The outside is nearing completion...

Greetings,

Last week, Angie and I were covered in paint all week, but here is the beautiful results of our work together. We rented the manlift and got the outside painting done. We even had time to wash the windows, and hang some perimeter lights. The main thing that we have left outside is the stone work on the entry way. Above is Kerry from Alaska Direct Tile and stone. He is a very busy guy, but he assured me that the stone work would be done by Tuesday. We are so excited.

I am still plugging away at the boiler, I left it alone for a week while we were painting the outside, now I am back on it.

Not a lot of time to talk, but we are on target for middle of October like we had planned, I can't believe it!

Jason

after a long hiatus

Greetings,

After a long hiatus from the blogging world, here are some pictures and words for you.

Work has been progressing along, sheetrockers finished up at the end of last week, and we are in the process of painting. The siding guy ended up finishing yesterday, and the concrete steps are now finished as well, I will get some finish pictures on here once we are done with the painting of the exterior.

Right now we are zero'ed in on the exterior painting. It is quite the tedios job with all the caulking that has to take place. I rented a 4 wheel drive manlift to do this job, it is a little over a 1000$ for one week, and so far it is well worth it. Originally we were going to spray, but now we have decided to hand paint the house. Angie and I both dislike taping off windows and doors, and we hand painted a section yesterday, and it went a lot faster then we thought that it would. A huge help has come my way as well, my best friend from highschool is in town for a little while, and he has been over working some long hours with me.

Cabinets will be here on the 8th of Sept. and the carpet will be here around the 21st. We are still looking good on being wrapped up by the middle of October.

A little rest....

Greetings,

Finally, I can get some rest. The drywallers are in progress, the siding guy is busy at work, and the concrete steps will get poured tomorrow I am using a highschool friend Kevin Hansen owner of MudMan Drywall. At the bottom is a picture of Kevin on the left, and "the Russians", Larry and Dimitri on the middle and left. Kevin says that the Russians, as he refers to them, are the best hangers. Once you start getting rock hung in the house you really start getting an idea of dimensions of rooms.

A little project that I worked on today was putting the snow melt tubing in the outside entry way steps. I do not plan on hooking it up intitially, but down the road the tubing will be there already.

One of the things that I am learning on this project is that I have had the luxury of being able to work on the house full time during the day, but as it turns out, being on the jobsite most of the time has turned out to be more of a luxury for the contractors working on the house as well because every two seconds they are asking questions about this or that, and it makes it extremely difficult to get my tasks done. I am able to get way more done in the evening when nobody else is around.

Greetings,

Well, I have been hard at it working on the house, I came up against some deadlines that I really wanted to meet so i have been pulling some long hours to get them done. The roofing is on now and the house is insulated, the dry wallers will be starting on Wed. of this week. Monday we will be having the gypcrete poured on the second floor. Gypcrete is what you pour over the radiant tubing that runs through the floor. Also, on Monday, the siding guy will be starting, so we are moving right along. For the next couple of weeks, I plan on taking a breather before the real fun starts (finishing).

The concrete retaining wall that I was about to tear out is now going to remain in place, we are ordering the stone for it and I think that when it is all done that we will be happy with it.

Angie has all the cabinets ordered and they should be here just in time for the finish work to begin.

Jason

Setting window, getting ready to start the wiring...

Here is the latest picture, I have running ragged trying to get all the mechanical done. I had over looked a few things like the bathroom fan vents, fire place vent, boiler vent, range vent, dryer vents, etc... Some of these could have been done after the fact, but it is nicer for installing the siding to have those vents already popped out, and you have to have the ones that go through the roof done prior to the roofers starting. The roofers will start on Wed. of next week, the excavation guy will be coming back on Monday to do the finish grade, hook up the well, and widen the driveway a little bit.

The trusses have arrived!

Greetings,

The trusses arrived yesterday and here is some shots of that. They completed setting the trusses and now they have some hand framing to do to tie all the hips and valleys into eachother before they start sheeting. The framing crew is planning on working through the weekend so they can finish up mid-next week. We are going to try to get the roofing crew in around Thursday. We are going to be using the 30 year architectural asphault shingles.

The plumbing is dragging out a little longer than what I was hoping. I am working on the gas line right now, I still have the dryer vent, oven vent, fireplace vent, boiler vent, and the HRV vents to run. My plan is to have that stuff wrapped up by Monday and start on the electrical.

Jason

more plumbing, heating, and ventilation

Greetings!

Turns out that the trusses wont be ready until next week, which is ok as long as the rain holds off while I work on the plumbing. I finished the DWV system, and now I am almost finished with the HRV (Heat Recovery Ventilator) system. If you ever do build a home for yourself and you are trying to decide what parts of the project to do yourself, I recommend installing the HRV system yourself, it is very easy to install.

Here is some pics, above is the work bench, got the laptop to keep ups with the stock market, and I also store health food in this area.

Below is some of the mechanical work that I have done over the last couple of days.

Angie is getting closer to getting the kitchen all picked out including the appliances, countertops, cabinets, and flooring.
Jason

Plumbing and heating, picking stuff out, and a setback...

Sorry, no pics today!

I have been slaving away on the plumbing and heating for the last few days, today I got as far as I could go on the drain,waste, and vent system without having the trusses on yet. The framers are working on another project right now while we wait for the trusses to get finished. A little bit of a miscommunication between myself and the framer, I left it up to him to order the trusses, and he did not order them soon enough have them ready when we needed them. I am kind of suspicious that he purposely didn't order them so that he would have time to go and work on another project. Oh well, it is not slowing down the mechanical rough in yet.

Angie has been busy fine tuning the kitchen cabinet layout, colors, flooring, etc..., as well as making runs to Home Depot and Lowe's for me. She is also managing to keep the house clean and taking time for the kids as well. Jace, my oldest son has been coming over and helping me out, I also had him help out the framers when they were here. He is proving to be a good worker and I am glad to have him help out.

A major dissappointment as of late on the project, is the entry way. I designed it, and it looked good on paper, but now that it is place it is not looking the way that I had hoped. We have a pretty good amount of money into it, but I do not want to put anymore into it only to to finish and be dissappointed, so we have decided to start over. Starting over will involve myself, a jackhammer, a masonry saw, a dust mask, a rotohammer, a piece of equipment to lift the concrete pieces, and a dump truck to haul them off. No sweat!!! Well maybe a little sweat!!

I will be sure to get some up to date pics soon.

Jason

too many directions to go...

Here is a picture of progress up to today, the framers got slowed down by the terrential rain that we had, but they should still be ready for trusses by Wednesday. Unfortunately, the trusses wont be ready until next week, so we will have a little down time on the framing. That is ok because I have PLENTY of work to do in the mean time. If you notice that concrete entry way going up to the house, yeah that is a major time consumer for me, mostly just on designing it. There wasn't a detail for how this was supposed to be built, so I am kind of designing it as we go.

Here is a picture of a glue lamb getting set. That guy has a flesh colored harness on with a sky colored lanyard, safety matters on my job!

We are to a point on the job where there is a lot of different directions that I could go, and it is kind of overwelming. I could do plumbing, heating, ventilation, electrical, work on the entry way, plan some of the interior finish work, do material take-offs, get ready for the siding, etc.....

Angie and I are spending a couple of hours each night planning our project out, she is picking out everything and she wants my opinion on it all. (I cant imagine why, I have horrible taste!)

Jason

More walls framed up and some specialty concrete...

Here is some pictures of the concrete work that is I am getting done on the entryway steps. This is a split level entryway, so the thresh-hold of the door is at about 5' high. There will be concrete walls going up on the sides of the steps that are also going to act as a retaining wall on the left side were we will back fill up against it. We are going to put stone on the inside and outside of the concrete wall. The steps going up are going to be stamped concrete. I'm exited about the way that it is going to look when it is done, but I am not exited about the bill that we are going to get, it is taking a while for them to form up the walls.

The framers are moving right along on the framing, and they should be done shortly after the 4th of July.

Jason

We are officially framing!

This is a picture of the first wall getting framed. It is the 16th today, so we are about 5 days behind schedule, but the framers say that they can get done by July 6th, so that would be around what we were originally hoping for.

We ended up hitting water on our well at 110' which is around what we were expecting. The water tested with low very low levels of iron, so we are thankful for that.

Jason

We've got water, and a mess!

We had Northland drilling come out today and drill our well, we hit water at about 105 ft, pretty much what we expected. There was literally about 1 square foot of area to choose from to place our well. You have to be 100' ft from any adjacent septic system, and we had to measure off of the neighbors and our septic to locate the spot.

Unfortunately, the only place that we could drill the well put us in a spot where all of the tailings ended up all over the new foundation. Oh well.

Framers postponed for Monday the 15th, framing package will be delivered that morning.

Jason

Picture of finished concrete

Here is a picture of the finished slab that we had poured on Friday, the crew will be forming up for some concrete pony walls today and will be pouring them tomorrow.

We pour concrete tomorrow!

Tomorrow we are going to be pouring our foundation! Here is some shots of the radiant tubing that my son Jrew and myself installed today.

In respsonse to the poll, our framers postponed us until the 15th, so we are going to have some dead time for a couple of days, I'm ready for a break anyways.

Cash21

Pulling all nighters already....

Here is Angie and the Girls coming to check on Me and Jrew, we were working into the wee hours of the night. Here is some of the drain system that I have been working on for the past couple of days.

Here is a picture of the septic system, we ended up escaping the worst case scenario on our septic, which would have been the pressurized mound system, but we did have to spend a little more money to import material, and to get an engineer involved.

Today, I finished the underground drain/waste/vent system. I had an inspection scheduled for this morning a 10:00am, and I got a little behind and had to work through most of the night, nothing a couple of redbulls cant fix. Now I am relying on the concrete crew to get their work done so that I can lay down the insulation and the radiant floor tubing. We have the framing crew scheduled for June 11th, and we are going to be cutting it very close. Our concrete guy is a friend and he gives us a really fair price so we like to use him, but when you start using friends, you have to work around their schedule. This is a critical part of planning out a house. You can save a lot of money by having friends and family work on your house, but you usually end up losing a lot of time.

Cash21

Picking stuff out, my favorite.

Things have appeared like they are moving slowly on this house project, of course that depends on perception largely, but things are going to slowly build up speed as we go. In less than two weeks, we will have the framing crew standing up walls on this house, 3-4 weeks after that we will be putting siding and roofing on. It is going to be exiting!

My wife has begun the strenuous job of picking out all of the interior designs, exterior colors, windows, trim, counter tops, flooring interior paint, etc..... She is very gifted in this area and I am exited to see everything that she picks out. A lot of these things are really important to get picked out so that you have them when you need them. If you are using contractors to do the work, then you need to have your materials when you told the contractor that you would be ready. I am so glad that I dont have to worry about picking these things out, too many choices.

Cash21

Cheap Labor

Well, after the long memorial day weekend, we finally got preliminary excavation work completed. My excavation contractor will be off working on other projects until I am ready for him to back fill the foundation. My concrete crew should be showing up sometime today to set up the forms. I save a little money by having the footings dug out for him, so I rounded up some teenagers to come and dig them out for me. I had to dig some to, this is back breaking work.

Once the forms are set up for the foundation, I will do the underground plumbing and heating. I will have about 6 days to finish that, then the next Friday the foundation will get poured and I have the framing crew scheduled for June 11th. Everything is looking like it is going to come in on schedule.

Cash21

schedules were meant to be adjusted

Greetings,

If you ever buy these blank fill-in calenders, they don't have holidays and birthdays on them. You have to fill that stuff in yourself. We forgot about the memorial day weekend, and the gravel pits that we were using are closed till Tuesday so the project is on hold until then. That is O.K.

Today we got the updated drawing for the house and we are going to get them to the Concrete guy and the framers ASAP so that they are ready to go. Thankfully we are not going to have to install a pressurized mound system for a septic, we had an engineer design a system that would work for our 3' of sand that we have at the surface of our property.

The water well drillers will be out here this week. The best thing to do is to have the drillers get in contact with your excavation contractor to figure out the best place for the well. The wedge shape of our lot is going to make it difficult for the drilling truck to get into place to drill the well. The excavation contractor may have to put a temporary pad for the truck to get into place.

The plan for the week is to have the pad ready for the concrete guys by Thursday, and they should take about 1-2 days to form up the footers and than I will go in and do the under ground plumbing, and radiant heat tubing, that will take me maybe a week, then the concrete guys will pour the slab. After that is done curing, then they will come back and form up the poured walls in one day, pour it the next day, tear down the forms the day after that, then we will be ready to do some framing.


Cash21

Greetings,

The last couple of days we have been inching away at the excavation, we have had a few hang-ups concerning the septic and the elevation of the house. That is o.k., because the foundation is the most important part of the house, so I don't mind having a little slippage on the schedule. Tomorrow I have an engineer coming over to do a perk test, and to give a recommendation on the type of septic system to use. As long as we do not have to do a pressurized system than we should stay within our budget.

Today we started getting the fill delivered from Alaska Roadbuilders. They have a material that is called "regect sand" that is of no use to them on their larger road building, but it is great for foudations and driveways, and it is a little more affordable than pit-run.

One of the issues that comes up while the excavation crew is preparing the pad for a foundation is that they need a source of water to help with the compaction process. If you have neighbors that are approachable, ask them if you could hook a hose up to their house. This keeps the excavator from having to import water to the jobsite.

We are still waiting for the updated version of our house plans from our cad designer. We have to have those done so that we can turn the concrete guys loose next week. My biggest concern besides the septic issues right now is whether or not we are going to lose our framing crew if we have too many delays from not having the new drawings. We need to get our framing package ordered, trusses ordered, windows ordered etc...., and the finished drawings are needed for that.

Cash21

A little water in the hole.....

Greetings,

Today, the excavator operator dug a test hole for the septic to see what we would find for material. We were afraid that we would hit a shallow water table due to the swamp that is near by. What we found was about 3' of silty sand and about 3' of clay below that, we did not go any deeper. There was a little bit of water draining into the hole from inbetween the silty sand layer and the clay layer. It only amounted to about a 2 gallons of water over about 6hrs of time passing. I am no expert on dirt work at all so I am not sure if this is classified as a water table or not. I do know that the best case scenario would have been sand or gravel for the septic. What we did find is about what we were expecting but probably not the worst case scenario. Mark, the owner of the excavation company was not there today, and he is the expert on the matter so I will know a little more tomorrow. My limited understanding on septics says that you need 6' deep of good drainage for a conventional septic, so we may need to go with a mound system, which I believe can cost up to $15000-20000 dollars. Again I am just speculating, I will know more tomorrow.

We met with the architectural committee last night for the first time and they were much more gracious that we had expected. They approved with the continuation of the project, but they still want to vote on our exterior colors and shingles, the deck, and the shed.

Cash21

Battling the flu and an odd shaped lot

Greetings,

Well I spent most of yesterday battling the flu, but I did manage to get some things done. I went to Homer Electric Association to get our temporary power ordered. I was going to rent a meterloop from Big G electric, but it turned out that HEA had one that they would rent out for far less a month. I have will set up the temporary meter loop over the weekend, and a HEA techinician will come by on Monday to make sure it is ready for hook-up, then later in the week they will hook it up.

The excavator got started on the tree removal, but only on the main house area. We have to get the remaining tree removal O.K.'d by the architectural committee, we are going to try to abide by the covenances as best as we can. It is still a little early to be doing dirt work, but that is the price that you pay to get your project moving. It is going to be a mucky project to start things out. The frost is about 6" below surface, and is about 6" thick, and it is mostly slop above the frost line.

I slept until noon today, trying to shake the flu, finally I got up went to a voice recital of my daughter's, and after that I went to the property to stake out the approximate location of the house. We are having a difficult time placing the house on the lot because we are concerned about the placement of the septic. Ideally, the better ground is located at the front of the lot, but the two adjacent lots have wells that are with in the mandatory 100' radius of that location, so we are forced to putting the septic in the back of the lot. The problem with this is that the property slopes off considerably in the back and there is swamp not too far off, so we are concerned that we will hit a water table, which would cause the septic to be an additional $10000-$15000. So we are trying to keep the house as close to the front of the lot as we can, so that the septic will be on higher ground. We are considering modifying the house plans slightly to narrow the house so that we can wedge it closer to the front of the lot. We came up with a way to make the garage narrower yet deeper so we wont lose the sq. footage.

Right now we have our plans with a autocad designer to make the some other interior changes, so we are going to give him a call and have him make the changes to the garage.

The one thing that is the most important with projects like these is that there is always problems that you run into just about everyday. It is easy to get bent out of shape when these occur, but you have to stay focused on the end result. 99.9% of the time there is a solution to whatever problem that comes up, you just have to work your way through it.

Cash21