Water!

Today was a milestone.

Thanks to the work of our plumbing contractors, the boiler was installed, providing us with both heat (in the form of radiant heat under the floors) and hot and cold water. We've been waiting a long time for this and it was a moment of joy to witness the cascade of water pouring out of our garden hose hook-up on the side of the house. We now have the potential to hook up any old fixture we want and will be thinking about how we may do that, and when.

Meanwhile, Joe has begun work on the exterior window trim project. He's set up a work station and begun cutting the pieces. It'll be really satisfying to see the outside start to transform from green Zip-system to finish trim and clapboard.

I've been busy wrapping up the seemingly endless details before we begin insulating. I expect we'll get going on it next week.

All in all a good week of progress.

Glass of water anyone? Here, let me get you one.

Snapshots

Today was another day of great weather and we got as much done as we could, leaving part of tomorrow to finish up the roof. Yes!

We had some visitors today.

Kitchen Roof Complete

The rough sawn 1x6 planks run over the roof overhang.

The Zip system sheathing taped

Joe, testing the laws of gravity.

The kneewall on the east side in place.

View from the driveway

We wrapped up the roof over the kitchen yesterday. In order to create the visual effect of looking up and seeing pieces of rough sawn lumber coming over the end of the building --over the gable wall-- we've had to plan for the intersection of the rough sawn lumber with the Zip system roof sheathing. This worked out pretty well. (The Zip system sheathing is the brown material in the photos).

After the rough sawn lumber was in place we then put up the Zip sheathing. This was one of those times where it feels like you move in slow motion for a day or so and then BAM you go into fast motion and things seem to fly for a while. In a short day Joe and I had the roof sheathed and taped. This means it's watertight and ready for the standing seam roof to be installed. We're storing tools under it now since its dry.

This morning Joe was away closing up his families' camp up in the islands with his brother, which gave me a chance to do a little cleaning up and organizing. I stickered some lumber that needs to dry a bit before being painted, cleared a storage space for our immanent window delivery, and prepped the next round of fly rafter for shaping and painting. In other words, I tried to organize a bit in order to keep things moving smoothly with oncoming work.

Joe showed up in the early afternoon and we continued cleaning and organizing for the next round of work (the roof rafters over the main part of the house). We then laid into completing the remaining kneewalls along the east side of the main part of the house. The weather has been chilly - in the 30's during the day and there's snow all around on the mountain tops. We'll take cold any day over cold and wet.

By the way, I'm pretty wrapped up in this whole process and if any of what I'm describing doesn't make sense, please feel free to write a comment or an email and I'll be happy to try to clarify things. If you want to write a comment, just choose "Name/URL" and enter your name. You don't have to have a URL address.

First Floor Complete

Monday Joe and I raised the last wall of the first floor and today we buttoned up the loose ends, including blocking in the basement, completing the wall sheathing, and taping the remaining zip seams.

Tomorrow morning we start on the second floor, first with the LVL beam and then hanging floor joists, just as we did on the first floor deck.

This photo shows the completed walls, insofar as I can capture it from the garage roof.

This shows the view over the house. Joe and I will get to experience this as we start work on the second floor.

One Wall to Rule Them All

This is the framing plan that shows what pieces go where, and what size.

Here's the wall being framed. If you look you can see the arrangement of studs that match the drawing in the photo above.

Here's the wall with the zip system sheathing installed and the seams taped (the black lines).

Joe is attaching furring strips every 1 foot on center. This gives the exterior a sort of pinstripe look.

This is the wall standing up. Its effortless with the wall jacks.

Today Joe and I spent a lot of the day working out our wall building system sequence and procedure. Typically, building a wall is pretty straightforward; you lay out the framing, square it up, sheath it in plywood and stand it up.

Our process is similar, but we are using a sheathing called Zip system and the primary thing about it that it has the vapor barrier built into it. Most folks have seen houses being built that at some point are wrapped in Tyvec or Typar or some other similar product. We don't need to do this because the wrap is already a part of the plywood. All we need to do is tape the joints between the plywood and its good to go.

After framing the wall, we attach the rubber sill gasket to the bottom of the wall, attach the wall it's self to the floor with some thin metal strap to keep it from sliding when we go to lift it, caulk our perimeter openings against air infiltration, and then sheath the wall with the Zip system plywood.

After the sheathing and taping happens, we strap the wall with 1/2" furring strips running vertically every 12" on center to create a rainscreen, which is an air space behind the clapboard siding that will be installed in a few weeks. The strips allow air circulation which keeps moisture from gathering behind the clapboards, which in turn lets the painted surface remain intact while the boards stay dry and last longer. Before attaching the strips, we need to layout where all the trim will go in order to know where attachement points are needed.

Once the furring strips are in place, we are ready to raise the wall into
place. Thanks to Joe's thoughtfulness, we are equiped with wall jacks which make raising the walls a matter of cranking a couple of wiches. The wall jacks are essentially masts that have a steel cable runing up and over them with a hook on one end and the winch on the other.

It took us a while to get ourselves to the standing wall, but that's okay because we were basically doing a test run for the rest of the walls, which we'll be continuing on throughout the week.