Whitehall

We've made the transition from framing to finishing. The drywall is up and the painters have been at work. The number of things that can be done in parallel has increased and things are happening every day. The real stairs arrived and have been set in place, though we still have the 2x4 safety railings in place. We've been making selections and purchases on a regular basis. Tile for all the bathrooms, entry foyer, and kitchen has been delivered and the tile guy has been busy. The siding crew has been here on-and-off for the past two weeks. Everyone likes the color of the siding James Hardie Night Gray. The sun makes it difficult to see the real color in this shot. We'll get another picture in better light. The flooring was installed in about one day by a husband and wife team. She selected the pieces and laid them out on the floor and he  nailed them down. It was interesting to watch them work. The wood stove is shrouded in painters plastic to keep the pai

Insulation has been installed in the walls as a sound abatement measure, so we don't have the laundry competing with our current choice of music.  To the right are the railings and construction stairs that go down to the first floor. Rough-in Finished, Insulation Installed The orange, really tall wood in the loft walls are engineered studs. An engineered stud is made of layers of wood glued together, somewhat like plywood, only the wood grain is all the same direction. They are very expensive but they are straight, which is why we used them in the tall loft walls. We didn't want to have wavy drywall that might result from using regular lumber that bows. There is orange pipe in the upper right - that's the fire suppression sprinkler piping that is now required in houses here. The sprinkler is only intended to run for a few minutes to give the occupants time to escape. It isn't intended to stop a fire. The tall loft wall The drywall and finishing supplies have b

Things have been busy, with interior framing, rough-ins, and the wood stove installation. The last post showed creating the wood stove hearth. The masons have been here and finished the wall behind the wood stove. I moved the stove into place and cut the connector pipe for the fresh air intake. Bay Stoves supplied the stove pipe and did the install. I preferred that they climb up on the roof and work on the scaffolding to install the flue. Installing the exterior stove pipe Jotul 400 Wood Stove and Flue We did a good job of aligning the hearth, the wall, and the wood stove. Everything went together as it should. The flue goes straight up through the roof. It is about 25ft of flue, mostly double wall flue pipe. Only the first four foot section is single-wall stove pipe. The fresh air intake works great, preventing warm inside air from feeding the fire. It will also prevent the cool inside air from leaving the house in the summer. We have a big pile of scrap lumber and the woo

We've been working on the Jotul 400 wood stove hearth for several days. Since it will be very visible, it is taking a while to get everything just right. The stove manual says that the bottom heat shield allows us to just use a layer of non-combustible material under the stove. But we feel better by making a more heat-resistant hearth. The subflooring is 7/8 inch Advantech engineered oriented strand board (OSB). On top of that we glued 1/2 inch of Micore 300, a mineral fiber insulating product (R1.1 for the 1/2 inch). The next layer is 1/4 inch Durock fiber cement board, attached to the Micore with Versabond thin-set mortar applied with a 1/4 inch x 1/4 inch grid mortar trowel. We bought slate tile (real slate, not an engineered product) at Home Depot called Montauk Blue. They have it in several sizes. We needed both 12 inch square and 16 inch square to fit the hearth. We have a wet saw, which makes cutting tile a breeze. Well, today was a bit cooler than a breeze. The water that

BWC rented a hydraulic truck crane for the house assembly from WO Grubb . They specified a 50 ton crane, but Grubb didn't have one available. Instead, they sent an 80 ton crane. It has five stabilizing pads, including one that's under the front of the truck. The counterweight consists of four big pieces of steel that weight 4000 or 6000 lb each. The crane looked very well maintained. We had two operators over the course of the 14 days of the crane operation, Mike and Charlie. They both were excellent. 80 Ton Crane The picture may not convey the size of the vehicle. On the side of the crane is a dimension chart. We had already used the crane dimensions to locate where the center pin would go, allowing for clearance of the counterweight to swing 360 degrees. This label also has lifting and counterweight information. Crane Dimensions I had done crane work in the past, but never with a boom crane, so there were some new hand signals to learn. For example, "Boom down,

With the building under roof, we shifted our attention to the interior by framing the interior walls. First Floor Framing Turning Empty Spaces... Into Framed Rooms We would like to get some heat into the structure, so Keith and I worked on the wood stove hearth and have it ready for tile, which has to be ordered. The wall behind the wood stove will be finished in the same stone that we're going to use around the entry and on the visible parts of the foundation. Technically, the hearth doesn't need anything other than a non-combustible surface if we use the heat shield. However, we feel better about using a 1/2 inch layer of Micore 300 on the subflooring, covered by a 1/4 inch layer of Durock fiber-cement board. Thin-set cement will hold the tile to the Durock. Wood Stove Hearth Underlayment We cut 45 degree angles on the hearth to eliminate the corner trip hazard. The hearth will be slightly higher than the surrounding floor, so we will frame the hearth