Category Archives: Sourcing

First Week of July

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Posted on July 6, 2014 by

Serenity Now

Writing this blog definitely makes me think a bit more about how things are going.  I am a bit disappointed that I don’t have much progress…  But it feels a bit worse because I don’t have a good title for this week (or a timelapse video).  Is that strange?

serenity-nowI guess the actual lack of progress will feel much worse when winter arrives.   I had planned on working all the long weekends; but, like the May Two-Four weekend, the 4th of July weekend didn’t give much progress toward the final construction.  But it did let me recover from my cold and have some good family time.

facebook-like-SmallThese are some over detailed explanations for those who want to understand the struggle.  If you just want the short version of the updates, you can “like” Home in the Earth on Facebook.

 

 

No Steel for You

fcs_delayI had planned on getting a delivery of steel studs last Wednesday.  These are not the crappy kind you get in fixed lengths from Home Depot…  These are special MarinoWare 20 gauge studs, specially cut for my order, ranging from 9 ft to 26 ft long.   Previously, my work week had been minimized because the order didn’t go thru properly.  This time, I think the problem was more related to too many people taking advantage of the 4th of July long weekend and too many construction crews not ordering steel.  There wasn’t enough of a shipment coming to my distributor to justify sending a truck long enough to carry my 26 ft studs.  No problem for them, they would just send it after the holiday…  Messed up my plans though, and it would have been a beautiful work weekend too.

No Scaffold for You

But I still planned on getting a scaffold delivery on Wednesday.  This is not your regular home depot scaffold either.  This is a proper 26 ft tall made-in-the-USA scaffold tower with lots of extra stability.  I needed it to erect those 26 ft tall steel studs that form the central tower.  They had shipped it out the previous week and emailed me a link to a tracking website (for some shipping company I had never heard of).  I had checked the link a few times but the website wasn’t working.  By Wednesday morning, after the steel order failed, and the tracking link still wasn’t working, I phoned the shipping company directly (SAIA?)  I gave them my tracking number and they told me they had no record of that shipment.   I called the scaffold company and asked them about it.  The email they had sent me on the day it shipped had all the correct information, what she now read me from her computer had all the wrong information, including my address and a shipping date 3 days later and a different shipping company (with a different tracking number).  She looked up the tracking number for me, but it was also a dud, and so she had no idea where the package was.   After all those mistakes, I asked her to please confirm what she shipped.  But she wouldn’t read me what it said on her version of the Bill of Lading, she just said she was sure they had shipped the right thing and she would call me back (she did about 8 hours later, long after I had figured it out).  The third company involved was some sort of middle-man logistics and customer service company that looks after emailing out that original tracking number.  It seems that the SAIA company couldn’t get their trucks in a row, so after 3 days of sitting on a dock, they switched me to FedEx with a new tracking number.  The guy looked it up while we were on the phone and said, “I am sorry sir, but your package was supposed to be delivered today, but it is in Mississippi instead.  Maybe Tuesday”.   Wow.

I was just about to cancel my brother in law who would soon be headed over to help me when I decided to check the new tracking number myself.   It turns out that the guy on the phone doesn’t know his state codes.  It didn’t say Mississippi, it said “MI”, which is for Michigan.  The package had been in town since first thing that morning and would be delivered that day.  I called FedEx, they confirmed that a driver would call me to confirm what time he would deliver because they wouldn’t leave it unless I was there.

My brother-in-law, John, arrived, and we packed up my car.  My younger son was also going to come with us.   We were less than 5 minutes down the road (of the 55 minute trip) when FedEx called to book a time for the following day…  I guess they didn’t have enough drivers on that week due to the holiday.  So we turned around and went home.
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Scaffold

Thursday, I went out to meet the FedEx driver and get my 1200 lbs of scaffold.  He got there early, so I found an 18 wheeler waiting for me in the circle at the bottom of my driveway.  As I guessed, he had no way to unload the truck.  Since I had no heavy equipment on site, I had the fun of unloading the truck piece by piece (the FedEx guy handed the pieces down to me) into my trailer.   I used the trailer to make the trip up my driveway and then unloaded it into my shipping container for use next week.  It was tempting, but wouldn’t be wise to try and assemble something like this by myself.

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Instead, I focused on prepping the spot where the tower would go.  I had designed things so that the scaffold tower would sit (nice and firmly) on the circular footing.  Even the 30 inch outriggers will fit on the footing, although I will have to leave openings thru the metal lath.  I confirmed this by putting one of the diagonal braces across, but it was a bit close to the edge.  I thought it would be best to fill in the center of the footing with dirt so that there wouldn’t be any problems if it shifted a few inches.

Transit

IMG_20140703_115816_050I had bought a  David White builders transit on Craig’s List Tuesday evening.   I bought it from an old guy (at least in his 60’s) and so I assumed it was his.  I asked about some of the adjustment knobs and he said he didn’t know how to use it because it had been his grandfathers.  I asked how old it was, and he said he didn’t know, but his grandfather retired from being a surveyor for the city of Detroit in the 1940’s.  After I got home, I looked up the serial number and found it was made in 1937.  It clearly still works very well (perhaps it has another 77 years in it).  

using my “new” transit, I confirmed that at least one of the concrete pads is a bit off, but it will still work out. All my other angles (I had been using my marked center stone) were right on.  I had rented a crappy transit from the rental place several times because I didn’t want to buy a new one (too expensive), but this used one will pay its self off in a few uses.  Having the right angle is just too important in a home as unusual as mine.

Skid Steer

Well, now it was still pretty early in the afternoon and there wasn’t much left for me to do on site…  But I had come prepared with a list of Craig’s List skid steers with in an hour of my property, so it was time for a few hours of driving around.    I ended up with a John Deere 260 Skid Steer.

This post is already too long, I put more more details on why I chose a Skid Steer in another post.  (or just like us on Facebook to see the post from last week).

Window bucks and welders…

Saturday, I had a couple friends come over to hang out, which was nice, but too rare.  We ended up seeing a movie, but first, they helped me cut out some window bucks in preparation for next weeks framing.

I didn’t end up finding the welder that I wanted.  I have a couple possible options on Craig’s List to consider, but first I want to chat with my welding-expert uncle.  He was busy all weekend, but I will call him tonight.  Basically, I want the most economical MIG/MAG setup I can get, I don’t want to spend thousands on an industrial scale rig.  That can also be another post.

Steel Track

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Posted on June 29, 2014 by

After completing the footings, the next step was to erect the steel studs and metal lath that we would shoot the concrete (shotcrete) against.  You can think of the steel studs as fancy integral formwork.  I had had some trouble up front getting the steel ordered, particularly the steel studs.  So I went with another company to at least get the track (including Flextrack) ordered.  This let me put the track down first while I wait for the steel studs to arrive.

Track&StudsBasically, track is needed to hold steel studs in place.  The studs hold the metal lath and the metal lath will catch the shotcrete and shape the walls.

I originally had this part of the job in my gantt chart as a 6 days’ worth of work starting the first week of May, so I started last week about 7 weeks behind.  To make matters worse, I ended up working on it over several partial days spread across a week and I haven’t even started on the vertical steel studs.  I would guess that by the time I am caught up on putting in the steel studs, I will be about 8 or 9 weeks behind.  Winter is coming, but I will resist the pun of saying that I am working to get back on “track”.

There is definitely a learning curve, but I consider the basement as practice for the main level and I was definitely faster by the end (as you can see in video).  Knowing my velocity (per ft of flex track or straight track) lets me better estimate the time (and resources) I will need to complete the main level.

Here is the time lapse video.

On to the story.

Like an ant moving a mountain, I am just doing things one bit at a time and trying not to be overwhelmed or forget anything.  For this past week, the first step was preparing a simplified version of my drawings (a basic shop drawing) with just the door buck and track dimensions labeled.

Measure twice, cut once…  But first make sure you know what the measurements should be.  And simplifying the drawing to show just what you need does help…  But make sure you also have an idea of the other bits that will interact with that or you could get yourself in trouble.

The next bit was putting together the bucks.  I decided to do that at home where I have a chop saw and a garage to work in.  I cut and labeled all the pieces and loaded them (un-assembled) onto my trailer.  The bucks are made from 2×6 treated lumber.  They are 6 inches taller than normal because I am fastening them to the footing and will come back and cut off the 6 inches at the bottom after the shotcrete walls are in place.  Then I will pour a floor to make up that 6 inches.

Others might have built the walls on top of the floor, but my “wall first” approach uses the floor as a shear plane against lateral earth loads.   “Walls first” also makes the shotcrete installation much easier because it covers up the joint between the wall and the floor (so they can be less picky about it) and because they don’t need to shovel the “rebound” out of the basement.  Rebound is the “pea stone” and cement that bounces off the wall during the shotcrete process.  It can be up to 10% of the volume of the walls, which for my basement would be nearly 4 yards.  Lugging rebound out of the basement would have been hard work for the shotcrete crew and would have cost me a lot of money.

IMG_20140620_Loading

I added my generator to the trailer (needed to power my hammer drill) and headed to pick up my supply of steel.  The look on the guys face when I pulled up told me he was pretty sure it was amateur hour, they told me that there was no way they could load my steel onto that trailer.  I quickly told them that, “This steel order weighs 660 lbs.  I already have 332 lbs of 2x6s, 55 lbs of 2x4s and the generator weighs 163 lbs.  My trailer can handle 1100 lbs and my car can two 2000 lbs, so we are all good.”   I had just guessed at the generator weight, but my rapid fire numbers somewhat startled the loading dock guys for a moment and convinced them that I was serious.  While they were recovering, I quickly took the back and side off my trailer and unloaded the generator so they could set the pallet of steel down with the fork lift.  One of the guys helped me load my generator back on top again.  Still a bit concerned, they asked me how far I was going. All I could say was, “All the way.”

IMG_20140620_Unloading

Sherri said I should probably never show anyone this picture (above), but I think it shows that “where there is a will, there is a way”, even if you can’t afford to look like a pro and you end up being chuckled at by a couple of loading dock workers.

My Brother-in-law, John R., came out to help me assemble the bucks.  With everything pre-cut, it was pretty straight forward.  We would have screwed them into place, but I forgot my hammer drill.  It took more than half an hour to get three Tapcon screws in with my regular drill.  That was a waste of time, so we focused on leveling the steel storage container and getting ready for more productive days ahead.

To level the 4800 lb steel container, we used a hydraulic mechanics jack to lift one side and then we stacked bits of waste concrete (that the trucks had dumped on the sand) like a dry stack foundation wall.  It looked pretty cool; I should have taken a picture before we covered it with sand.  The process went pretty smoothly, but it was hot & tiring work, so I really appreciated John’s help.

As a consolation prize, John went home with a really bad sun burn.
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I came back on my own with the hammer drill and got to work on the steel track.  The footing is full of ¾ inch stones.  It is a lumpy surface to work on, and depending on the underlying stone, the drill could go thru like butter or struggle and fail to penetrate at all.  I often found that moving a few inches over was easier than trying to push thru a hard spot.  Sometimes I had to try 2 or 3 spots before I found a good one.

After drilling the pilot hole, I would switch to my socket drill to drive in the Tapcon screw.  I quickly found that the torque setting on my drill was also helpful.   If I set it above 15, the Tapcon screw heads would just snap off.   Still, it was often a frustrating struggle to get the Tapcons to screw into the harder spots. I worked until I ran out of screws and my cordless drill batteries were dead.

You may think I should have planned better and brought the charger, and you would be right, but at the time, I was tired and glad to have an excuse to go home.

 

The next day was my oldest son’s 10th birthday.  I ended up taking him out to the property to help out.  Having learned my lesson, I took my dwalt battery charger with me so I could charge one battery with the generator while using the other one in my driver.  On the way, we stopped and picked up some more Tapcons.  I also bought a box of smaller Tapcons (3/8ths instead of ¼), to see how they compared.

Tapcon

My initial plan was to use the larger Tapcons on the ends of the studs and the smaller ones between, but that was hardly necessary.  The smaller Tapcons were just so much easier to drill and screw than the large ones. I ended up using up the box and buying another rather than keep using the larger Tapcons.  The smaller 3/16ths Tapcons also cost 35% less than the ¼ inch.

I started out using ¼ inch Tapcons which have 1160lbs pull out and 900 lbs of shear resistance.  Clearly that was overkill.  The 3/16ths Tapcons had 900lbs pull out and 720 lbs of shear resistance, which should be more than enough to keep the wall in place while the shotcrete is applied.  For the door bucks, I used several of the large ¼ inch by 3-3/4 inch Tapcons.

 

For the flex track, I bought very simple track.  It doesn’t have the metal straps or locks or other “structural features”.  It is simply cut so that it will stretch on one side.  The shape is held by screwing it to the concrete.  The fancy “structural” flex track is ~$2.70/ft and the simple stuff I bought is only ~$1.19/ft.

I had marked the footings at the right radii so I could lay my track.  As a novice, I pulled the track into position, the stretching was uneven.  I later learned that I could get a much more precise (and rapid) curve by inserting a screw driver and twisting to widen the outside side of the track.  More experience and I found that two twists in opposite directions resulted in a more level track.

The close up install video is here.

I had to go back for a third day to put in a last few hours and get the job done before my son’s birthday party this weekend.

Next step is a small job of putting together the window bucks while I wait for the vertical studs and scaffold tower to arrive.  Both should arrive next Wednesday, along with some family and friends to help erect it all.

Our most expensive date ever!

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Posted on June 25, 2014 by

This afternoon, my wife and I had our most expensive date ever! 

We closed on our construction loan!

Getting this loan was a long and painful process that involved an appraiser, our insurance lady (that we ended up dumping because she was messing everything up) and a few other big surprises.  I plan to document more at a later date, but here are the basics of what happened recently.

Last week, we had asked for an updated estimate of the closing costs.  Of course, there were all the usual “fees”, including flood inspection, etc.  The biggest of the recent surprises was that the bank wanted us to deposit all the money we planned to use, up front, in their account, so they could manage the disbursements and make sure it all goes into the construction.  The difference with this latest update was that the bank added 10% more to cover “unexpected costs”.  This was a significant jump that had not been included in previous discussions (they had been willing to accept that I had built safety factors into each line item).  We scrambled to figure out how to scratch together the additional money (imagine suddenly needing to find 10% of the cost to build your home).

PiggyBankStressedWe could have swung it, but I was worried about our shrinking liquidity (I still need to buy tools, rent equipment, etc. and those costs are not covered by the construction loan).  We ended up deciding to take some money out of our retirement savings plan.  We will need to start paying it back to ourselves immediately (it starts coming out of my next pay check) or face a tax penalty, but the interest rate (to ourselves) was good and there were no significant fees.  It was actually a pretty painless process and we put the paperwork together in about 20 minutes (Sherri and I working together).  We took a bit more than we thought we needed, just in case.  That check arrived yesterday.

 

OverwhelmedPaperwork_323x210Today started with Sherri still up from the night before going over the receipts that we have already paid.  I gave up and went to bed at midnight, but I assume she checked everything more than twice more (as is her nature). These receipts are required to support our “Sworn Statement” that says how much we have paid and how much we have left to pay.

We showed up for our lunch time appointment at the bank today with a big accordion-folder worth of paperwork.

The first biggest surprise was that we were expected to pay off the remaining mortgage on our land before the new loan would commence.  I had thought our land may come up since the appraisal was based on the house and land and I figured it may occur to the bank that they had already loaned us something, but I thought they would take the money out of what they were going to loan us now.  Instead it was added up front as closing costs before the other loan would go through.  Ouch.  Good thing we had more in the account that we thought we needed.  But this is a significant cut to our liquidity.

The silver lining is that we now own the land outright and no longer have that land payment.  Also, the new mortgage percentage went down a bit from the last estimate, so in the end, our payment is very reasonable (over 30% lower than we thought it would be for the house and land payments combined).

We spent over an hour signing papers.  Sherri is very thorough and likes to read everything; she found a number of mistakes, including her name spelled wrong several ways on a single page.  The lady at the bank had to make a number of runs back upstairs to reprint documents with corrections.  She was getting a bit tired by the end of it.

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Eventually we got through it all and the Earth Sheltered Umbrella Home is fully funded.

Sourcing

I finally got the bill for the footings today.  It was a volume plus materials sort of deal, so I was a bit nervous about how the cost of materials would add up.  However, it did seem reasonable.  I am not thrilled about all the unused forming supplies that I bought.  I hope they don’t get wrecked by the weather before we can use them on the main floor footings (I have them covered with 6mil plastic at the moment).  The cost of the concrete was 6% lower than expected and the giant pump truck was 14% lower than expected.  Unfortunately, the rebar and other steel was 17% higher than expected, probably due to that 18% bump in the price of steel over the past year.   Overall, we are still on budget.

26 ft tower and internal stair clamp 001I also purchased a new 26ft tall scaffold tower today.  I had been trying to get a used one.  There were not many to choose from and most looked like rusty pieces of junk.  The worst part was they were priced only 30% below new.  I found one nice aluminum one for a reasonable price, but I called the guy and he had sold it for scrap.  In the end, I needed one next week, so I decided to pay a little more and get a brand new one, and that was for a “delux” model with the extra wide outriggers and other safety features.  It should arrive the middle of next week along with my steel studs (which were originally supposed to arrive last Friday).  I should be able to sell it at the end of construction for a reasonable price.

I had also been looking at buying turnbuckles to help me plumb the steel stud walls (tricky because I don’t have a top track to attach to).  I was looking at the sort of thing that ICF installer’s use to straighten and plumb their walls before a pour.  I found them to be very expensive, so I designed my own and priced it out.  I figure I can make equivalent hardware for less than 1/10th the price of buying them.  The only catch is that I will need to buy that MIG welder sooner, but I planned to get it for the main floor steel anyway.

I have a 25% off coupon for a nice MIG welder (another thing I couldn’t find second hand), and will probably pick that up this weekend.

Construction Birds

Some of you may have caught my video on the river swallows at the construction site…  Here it is anyway.

Eye Candy

Yes, time for some eye candy.