Some of the crew feed him oranges and rice, which he must have liked, none left. We put a 2X6 in through the basement window, and he left during the evening. I'm expecting a thank you note from him any day now.

Basement Floor and Garage Slab

Today we poured the Basement floor, garage slab, pier and front porch footings. Another 40 yards, that takes us to 133 1/2 yards total, so far. Still have the porches, patio, driveway and sidewalks yet to pour. Kory and his crew did the pour, while Josh's crew was working on the mud sills. Got crowded with 10 people working, plus the cement trucks, pumper truck, and me standing around.