Category Archives: FYI

Well it has been a while since I got on to the website.  I had some work travel, a bit of a vacation, but mostly I was just really busy with work and school (MBA).  However, I did find time to work on the house and things have not been standing still.

The engineer and architect have both moved forward.  The new storm room design has finally made it into the plans and we had a meeting last week to resolve a number of the engineering issues including issues with the design of the the concrete sunshade and the roof structures for the entry and green house.  We are still going thru the plans and cleaning up little details.  The windows have not been updated in the drawings yet, but I expect that will be taken care of eventually.  We are also adding some details like stone veneer to the design in key locations.

This is how the plans looked last week… You can see the new Storm Room, but the sunshade and rail are changing…

While on vacation, relaxing after a day on the beach, I solved the problem of the chord windows.  These high windows were placed on a curved wall.  each vault spans a 30 degree section of the vault and we knew that the chord deviation would be too large to span with one piece of glass.  We broke the    chord window into 3 partial chords as a solution, but when I got the quotes I found that actually tripled the cost to fill the same area.  The cost was so high that we actually considered dropping the side windows and just having a 40″ wide arch top in the middle.  The epiphany on the beach was that the windows were not spanning the full 30 degree segment of the wall, but rather a much narrower section near the top of the vault.  I did some quick trigonometry back in the hotel room and worked out that the max deviation of full chord window from the curved wall would be less than 4 inches…  That means it fits on the 6 inch thick wall (sort of) and I could go with one large chord instead of the more expensive 3 part window.  Seems kind of obvious now…

This is a detail of the 3 part chord window that I had in the top of each vault… The yellow line represents where a straight window would lay…

You may recall that the “Storm Room” has a 6ft round hole in the floor.  I had wanted to put in a glass floor, but that was very expensive (over $6K), so I was settling for a safety rail for now.  I figured I could always replace it later if I found a good deal on the glass or struck oil.   But then the “temporary” safety rail cost was estimated to be $2K, which sounds a bit high to me.  The architect came up with the idea of putting down a steel grate.  Sherri and I both liked the idea, although I think what is in our heads may be a bit different than the architect was thinking.  Instead of an industrial steel grate, I will work on getting something a little more residential.  Hopefully, I can find something to match the spiral stairs and ship ladder that lead up to the storm room, perhaps made by the same company…

Much of the rebar layouts have been done, and I already put together a spreadsheet to calculate the quantity and cost of rebar required…  it is not too bad, but I will be looking for a bulk discount and a big truck to deliver it.   I will also want to get a bulk deal with the concrete company.  The engineer prescribed 3 ft wide footings to support the central tower of the house and there will be a lot of foundation in other areas also.  There are also some larger steel beams in a few areas that cost a few hundred dollars each, but I convinced the engineer to remove the really expensive compound bending beam that had been in the design for the sunshade and replace it with a much simpler post and beam design.  I am already getting quotes on the components that are fully designed, such as the precast concrete ribs.  I am waiting on the architect to complete the detailed plans on all the steel arches.

I re-initiated the relationship with the building inspector and gave him a copy of the plans in progress.  He decided to call my architect and reviewed the plans with him directly.  I wish I had been in on that meeting because my architect isn’t good about sharing the details.  I know he talked to him about stairs (not sure what about) and also told him to change the “Storm Room” label to “Light Well” so he could go a lot easier on the inspection.  I thought that was a good sign that he plans to be more helpful than difficult.

Next I plan to meet with the likely builder and go over the plans with him one last time while the engineer and architect are still under a fixed price contract.

We have started the process of getting our current house ready to sell… Or I should say Sherri has started patching and painting over the past decade’s worth of kids vs. drywall damage.  I helped by spilling some of the paint on the carpet while trying to help.  I am sure my turn will come, there are lots of fun jobs to do.  The good news is that the market is picking up a little around here and we may even be above water on our mortgage.

Even with over a month of no posts, the website is up to nearly 10,000 visits, but my views are down to 20 or so per day.  Things should get much more interesting once we start building.

And now some eye candy…