Framing the house

After a long winter and even longer spring with snow storms and severe floods well into May, it was time to start framing the house so on May 16th we started framing.

I had most of the lumber delivered the week before and Scott(Framer) was planning to start on Monday May 13th but the weather did not corporate until the Thursday. By the time I got there as I was on night shift, Scott was there with his assistant Shawn and had string lines all set up.  He informed me that the floor was a bit out of square but it was nothing he could not fix.  The first week  involved squaring things up and preparing all the doorways and windows. It didn't take me long to confirm my feelings about Scott that I made the right decision. His attention to fine detail was very impressive. Scott would mark out the bottom and top plates and Shawn and myself would place all the lumber, doors or windows into the appropriate place then nail it all together. When a full wall  was done, we would stand it up and tack into place, some walls were pretty heavy. This was very exciting to see the walls going up and the house starting to take shape. Now Lisa could finally get excited because blueprints didn't mean much to her, now she could start seeing rooms.
The first wall that went up was the kitchen wall with the 7ft high sliding door, the view from here is incredible, many a coffee will be enjoyed while enjoying this view.

Things were moving along pretty quickly which was nice as Lisa and I had a trip to England booked for June 4th for 10 days so I wanted to get as much done as possible before we left. Really, I was hoping that when I was gone the the guys would do the trusses because that was going to be hard work. One thing I forgot to mention was that there was 1 major problem with starting any outdoor project in Muskoka in May:   "BUGS" and lots of them. INCREDIBLE

The truss company required 2 weeks notice before delivery so I arranged delivery as soon as we started framing.  Well, the delivery of trusses is something to see, the trusses are very long so the truck has to be very long as well. There was not a lot of room on my part of the road, so I wanted the trusses to be dropped on my driveway so they wouldn't interfere with traffic.  I don't think the driver was that confident and wasn't too keen to drive his trailer onto the driveway. I explained to the driver that there had been heavy cement trucks on the driveway without any problems. After many attempts we got the trailer a quarter of the way down the driveway. The driver said not to go any further because we would need a lot of space when the trusses rolled off the truck bed. He was right, he untied the trusses and tilted the truck bed up, the back of the bed was still 4 ft off the ground and the trusses started to roll off, with a lot of speed I might add! They CRASHED and slid another 25 ft down the driveway.  You wouldn't want to be in the way. Only 1 truss broke, which they replaced.

With this shipment was the material for the loft, in the picture above you can see orange lumber, those are LVL's (Laminate veneer Lumber) very strong lumber. As the house is an open concept design and has large open spans, this floor is engineered and calls for these LVL's. The wall between the kitchen and living room has a large open span, I didn't want any beams or poles in the middle of the floor  so that's where these LVL's come in. It was engineered to have 3- 17ft by 14 inch by 2 inch thick LVL's across this opening. Because these are engineered, when attaching these together to make 1 beam, they come with very strict  instructions. These instructions include type of glue, amount and size of nails and nailing pattern. We found with the amount of nails and the hardness of the lumber that air nails would bend and hammers would be hard so we used a palm nailer and that saved a lot of time and wining.  Joining all 3 LVL's would be too heavy to lift, we put 2 together and tacked them in place then attached the 3rd LVL to the first 2. With all that done, we were now ready to start working on the loft, which was very exciting because the view from the loft is fantastic. I knew the roof wouldn't be long after this and hopefully done while I was away!
     I was now on my way to England and had given Scott the permission to make any decisions and order anything he needed, which would be paid upon my return. As much fun as I had on my vacation I was always wondering how the house was coming. We arrived home late Friday afternoon and Saturday morning we were on our way to see the progress of the house.  It was like Christmas, I was so excited.  When we got close I could see some roof through the trees and as I pulled down the driveway 1/2 of the roof was done, the master bedroom and kitchen sides of the house were complete.
Now it was really starting to look like a house.The following week Scott and the crew would be working on the rest of the roof, which would be a little more tricky due to the height of the roof. I wouldn't be there for that part either because I would be back at work, timing is everything. When I came up the following Monday, this is what I saw (below)  Wow. 

You will notice a black covering on the roof; this is a special type of membrane, called an Ice and Water Shield. This is very expensive but an excellent product, well worth the money, my roof will never leak. When a nail is driven into it from the shingles the membrane forms around the nail. A lot of people would use tar paper instead of Ice and Water Shield but tar paper doesn't compare. While the scaffold was still up all around the house I got Scott to do the shingling and soffit and fascia. What they did in a few days would have taken me weeks, money well spent. The week they shingled the roof I was working and it ended up being the hottest week of the summer!
The prow front involved some detailed work so Scott and his crew worked on that while I worked on installing the 1 inch foam insulation on the outside. These sheets came 9ft x4ft x 1in. with a tongue and groove edge. The sheets had to be nailed with special nails and we needed to ensure they were nailed into the 2 X 6's.
I only took a few days to get all the foam sheets on the house. The slow part of this process was that all seams had to be taped with the red tuck tape.

As I moved around the house, Adam followed me putting up the strapping around all the windows and every 16 inches. When the siding goes on, the strapping provides an air gap so if any moisture gets behind the siding it will dry and not rot the wood. Now that all the framing had been done, Scott and the crew( Shawn, Adam) would be moving onto their next job but would return in a month or so to install the windows.  The house looked great and I would be puttering around finishing little things and getting the basement ready to pour the cement floor.
While I was in the basement starting to level all the gravel, I had my septic system put in which I had nothing to do with except to pay for it. I tell a lie, I got a phone call at work on Friday from the septic guy telling me he was going to start Monday and there were 2 big trees where the septic bed was going, so they would need to come down. He had a guy that he used that could come on the Monday and the cost would be approx.$650.00.  I told him they would be down by Monday. So Saturday morning I headed up to the house with my chain saw (and new chain) and lots of rope. As usual as soon as I got there I was met by my neighbor, Keith and I told him my plans for the day. The trees were bigger than I remembered and I was having second thoughts about taking them down,  because if they fell down in the wrong direction they would either hit the house or Keith's house. Keith was confident that we could do it, the first tree came down easily and exactly where l wanted it to go.  That's not the one I was concerned with. This tree was an old birch that was very rotten  at the top so I climbed the ladder and cut a big branch off which made it a tall thin piece of wood. Extended the ladder to it's max (28ft) stood on the tip of the ladder and tied a rope as high as I could reach. Keith went to his brother's place to get a chain come-a-long. We anchored the come-a-long to a tree  100 ft away and attached the rope that I had tied to the tree. Took up the slack in the rope then started cutting the tree at the base while Keith kept cranking on the come-a-long, pulling the tree in the direction we wanted it to fall. I had finished my cuts and went to help crank the come-a-long,  The tree fell exactly where we wanted it to fall and it only took 45 min for both trees. I won't lie, I was very relieved when the second tree was down.

Monday morning the septic guys arrived and were very surprised the trees were down; I showed them! It only took them 3 days to finish the job and I must say they did a great job, the guy on the machine was impressive and the installer was a perfectionist and it showed. I had to head back to work. I had arranged for them to stay another day to put in a parking area and put in a swell at the side of the house to direct the water away from the house and down to the river.


Now with all this done, all that is left is to install the windows and have the basement poured. The floor in the basement needed some leveling because the stone slinger does a great job but it's not cement ready. Leveling the gravel in the basement was a bigger job than I thought so I had the crew from work give me a hand. It was something to see! I had in my head that we would only have time to do half of the floor that day. I didn't want to be too much of a slave driver because they would say I do that at work. It was a hot, humid day when they were coming up, luckily it was a lot cooler in the basement. They arrived at the house after 12 noon and by 2:45 they had finished leveling the whole basement, had lunch, gone for a swim, drank my beer (there is a story about that) and were on their way home. If you ever want some serious work done, get a group of firefighters. The story about the beer is that I didn't buy enough. I only bought a 6 pack (I know, cheap bastard and a non-drinker).  The year before I had the guys up to help me put the floor in. I had bought a 12 pack and came back with 8 and there had been 2 more guys so that's why I only bought the 6 pack. Well, being a hot day all the beer was gone in a heart beat and I took a verbal beating for not having enough beer and to this day I still hear about it. I told them next time there will be plenty of beer and they have told me that there might not be a next time(jokingly).
 I wanted to put some rigid foam on top of the gravel and still had some rough in plumbing to do before the cement guys came to pour the floor.  Marty and Bill came up and gave me a hand with this, all I wanted to do was to put in the sewage ejector and lay a piece of 3 inch pipe. My plumber friend Ian would help me connect it all together.

 

That didn't take us long so we started placing the rigid foam on the stone. I already had half of the basement done. All the seams needed to be taped so I got Bill started on that while I had Marty move sheets of foam that I had leaning against the far wall. I had shown both Marty and Bill some spots on the wall that had been chewed and scratched by some kind of animal.  Well, we soon found what animal is was, when Marty moved the last piece of leaning foam, he jumped back with bit of a yell, I would say a girlish scream, a skunk was just sitting there. After a few minutes we got up the nerve to poke it with a shovel to see if it was alive, it wasn't, it had died. It would have been interesting if the skunk had moved when we poked it. You would have seen 3 experienced, tough firefighters scream like little girls. Marty picked up the skunk with a
shovel and took it across the road and threw it in the woods. We finished putting down the ridged foam and now all that needed to be done was for Ian to come and finish roughing in the bathroom and laundry tub. I arranged for the cement guys to come the following week and pour the basement floor, which meant I was done for the year. I had exceeded what I had planned doing for this year.




This is how the house looked when all the work was done for the year 2013

Boys and their toys

Sure beats a shovel

With the floor finished,covered and ready for winter it was time to finish back filling and to get rid of the piles of dirt. I ordered a few truck loads of sand to put against the walls for drainage. The  dirt was put against the sand. An advantage of sand is that it protects the walls of the basement from large rocks, of which I have plenty! I rented a skid steer for the day and had Zack come up to drive it because he has experience.  It was rented for Saturday so I went up on Thursday and stayed at the cottage. My brother Ian was doing some work there and needed some help wiring plugs. Friday morning was a nice fall day so I walked up to the lot, only to see the skid steer being delivered. I talked to the driver and he said Saturday was busy with deliveries so they started delivering equipment today. He gave me a quick lesson on driving a skid steer and he was on his way and so was I. I was glad nobody was around to see me drive because I was laughing out loud at how bad  I was. It took about half an hour for me to start getting the hang of it, then some major dirt was getting moved.  I only worked for about an hour and half before I had to leave to go home, then come up the next day with Zack. The next morning was cool and cloudy then turned into a nice day. When we got there Zack jumped into the skid steer and was off. I had to remind him a few times it wasn't a race car.  It took most of the day to get all the sand and dirt into place and got the skid steer stuck only once, at the side of the house. I wanted Zack to push the dirt closer to the wall so I wouldn't have to shovel as much. He said he couldn't because it was quite the slope and might get stuck. To that I said, "I did it yesterday and you won't get stuck,." Well, that was before I put a lot sand and fill there.....he got stuck!  He wasn't impressed and I had visions of telling the Rental company that the skid steer is ready for pick up but it's stuck.  Zack worked at it for 15 minutes and got it freed up and back up on level ground. With all the dirt moved, it was ready for me to put the house to bed for the winter with plans to start framing next spring, another long year done.

Starting to look like a house not a construction site

Installing the floor joists

With all the steel beams in place, now it's time to install the floor joist.  I used engineered floor trusses ( also referred to as silent floors) which I feel is the way to go.  You can go longer spans and the wood won't warp so you won't have any squeaks.  Installing the joist is quite simple, an installation diagram is sent with the material which 

also has the engineered stamp on it, the building inspector will want to see this and put a

copy in your file. I put in my rim joist first and measured

the lengths of the floor joist that needed to be cut to length as they are shipped a bit longer than needed.I marked 16 inch centres on my sill plate so dropping the joist didn't take long. I did the main floor in 3 stages as you can see in the above pictures. I started on the right side which is going to be my kitchen and dinning area then moved over to the left side which is the master bedroom. I left the middle until last because those joists were longer and with both sides done, I could work off those sides.  It didn't take long to get all the joists into place, but putting the blocks between each joist did.  Doing this really beefed up the floor. The floor became very solid.
Now it was time to put the plywood down, I went
3/4 inch tongue and groove instead of the 1/2 inch.

Brian doing some detailed work

I didn't want any bounce in the floor so I went the extra mile, can't do it later.  I had my crew and good friend Marty, which is my platoon chief come up for the day to hopefully finish off the floor. My brother Ian was there as well, so we had 2 teams going.  We had 2 air compressors,2 air nailers and few screw guns going which made pretty fast work. I only had 1 caulking gun so sometimes there was a wait for the other team to finish using the caulking gun. The floor was glued,screwed and nailed down, we finished the floor by 3 p.m. It was a beautiful day, perfect weather and no bugs and that's a good thing because the wining would have been tremendous.



No, Marty that's a caulking gun not a real gun



Marty keeping his crew on the level





Jason admiring his work



Installation of steel beams

After taking a year off, I was chomping at the bit to get started on the house again. My plan this year was to put the floor in and to get rid of the piles of dirt I had.  My brother Ian and myself put on the sill plates and made sure that it was all level, some places needed to be shimmed. A trick that a framer friend of mine told me about, when they are finishing of ICF basements, they attach the electronic level while leveling off the top,saves a lot of time later. It would of saved some time. Lessons learned.
With that done I went ahead and ordered my steel beams and all the floor material (joists and 3/4 inch tongue and groove plywood).  The steel beams were delivered without any problems, right where I asked  to have them dropped.  It was a different story for my floor joists and rim joists. I asked to have them dropped  on my driveway, but where they dropped them was a different story. I was at work, checking  my emails and saw that I had received one from my neighbor Keith. He informed me that my flooring material had been delivered but was not dropped where I wanted it. I replied and asked him if it was close to my driveway. His response was that it was closer to my neighbor's driveway and down a 20 ft embankment.  I went up the next day to check it out and I could not believe where it had been dropped off!  There couldn't have been a worse spot.  I would be making a phone call to the supplier, I was reimbursed   for what it would take a crew to remove it from the embankment to my driveway.
When I got my plans drawn up I questioned the steel beams instead of wood beams. His answer was that steel beams are not as big and they won't be that heavy. His father and himself moved a steel beam into his basement without too much problem. Well, when the steel beams were sitting in the ditch at the top of the driveway, I tried moving them by hand, I emphasize tried,  I couldn't believe how heavy the
beams were, there was no way I was going to move them by hand.  I had to hire a Zoom Boom to move them closer to the house and hopefully use it to lift them into place. Zack, Chris ( my framer friend) and I went up for the day to start and hopefully put all the beams into place. That plan was short lived because the Zoom Boom didn't perform as I had hoped. (not the right piece of equipment!) While putting the first beam in position, Zack pinched his finger badly.  Lots of pain and blood, that day was finished.  I was willing to hire a crane to come and place the steel beams into place.  Chris was adamant that we didn't need a crane, he said we do this all the time, all we need is manpower. They didn't have cranes when they built the pyramids. I was very skeptical because of all the trouble we had with the first beam and that was one of the smallest, they would get bigger as we went along.  So the day of reckoning was here, a small army (11) would go up and throw the beams into place.There was a communication mishap as the plan was to start around 1030 am, when in actual fact everyone was meeting at 1030 a.m. and carpooling up to the  lot. So my car load of 5 headed up at 9am to be ready to start at 1030.  By the time everyone arrived we already had 2 beams in and were making plans for the last beam, which was the heaviest and was going to be the trickiest.

Working smart not hard

When they arrived, they had brought some scaffold which made the job a lot easier as we wouldn't be working off step ladders.                                            

The Calvary arrives

If they didn't arrive when they did we would have had to wait until they did because I couldn't see us moving it let alone lifting it into place.  I still had my doubts about getting this beam into place, not only was the beam heavy, it had a tongue at each end that had to fit into brackets so we could bolt them together.  Well with a lot strength, grunts and groans and of coarse a well defined plan we got the last beam into place and the 2  jack posts attached and tightened, finished. I couldn't believe the job was done, I really didn't think we would do it and it only took a few hours.

Many hands make light work

Fine tuning the beams

What a difference a few hands make- Armstrong power

Summer of 2011

We decided that the summer of 2011 we would take a break from building and enjoy the property.  Last year was so busy we really didn't do much of what we really enjoy (hiking, canoeing, and just relaxing). So this year we will be. I told a non-truth.  I will be doing some some building this year, a dock for my morning coffees.

Many a morning coffee will be consumed here

Putting the Footings to bed

 Winter was coming and I needed to protect the footings.  Back-filling will protect the outer footings but I needed a way to protect the footings on the inside of the basement.  One way is, and quite common on construction sites is the use of straw. That was the way I was heading until I mentioned it to the guy that was back-filling the basement. He suggested to avoid straw at all costs, it would work but it would be hard to deal with after the fact, it gets soggy and stinks.  He suggested  11/2-2 inch Styrofoam insulation 4 ft out from the

The Mike Holmes pose

 wall all around the footings.When the snow accumulates in the basement  it would also act as more insulation. This would be better than straw with no clean up and you keep the insulation there when you pour you basement floor to make a warmer floor.

Now that I have put the footings to bed for the winter, it is now time to sit  and look back at all the hard work done this year and wait until next summer. I might take a break next year from building and just relax but we will see.

John having a good time

A well desired break

Pouring the Basement

Setting up power for the vibrator

Pump truck getting set up

 Here it is, the day I have been working towards. All the hard work that has been done is finally coming to a close.  It is the middle of September and the weather is great. A pump truck and 3 cement trucks had  been ordered, and were on their way. There will be 4 people here today, 2 friends ( Marty and Tim) my son Zack and myself. Lisa and my parents will also be here but they will be in the cheering section. I will  be pouring the cement and Marty and Tim will be running the vibrator and Zack will fill in where needed. The vibrator is used to prevent any large air pockets making  a honeycomb effect in the walls causing the walls to be weak. The walls are 9 ft high and I wanted to fill the walls 2 ft at a time. I started at the furthest wall away from the pump truck( making sure the arm of the pump truck would reach that far). I would  work my way around the basement trying to maintain a 2 ft pour which was not an easy task.  Marty and Tim followed me with the vibrator.  The pour took between 5-6 hours with a lunch break and was pretty much uneventful except for 1 near miss.  We almost had a blow out but it was caught before anything happened.  I was able to brace the section of the wall on both sides.  As the pump operator signaled to me that he had run out of cement and no more trucks were coming, I was about 6 ft short of finishing off the wall.  Luckily one the trucks had spilled a large amount on the driveway so we able to grab buckets and finish the wall off using that.

Pouring cement into the walls

Marty working hard with the vibrator as Tim supervises

Me pouring  and the guys following with the vibrator

To finish off the day Zack and myself went around and confirmed the walls were straight. Only minor adjustments had to be made,  using  the braces. Waited a few days for the cement to set up before I started taking down the braces and moving them to the top of the driveway awaiting pickup, that was a big job.