So What's It Supposed to Look Like?

So everyone wants to know what it's supposed to look like...well, here it is. We got the plans off the internet and had them customized. Let me tell you finding plans or having them made is no easy task in and of itself. Some home designers (unless you are building over 5000 square feet in a lot of states you don't actually need an architect) charge by the square foot, some as a percentage of the overall project, and some will charge a "stock plan" fee if they have drawn the house before and then an additional charge for customization.

We got our plans from WL Martin homes. Mr. Martin was nice to work with and has a slew of plans to choose from.

To continue the conversation about how designers charge.

1. If you get charged by the square foot you could have a real complicated plan or a real simple plan and you get charged the same amount. It doesn't really seem fair to me.

2. If you get charged a percentage of the project you could specify vinyl laminate floors throughout the whole house or solid gold floors and you are getting charged a percentage. It doesn't really seem fair to me.

3. If you get a stock plan and a customization fee...well...that's what I did. Is it fair? Hey, look at the options! Somehow, someway, you gotta pay the piper!

Photo below shows stacks of roof panels on the second floor decking...these will end up being in the way once they want to set valley beams and begin setting roof panels.

Photo below is from the front end of the main ridge beam looking towards the back of the house. I couldn't get all the way to the front due to the aforementioned stack of panels.

Below is a shot from the top of the stairs looking out to the gable end over the garage. This ridge beam is now a double but it was discovered yesterday that it needs to be a triple. The two panels in place will need to have the top screws removed, the beam moved over 3/4" of an inch, the third beam put in place and nailed off, then the panels screwed back down.

This is a shot of the one knee wall that is up. My understanding is that a structural kneewall should have a double top plate. Being that the main purpose is to keep the panel from sagging I'm not sure if that is necessary or not.

The shot below shows the lack of overhang due to the extra length/width issue from the footer being nailed at the brick line instead of the block line. What should have happened when this panel was installed is that the spline be extended past the panel to a more appropriate overhang amount. Then the overhang could be boxed out to an appropriate length. Given that overhang is not heated/cooled space it isn't necessary that all the overhang be SIP panel. This shot also shows the beveled plate at the edge of the floor decking. It is in place the whole perimeter of the second floor.

Below is another shot of the same overhang from the ground.

Below is a shot of the rear of the house. The ridge beam over the nursery/study is still to be installed. Also the OSB sheathing over the header and splines is missing.

The photo below is the front of the house where again the ridge needs to be installed.

Below is the garge end gable. Notice how the finising spline was installed on one side but not the other. Also notice in all pictures how the Tyvek is incomplete or installed prematurely.

Memorial Day

Well...the crew came to work today despite being a holiday. Since it was Memorial Day we grilled out burgers and hotdogs for the crew.My list of things for them to do...they pretty much knocked out all of them!

Except one...because yet more LVL problems. Remember the issue of the house being longer and wider than it is supposed to be because of the surveyor (Torbet Surveying) nailing the footer at the brick line instead of the block line? Well, because of that the ridge beam for the study/nursery off the Master Bedroom is too short. It should be right at twelve (12) feet long. Instead we need one that is 12'3". Doesn't sound like a big deal right? Well....actually the ridge beams are two LVL's laid in side by side. We have a twenty four (24') foot LVL on site. If you cut in 12'3" then you end up with 11'9" of waste! ARGHHH!!!!!!

How will I deal with it? I'll call Brian in the morning...he'll work his magic and get me the LVL's. I've been tough on Brian in this blog, but let me tell you if you are going to contract out your house yourself you contractor sales guy at your hardware store/lumber yard of choice will be invaluable to you. All the subcontractors like to moan and groan about how wrong the work that has been done before is (the block guy's say it was the surveyor, the framing guys say it was the block guys...and so on). The constant is the contractor sales guy. He helps supply you every step along the way. He (or she) will have referrals for you if your chosen subs don't pan out (or they can help you chose the subs in the first place). I'd highly recommend using a local lumber yard over contractor sales from one of the big boxes (Lowes and Home Depot). I could be wrong, but I can't imagine someone from those stores being on my site as often as Brian is.

One other thing to know if you contract your house yourself.... There are millions of decsions to make and I'm not talking about the paint color or patina for the door hardware (that's the easy stuff). No...how about, "hey we are getting ready to cut the stair treads and we need to know now whether you want carpet or hardwood because we cut the treads differently." I never knew the stair treads are cut differently. Or how about, "hey this lvl is three (3) inches short, we can make it work if you are okay with it...what do you think?" Well...what are the implications? It's a little short section of roof with very little load. Does it really matter? Will it pass code? Everyday it is something. Some decision that seems semi-major and has to be made on the spot. I think it's a little like being a CEO. You make little decisions all the time that help determine the direction of your company, but you are making those decisions with incomplete information with short deadlines. If only I made CEO type money...I'd take me golden parachute and hire a contractor!!

ridge beam and missing valley's

Hey look..ridge beams! Unfortunately, the beams for the valley's aren't on site. Chances are the truss company is going to say they sent them or that it part of their package. Then the hardware company will say that it should have been in the truss company package or that the mexican crew stole them off the site. Bottom line...it doesn't matter (as long as I only get charged once)...I just need my LVL's for my valley's so we can put on roof panels.

The crew says they are going to work Memorial Day. They have plenty to do.

1. Fix the header at the back of the house.

2. Install the gable end panels at the back of the house.

3. Build the knee walls to support the roof panels.

4. Install the base support for the roof panels.

5. Install the roof panels at the back of the house.

6. Remove unnecessary internal bracing.

7. Install missing joist hanger.

What we can't do is install roof panels, because we still won't have the LVL's for the valley's because the hardware store will be closed on Monday. Maybe its for the best as Louie from FischerSIPS can swing by on Tuesday to give a little support to the crew as they lay the first roof panels.

Look at all that wood underneath the ridge beam! Now that's support...cross your heart for eighteen hours!

Check out all the temporary support under the ridge beams.

The garage, the second floor, and the problems continue

The LVL's (laminated veneer lumber) below were a source of a bit of excitement. To make a long story short none of the drawings showed the smaller LVL on the bottom supporting the larger LVL coming into the picture from the left side. It turns out that Brian (remember he's the guy I yelled at the other day) had imagined that the lower LVL was there. Because he imagined it, the truss company did their calculations for the larger LVL based on that information. Since they did their calculations based on it's being there...well then it had to be there.

It's not clearly visible, but just above the smaller LVL the floor trusses have a double plate that rests either on the wall or on the LVL. We could have cut the trusses apart, pushed the LVL up into the trusses, engineered a repair to the trusses and T-boned the larger LVL into it. That would have kept us from having a "framed" opening between the living room and the dining kitchen area, but would have slowed us down and added expense. After getting it in place it's really not bad and it may actually help define the space a bit.

The question I have left is...if Brian hadn't imagined that the LVL there...what kind of solution would the truss company have come up with? As it is everything is fine with it now...but things were tense there for a while.

Hey...look at the joists below. What's missing from the middle joist? A joist hanger! I know they've just delayed this because of the bracing that is up, but you know what? Once you have the joists up you can take the bracing down and finish the job!!

If you look at he metal things that extend down into the block and then are nailed up over the sill plate you will notice they don't match. One is bent up over the outside edge of the sill plate and the other one (on the right) is bent up from the inside. I'm not sure this will pass inspection. The whole thing with the straps in the garage area was a bit of a mess.

First, it turned out we didn't have the straps on site. So Brian got us the straps. Second, the framing crew had framed up the walls on the ground and was getting ready to set them in place when I noticed the straps in a box in the dining room area. So I point that out to the lead framer so they won't be left out. Third, they get left out entirely and they are sheathing the outside of the garage walls when I point it out again to the lead framer. So at the end of the day I wasn't there when they put them in, but they pretty much had to take off the sheating, lift up the wall and shimmy the strap underneath it, let the wall down, bend and nail the strap in place, and re-sheath. Good Grief...can we do something correctly the first time?

Below is an inside shot of of the corners of the garage. You will notice that one fo the blocks is now tilted back and one of the straps is placed in the void of the "L" block. I doubt this will pass inspection either.

This is the same corner from the outside.

Notice the photo below. Notice the front gable panels. Now scroll on down.

Now notice the gable for the front porch is in place in front of the previous gable...why? Because the lead framer again didn't take the time to think about what order things needed to happen in. I had to show him how to quickly fabricate a ledge to stand on so they could get the front panels in. Good freakin' grief!



The other thing about the gable ends above is that the rear one was cut incorrectly. Luckily it was in place before we caught it so we were able to follow in our tradition of doing everything twice. The crew pried up everything, base plate and all, knocked it over 4-5 inches with a sledge and then nailed everything back into place.

From what I've put together this crew hasn't caught on to panel construction quite as fast as a lot of crews do. They are hard working and move fast when they are sure of what they are doing, but the lead framer isn't a very organized sort. He's costing the guy who owns the company $ because they bid the job by the square foot...so extra time on the job doesn't impact me.

Pictures of the window corners...

I was afraid we had some framing problems around the window and door openings so I had Marta take these and post them so Louie at FischerSIPS could see what was going on and give some input. After seeing the photos he decided that he should leave Louisville first thing in the morning instead of waiting till mid-afternoon.

Front window on the right side (facing the road). The problem here is the short stud really should have come up to the level of the top of the foam. Then another 2x4 would have been laid across the foam (supported by aforementioned stud). Then another stud would have been placed vertically up to... (see second picture below).

The hole in the jack stud and the channel in the foam are for electrical wire. (A jack stud goes up to the header and a king stud goes all the way up to the top plate.)

The second stud would/should have run up to the bottom of panel 103 (see below). Yet another 2x4 would then be run in the horizontal grove of panel 103 with yet another 2x4 running on up to the header. What all these little pieces do is to create a support structure for each other. As it is in the photo the beginning of the jack stud (the two pictures above wouldn't support anything as it is below the level of the foam. This crew seems intent on doing things in a temporary fashion until some later time when they will come back and fix things correctly.

These next two photos are of the opposite corner of the same window. The jack stud was proud of the surfact (slightly above the surface) and they just took a sawz-all and cut it down...still leaving the same problem with no support at the top of the foam. Aye carumba!!

This is the upper corner of the same side pictured just above. What you are seeing is a jack stud embeded in the SIPS panel with the fill in SIPS panel supported my a small chunck of 2x4 that doesn't run down to the level of the foam. There is a header (an engineered or structural piece of wood meant to carry a load) above the SIPS panel in the window area.

Below is another shot of the same thing.

Front window on the left side (facing the road). You can see here that at least the 2x4 spline embeded in the SIPS panel comes down to the level of the foam insulation. The stud next to it goes all the way to the top so it is a "king stud".

What you are looking at here is the lower part of the same window opening. In this case you can barely make out the top part of the hole in the king stud for a wire chase. The section of the jack stud has not been drilled out and you can see there is no channel in the foam for wire...the panel was put in upside down. The fix for that is simply to melt a channel in with the foam tool FischerSIPS sent.

Master bedroom window.

Below we have another jack stud peeping out at a sill plate. In this case as above the jack stud should have terminated level with the foam. The sill plate should run the full width of the window and another section of the jack stud run up to the next stud.

This is the other bottom corner of the same window...this looks correct...the other side should look like this as well.

Study/nursery room window in the back of the house. This window is even more messed up than the very first window mentioned above. A lot of these issues have nothing to do with using SIPS panels. They have to do with simple framing techniques that are pretty much universal regardless of whether one is stick framing or using panels. In addition to the same problems the other window had this window has a structural header above it. The header is not low enough for the sill plate to fit in. This means another redo. They will have to cut a chunk of the jack stud out, hammer the header down. Then they will have to cut the panel loose and push it up (currently there is a large gap as the header hasn't been pushed into the spline cavity of the SIPS panel).

The below photo shows the top of the header lower than the top of the panel edge. It actually should be even a bit lower. If you laid a top sill on the header in the current position the 2x4 wouldn't sink into the spline cavity of the panels on the side.

Rain

Rain has been coming down hard a good chunk of the day. The panels that were put up on Thursday are open to the rain and there is water just soaking the floor decking. I'm not worried about the decking, but more about the flange of the panels at the sill plate (and at the top of the panel). At both points they are just sitting in water. OSB should be fine if it gets wet for a day or two, but the whole pack of panels has been in storage since December and we did find some had been exposed to the elements as water had found it's way under the wrap. I'll try to have a look tomorrow and see how things are looking.

The Layout

What a difference a day makes!!

We were greeted this morning with trucks bearing gifts! Structural Insulated Panels to be precise. Today we set all the first floor panels, I yelled at Brian Greenborne (from Wilburn Hardware who has been working diligently with me to make sure I don't screw things up too bad), had a serious heart to heart with the guy who runs the block crew, framing crew, sheetrock crew, and roofing crew, stayed on site all day making sure the lead carpenter was reading the panel diagram correctly (rather I was reading correctly trying to catch his mistakes...and I caught most of them), and I got a sunburn.

Remember a couple of posts ago when I mentioned that the surveyor had nailed the brick line not the block line? Well this is how we had to make up for it. The connection between these two panels should have been one 2x4. Instead you can see the edge of 2 2x4's on each side with 2 more 2x4's in the middle. Eventually we will cover this over with OSB plywood so the surface will all match before the sheetrock goes on.

Here's a shot with the panels in place and the interior framing underway. Remember this morning there was nothing but subfloor decking.

We got our panels for this project from FischerSIPS. They are easy to work with and their price includes a day of onsite consultation...and it was the low bid to boot!

The three 2x4's sticking up there will be cut off as they will provide support for a LVL beam used to support stuff on the second floor. Why didn't they cut them the right size to begin with so they don't have to go back and cut them later? I don't know...I'm not a carpenter (they probably just do it so the rest of us will ask why...carpenter humor I suppose?)

This is a close-up of a SIPS (Structural Insulated Panel). The hole in the middle is to run wire through for electrical outlets, switches, etc. The vertical slot from the bottom of the EPS (Expanded PolyStyrene) to the wire channel is made by a hot wire that is used to make the channel. The slot is made when they lift the hot wire out of the EPS.

Now the details.... So why did I yell at Brian? Because the block crew didn't lay the block right (which is why I had the heart to heart with the head crew dude) and when I told him they were coming back tomorrow to lay more he made the mistake of indicating they shouldn't do that as it would make the door of the garage very low (five feet is what he said). So I went a bit ballistic (keep in mind this is me...ballistic really isn't too bad...but I was yelling). So he ignores me and starts calling the truss company to make sure everything will pan out. So our garage will only have an eight and a half (8.5') high ceiling instead of the traditional ten (10') high ceiling. Which means that our garage door will probably only be seven (7') feet high. Guess what? I don't care if I have a garage that is only 8.5 ' high. The garage door on our current garage is 7' high and looks normal...and all the hardware for the garage door opener is mounted below 8.5'. Anyway...I lost it and then had to apologize.

And about this serious heart to heart with Alberto (they guy with all the crews). I had specifically told him (and Brian, and the guy who drew the plans, the lead block layer, and pretty much everyone else I could think of that I wanted a zero degree entry from the garage to the house. What that means is that the floor of the garage is on the same level as the floor of the house. Now go back and look at the photos from yesterday's post. The block work ends 16" lower than the subfloor!! So I had to remind Alberto that I had told him and his block crew lead of my desire to have the garage floor on the same level as the house. So...tomorrow...the block crew will be back out here carefully tearing off the "L" block; replacing it with a course of normal 8" block, setting another course of 8" block, and then placing the "L" block back on the top.

Then there was the whole...I was on site all day. Don't I have a job? Yes I do! (thanks LeaAnn for being flexible with me!) I was scheduled to take half a day, but I took a whole and its a good thing I did. SIPS panels have been around since the 1940's or 50's, but they never have been in very wide use. This was the first SIPS job for me and for the crew. It was very important to follow the drawings...especially since we knew we had to deviate from the drawings. Beam pockets, window spacing, etc would be impacted if we didn't make our corrections (for the house being wider and longer than it was supposed to be) in the right places. However, I couldn't get the guy to take the plans seriously. Every time I turned around a few pages would be back in his truck or everything would be rolled up and tossed on the floor. If it was open to look at it would be on one stack of panels one minute on the floor the next minute or on a different stack the next.

The dude was very disorganized. I caught at least 3 or 4 panels from being installed wrong side up (the wire chases for electric go a the bottom). How many times does it take to remember that? They weren't drilling out the splines for the electric chases, weren't using enough glue, didn't have all their sill plates half an inch in from the outside edge of the floor decking (some of that I didn't know when we first started either...to be fair).... He botched the first corner (which...come to think of it we didn't ever fix), tried to skip the second corner and go straight to the third corner. If I wasn't there...maybe they would have figured it out when all was said and done, but it felt like I was herding cats most of the day.

All that...and I got a sunburn.

It was a frustrating and somehow satisfying day at the same time. Marta watched Andrew and Abigail all day. They came over to see the site a couple of times. Andrew pitched several fits because he woke up early and was really tired all day. For instance when we were unloading the trucks and the skylift started up...tantrum...I guess it scared him. Bottom line, Marta did a great job with kids, letting Andrew feel included, but keeping him out of the way at the same time. Thanks Honey!!