Journal of Progress--June 3-9

Monday, June 3, 2018

No internet since last night.  Bummer.  Spent a lot of time reading today.  In the evening we saw some of our deer friends just across the driveway where Barbara throws the vegetable waste.

Monday, June 4, 2018

Learned our internet problem was caused by Don working on these working steps into the house and stripping the phone wire.  Thankfully our repairman was out to fix it before noon today.

Built two walls today: One for each side of the stairwell. Erected both. Hard work, but the house is now almost ready for the ceiling joists! I’m gonna need to make a trip to the Home Depot in Tooele for some heavy items I didn’t want to drag up “the Slant” from Elberta to Eureka. Maybe tomorrow afternoon when it gets too hot to work. The car is air-conditioned! I need 3 sixteen-foot 2x10s, 2 eighty pound bags of concrete mix, and some random hardware. Even though it was made from a long bed pickup truck, my trailer is only eight feet long. Best I can do, I’ll still have four or five feet hanging out the back of the trailer. On a busy freeway, that could be a problem. On Hwy 36, where I might see a few cars in twenty miles, and where it’s mostly FLAT, not so much. It’s a few miles further to the HD in Tooele than it is to the one in Provo, but its MUCH less strain on the van’s transmission. And I’ve got the time!

Tuesday, June 10, 2018

This morning I dug the hole for the foundation for the secondary post to hold up the porch. Dug down all the way to the layer of native soil, which is harder than adobe clay. The same stuff that broke a tooth off of Rich’s backhoe bucket. Got it deep enough for at least eight inches of footing, and reasonably squared off and leveled. Then went shopping.

The hardest part of MY kind of shopping (i.e. in lumber yards and hardware stores) is unloading the trailer when we get home. Because I’m little and old, strong young men trip all over themselves in their anxiety to help me load my purchases into or onto the trailer. For some reason, they never follow me home to help me UNLOAD, which is usually a much harder proposition, involving not only lifting heavy items out of the trailer, but also carrying them to their destination in or around the house, then stacking them there, and often as not, protecting them too.

Today, I had sixteen-foot 2x10s, a twelve-foot 4x4 post (pressure treated, which nearly doubles the weight), and three eighty-pound bags of concrete mix. Plus a dozen 2x4s, etc. So, how does a seventy-one-year-old man with a bad back unload and transport three bags of concrete that weigh half as much as he does, without hurting his back, and without tearing the paper bags? He uses his head. The bags will slide quite safely in the trailer bed without tearing, if you put a piece of scrap plywood under them. They will slide down from the tailgate to the ground the same way, if you make a ramp out of some of the 2x4s. At the bottom of the ramp, position a dolly. Each bag slides right onto the dolly, and can them be rolled around the house to the back, where it’s needed. I made a separate trip for each bag. Piece of cake! Barbara took pictures.

Water run tomorrow, so I can mix concrete (by hand). I’ll do that the easy way too-- right in the hole. Fun!

Wednesday, June 6, 2018

Worked hard, but it doesn’t seem I got a lot done. Got water. poured the concrete footiing for the porch support. 

Prepped the walls to receive the supports for the porch roof. Cut and installed the wall supports. Cut and stood up one of the two columns-- in high wind. Scary. The column weighs as much as I do, and the only way to install it is from on top of the porch, right at the edge. Needed assistants to hold the braces. That would have made it easy, but I didn’t have any assistants. Used bar clamps, edging them up an inch at a time,  until I had the column braced in an east/west direction, then repeated the procedure for the north/south brace. Plumbed it in both directions, and nailed the braces on, just as I ran out of generator gas! Tomorrow, when the footing is dry, I’ll cut and install the pressure treated base column, and hope to install the upper corner column. Then I can start building beams.

The long beams will be made of 2 sixteen-foot 2x10s. I noticed that one seems to be drying out on one face and bending, so I turned it over-- and discovered that it has been cut into by a power saw somewhere near the middle! Why didn’t I see that at the Home Depot? It won’t seriously damage the strength of the beam, and won’t even show when it’s done, but I should have looked.

Even worse, I somehow forgot to buy the bolts for the beams, despite a written list. I can get them on Friday, but I need to build the beams now. I could glue them up and nail them, install them, then add the bolts later, but that’s not the best solution. Instead, I will do as much as I can, short of gluing, then work on other projects tomorrow, such as installing the pressure treated column, putting in  mending plates on the studs, building the basement door, and adding to the power meter box support, etc. Should have plenty to keep me busy!

Thursday, June 7, 2018

Got all the porch columns installed. Turns out two of the supports I installed yesterday are 1/8" too high. The short beams won’t be exactly level. I can:

1. remove the supports, trim them, and re-install them. LOTS of work for 1/8".

2. use the circular saw to trim them in place. Probably the best solution, but too dangerous in high winds to be doing on top of a ladder. Today we have high winds.

3. notch the beams slightly where they fit on those supports. A 1/8" notch will make no particular difference in the strength of the beam, I can work on saw horses on the ground, and I don’t have to demolish anything. 

I went with #3. It’s a compromise I can live with.

 Note the flag.  Wind is so high.

 NOte how he braces the ladder so it doesn't slip.

I’m anxious to get the porch roof framing done, so I can order the joists. Today, I got both of the short beams up, with the help of my neighbor Blaine. He showed up just in time, but had to leave before we could put up the long beam. It won’t be hard to do, even by myself, as I intend to build it in place.

Last trip to Home Depot, I bought 200 mending plates for attaching studs to rim joists. I bought the kind that don’t need nails, to save on nails. This may have been false economy, as I haven’t figured out yet how to get them attached without several dozen hammer hits as hard as I can swing the hammer. That’s for ONE plate. At this rate, instead of several hours work, it may take several weeks. Not a good trade-off. Tomorrow I’ll try using the hand sledge. Or maybe I should use a clamp instead of a hammer. If neither of those efforts work, I’ll take the plates back to Home Depot and trade for nailed plates and nails.

Noted this note in the restroom in Santaquin where we did our laundry.

Friday, June 8, 2018

Barbara has been taking early morning walks.  The Sego LIlies are in bloom abundantly.  They don't last long though.

Got the last beam up, by building it in place, just as I planned. All the main framing for the main level of the house is done! Still have some “extras” to do: metal plates (I ran out of tees and ells), plus 45º inserts at the top of the posts, which are load bearing, and even more important, are stabilizing. Also railings, which are also stabilizing. And don’t forget the stairs! 

I’ve changed my mind about the stair placement. Instead of having them come off the northwest corner and run to the north, I want them to come off the southwest corner of the porch, via a landing, and running to the north along the side of the building. This places the exit from the stairs about midway between the outhouse and the basement door, convenient to both. It also stabilizes the stairs, instead of leaving them free-standing (and thereby more fragile). My temporary ladder that I’ve been using has been in this spot, though oriented to the west, and I love its convenience. Hopefully, we won’t need to use the outhouse very much after we have electricity and running water, so direct access to it will be less important, but direct access to the basement will become even more important than it is now. Conveniently, I “goofed” and made the south bay of the porch bigger than the north bay, so it won’t even look funny. I think I was inspired to do it that way.

Now I’ve got to firm up plans for the landing and the stair footings. I already know how I’ll build the stairs. Instead of using the traditional outdoors stair plan, with stair-step sawn (and therefore weak) stringers, I’ll make mine like my ex-father-in-law Homer Hatcher made the stairs for our house in Fruita: two solid stringers, notched to take solid, 2x10 stair treads, all held together by lag screws into the ends of the treads. They’re easier to build, but require good lumber and lots of hardware. And I can anchor them with ordinary anchor blocks; no need to pour a slab. Tradeoffs. These kinds of decisions are what makes doing it yourself so much fun.

Saturday, June 9, 2018

Today I built the diagonal braces for the porch beams. I needed eight braces, but only built six, because I ran out of 4x4s. But I did get all six cut, drilled, and bolted on with lag screws, a laborious process but one that adds much stiffness to the top of the structure. I intend to also add X braces to the bottom, as “decorative” supports for the porch railing. I’ll get to work on that on Monday. We’ve had very high winds this week. Scary, even working on my new, eight foot step ladder. A couple of times, I thought I was going to be blown right off of it. I’ve been nailing metal braces to the corners of all the walls. From the winds we’re getting, those braces are not optional.