Category Archives: Sourcing

Overnight work party

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Posted on August 1, 2014 by

This week included an overnight work party at the property with some friends, Aaron and Ryan.  We headed out after work on Wednesday and got in a few hours working on the window well until it got a bit dark.  Then we had a nice camp fire (using my rocket stove) and talked until past two in the morning.

The next day, we got up before 7 and worked on Rebar until they had to go mid-morning.  At 9:00 AM, my N-12 pipe arrived and I was glad to have my friends there to help me unload it.

N12_Pipe_Delivery

After they left, I tied rebar for a while, then spent a few hours on off camera tasks like getting new tires and parts for my skid steer.  Eventually, I got back and spent the rest of the day on Electrical.

Here is the video.

Extra Info;

XPS forms?

I wanted to use a different approach for forming the window well…  Partially because I wanted to experiment with different methods and partially because the window well is more exposed to the environment and I didn’t think the metal lath and studs would be a good idea.  I originally thought I would just do it with plywood sheathing and 2x4s.

On the way out to the property, we stopped to pick up a trailer full of wood at Home Depot.  Sheathing Plywood is actually pretty expensive.  More expensive than tongue and groove 1” rigid XPS insulation…  So we switched plans on the fly and bought the XPS instead.  I also considered going with OSB, Oriented Strand Board), and bought a couple sheets, but didn’t use them.  The XPS was easy to work with and I am pretty happy with the decision.  The test will be when we shoot the shotcrete at it.  XPS is tougher than the EPS backing that I saw used with shotcrete last year, plus it is firmly attached to treated 2x4s, so I think it will be fine.

At the end of the day, I think the XPS and 2×4 approach was easier to assemble.  However, it is also more expensive, especially if you are building forms more than 8ft tall.

Curving rebar?

For curving the rebar, we tried a few things, including the rebar hickey.  The main difficulty is getting the right curvature and all in one single plane.  Bending rebar is easy, curving rebar to a precise shape takes technique.  The winning solution is shown in the video.

We stand on the rebar and pull one side up a certain amount (experience helps).  Basically, it is not really a continuous curve, but more piecewise linear.  When the raised end becomes two difficult for one person to manage, one person holds it vertical (in plane) so the other person can do a similar bend from the other end.  Due to the way that steel stays in the elastic range for a while and then yields for a permanent bend, we need to over bend it to start.   So the second step is to push it down flat, again keeping it in plane.   (an improvement I worked out on a later day was to walk it flat instead of using our hands to wrestle it down).  When we let it go, it springs back to a curve with a larger radius.

StressStrain

We had marked the radius we wanted in the sand and we set the curved rebar in the sand “template” to check it.  Some of them were right on.  If they needed any adjustment, one of us would stand at the point where things started to go off the line and the other one would pull the rebar horizontally and adjust it into shape…  The adjustment is actually so fast and easy that the timelapse camera, with a 10 second period, didn’t catch us doing it.

Electrical

Carlon Smurf ConduitThe electrical takes longer than I thought I would…  I have a plan that I am referring to, but actually wresling the blue Smurf tube (ENT conduit) into position thru all the right holes is a bit tricky.

Also, my plan didn’t take into account how many tubes would leave each box and their directions.

NEC code prohibits bending the ENT by more than 180 degrees along its length.  Each box is attached to a stud.  In many cases, the stud blocks one side of the box and leaves only 3 knock outs for the conduit to attach to.  These are in a chain, so a light switch needs one pipe to carry electricity in and other to continue the circuit to the next switch.  A third tube goes vertical toward the ceiling where we will eventually put the light fixture.  Ideally, the third tube would come from the knock out at the top of the box.  The problem happens when the power is coming from above (such as over a door).  If I run it down and around to the bottom of the box, it would exceed the 180 degrees of bending that code permits.   Instead, I must run it into the side of the box and run the “out” tube from the bottom of the box even though it actually needs to go sideways…  What if I also want to branch my circuit in a second direction?  Anyway, it takes some head scratching.  I will shot for an electrical inspection next Wednesday.

Sourcing

AA_Promo_1When you walk into Home Depot, there are lots of big signs about ordering online.  This is because they don’t have everything in the store.  For instance, none of the rebar tools on the Home Depot website are actually available on the shelf.  However, it also helps for buying cases or quantities not available in the store.   If you buy individual outlet boxes, they cost about 2 dollars each.  If you buy them in bulk, you can get a case of 50 for $38, that is about half the price.  But you can only buy the case on line.  Also, for some reason, the stores only stock 100 ft lengths of ¾” ENT tube.  The ½” tube costs quite a bit less, but only comes in 25ft lengths, and if you buy 4 of those, it costs more than the ¾” ENT tube in the 100ft roll.  The only way to get ½” tube at a good price is to buy a 200 ft roll on-line (which costs just a little more than the 100ft roll of ¾” tube).  Get it?  Good.

Problem is that it doesn’t always work out right.  I ordered a case of 50 outlets.  It was 1 case, so the quantity was listed as “1” and the amount charged was ~$38.00.  I chose to pick it up in the store.  When I went to the service desk to pick it up, they had set aside one single box for me…  I showed the girl my smartphone with the email showing I had been billed for a case, but there wasn’t much she could do except put it back as if I had not come in to pick it up.  They didn’t have any in stock at that store.  I ended up driving to two other stores in different cities trying to find enough boxes to finish my job.

I got an email today saying that if I don’t pick it up soon, the order will be canceled, so I guess I don’t need to do anything.

Finished the basement studs, strap and lath

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Posted on July 26, 2014 by

This week, my parents drove down 4 hours (from Canada) to help me out for a week.  We got in the remainder of the steel studs and finished the lath and strap.  Here is the timelapse video;

I had actually hoped to get to the shotcrete this week, but, as hard as we worked, we still have a few more days to go.  I also have not yet got ahold of my Shotcrete guy, which is not a good sign…

For the next few days, I will try to get the rest of the rebar and electrical in place.  I am still waiting on the N-12 pipe that I plan to use for the earth tubes and duct work.  It should arrive soon.  I am also getting a pair of tires and a few other parts to fix up my Skid Steer.  Meanwhile, I am a bit concerned about the budget and getting very concerned about the schedule.  It has been such a cool summer that I am guessing we will have an early and cold winter.

But at least the house is looking pretty cool.

SteelStuds Panorama

 

 

IMG_20140723_193912_919

Many lessons were learned over the past few weeks that I will eventually write down.  One of the key lessons was that you have to brace and then strap before you add the lath…  I will write out more after I see how things turned out with the shotcrete.  I am concerned that the lath may bulge inward (like an overstuffed quilt) and make for a very difficult inner surface to plaster.  I am still pretty confident that the lath backing is superior to the rigid insulation backing that Formworks uses.

SteelStuds&Lath

SteelStuds

In the sourcing area, I had a few ups and downs.  One thing was that I bought another ton of #4 and 20 pieces of #3 rebar and found that I was billed almost double what I had paid for a ton in the past.  I should have haggled.  I won’t let that happen again.  I also bought several tools for working with rebar.  I had to buy them on Amazon.com because none of my local stores carry them.  Some worked very well, such as my (made in China) rebar hickey.  Others didn’t work well at all, such as my (also made in China) wire twisting pliers.  I also had some hiccups ordering the earth tube pipes, but those details are as boring as they were frustrating.

I spent a starry night out at the property with my father and two boys.  Of course, I checked out the North Star (Polaris) and confirmed that I was off true north by about 5 degrees (toward magnetic north instead).  Oh well, I probably should have set it up via the stars instead of the combination of a smartphone app, a compass and a map of magnetic declination.  Five degrees won’t effect performance much.

My bank swallows are feeding their chicks.  It turns out that hungry chicks are even noisier than mating swallows.  I got some pics and video here.

I asked my father to help me with an anti-theft device for my Skid Steer.  Apparently, they are very often stolen from building SkidSteer_AntiTheftsites and then used to steal other stuff.  This is made easier by the fact that one key fits most skid steers of the same brand.  This was my fathers solution.  ==>

Actually, as effective as removing the front wheels is, my father is an automotive electrician, so he came up with something much better than that, but it is top secret.  Taking off the tires was just to get new ones…  It turns out that I would need new tires to drive Over the Tire Tracks anyway, so lets see if they help me get around on the sand without the expensive tracks.

Earlier in the week, we did actually use the Skid steer to move some dirt around to level the port-o-potty.  The kids each drove it (sitting on my lap) and really enjoyed it.  Of course, their mother was not around for that, so there are no photos.

That’s it for now.  Later this week, I will be going out with friends to work on rebar and electrical. Actually, I think these are tasks I can also do on my own if I have to.

Custom Fabrication

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Posted on July 8, 2014 by

bracing101_02I want the walls to be nice and plumb.  This is usually managed with diagonal bracing to position and keep the wall where you want it.  To add a bit of finer control over the wall, you will often see builders use a turnbuckle.  These allow the builder to make fine adjustments. Often these are needed both to plumb the formwork and to help brace against concrete blowouts, etc. so they need to be big strong expensive things… Sometimes you see whole systems of bracing…

In the system on the right, the yellow parts are threaded and can be turned to adjust plumb.  They also provide a nice working scaffold for the second half of the wall, brace against the concrete, etc.  These cost hundreds of dollars each, but would be totally worth it if I were an ICF contractor.

In my design, the steel studs are considerably lighter, so they will be much easier to push into plumb.  The walls are curved and the studs will be tied together with the metal lath, so they should be able to resist the shotcrete on their own.  This frees me to go for a much lighter design.

Turnbuckle_2I got some inspiration from this example (on the left).  You can see that the bottom is a piece of angle iron screwed into a 2×4.  They welded a nut to the angle iron with a threaded rod connected to another bracket that they attach to the vertical form work…  The end of the threaded rod is cut to take a screw driver. Adjustments turn the threaded rod and make it move thru the welded nut.  This allows for fine adjustments on the overall lengths of each support.  Adjusting the length provides the fine tuning needed to plumb the wall.  I can buy a turnbuckle like this from an ICF distributor.  The problem is this little piece of hardware costs $16.99, plus shipping, and I would need a bunch of them.

So I made my own.

 

 

IMG_20140708_215617_778_TurnBuckles

 

I used my new welder to weld the nuts to the angle iron (less than a minute).  Then I used my grinder to make a hex end on each threaded bolt so that I can drive them with a socket on my drill (just over a minute).  I ended up making 3 different sizes, 1/4, 5/16ths and 3/8ths, just so I could compare them.

I could get 1/4 inch locknuts from Home Depot, but they don’t carry them in the other two sizes.  I could probably order them for 5/16th and 3/8ths, but I ended up just tightening two regular nuts together for a similar effect.  The rest is just a 6 inch bolt in one direction (for the length adjustment) and a 3 inch bolt in the other (for a pivot), plus washers…  I will screw the second wood block into the steel studs and the angle iron gets attached to an 8 ft piece of 2×2 wood which is staked into the ground.

Total cost is less than 2 dollars each for the big one and almost down to a dollar for the 1/4 inch version.  I would need to make about 40 of these before the savings would pay off my welder and related tools.  The 8′ piece of 2×2 costs and additional $1.50 each.

Here is a close up on the welded nut and ground hex end.

IMG_20140708_215617_778_TurnBuckle

 

Tomorrow, I will try these out before making any more.