Journal of Progress--August 20-26

Monday, August 20, 2018

More deer friends, of course from last evening.  You can see five in these pictures.

 Saturday evening we were driving home from Eureka and we saw a small doe and two very tiny fawns about the size of lambs standing by the side of the road. We thought deer births were spring time events and didn't expect to see any tiny ones at this time of the year.  Barbara wanted to stop at scare them away from the road but we were too far beyond them when the thought hit.  We were very relieved Sunday morning not to see any dead deer by the side of the road.

Finished the lower rafters for the south side of the roof. Lots of work, but no major problems. Unless you consider cutting the worm-drive saw’s cord with the worm-drive saw to be a major problem. My assistant managed to do that, but I didn’t see it happen, so I’m not sure how he managed it., he only penetrated the rubber, outer layer of the cord, not even nicking the wires or their insulation. I don’t know how he managed that, either. 

 

Tomorrow I won’t have help, so will be working alone. We’ll see how many of the north rafters I get done. I did finish the first one today, and almost finished all the studs for the east gable end. Ran out of gas about 4:00 and had to quit, as Barbara had both gas cans in the car, in Payson. She returned shortly afterward, as we were cleaning up, but by then the afternoon thunderstorms were moving in, so we called it a day.

Tuesday, August 21, 2018

Worked hard until about 11:00 am, when thunderstorms came in. Not enough rain to make me quit, but way too much lightning to be working on top of a roof! Got the west gable end done, finished the east gable end, and installed a couple other rafters before quitting for an early lunch. 

 

Back to work at 1:30.  By 4:30 I had half the remaining lower rafters cut and installed. Just nine more to go! Of course, that doesn’t include building the dormer walls and it’s rafters, which will be very different from the steeply angled main rafters. My plans originally called for a gabled dormer, but there’s just too much fancy, compound cutting in a gabled dormer roof, so I have opted instead for a shed roof dormer. Not as pretty, but a lot more practical. Only problem I have with it is that my framing book requires collar ties that go to the opposite side of the roof, made of the same stock as the rafters. Instead, I plan to use collar ties that only go as far as the partition wall. To do anything else, I’d have to turn my eight-foot ceiling into a five-foot ceiling, using thirty-foot 2x6s to span the full width of the house. If the building inspector wants me to do that, I’ll tear it out and do without the dormer.

With at least the lower part of the roof line pretty well established, the building is definitely starting to look like a house! I’m having so much fun doing all the framing, it almost seems a shame to cover it all up!

Wednesday, August 22, 2018

Started sheathing the attic. Got all four corners sheathed, and about half of the west wall. Truly starting to look like a house! Had to quit work at noon due to high winds. It’s hard to work with full sheets of plywood, ‘way up in the air, in high winds. But we did it safely. Lots of rain predicted all over this part of Utah this afternoon

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Clouds are rolling in and it sure does look like rain. My friend Steve got the new carburetor on the truck, and it runs really well now. He fixed the driver’s side window, too. But now there’s a new wrinkle-- the driver’s side door lock will only unlatch from the outside, not the inside. He says it needs a new spring. He’s looking into it. Still no parking brakes. He says that he can’t fix that,  Says the whole rear brake assembly needs to be replaced, and it’ll cost around a thousand dollars. I doubt it. He said the carburetor would cost about five hundred, but it turned out to be only a little over three hundred.

Flies around here are driving us crazy. Hit ‘em with a fly swatter, and they just get up and fly away!  Sometimes they stagger around drunkenly for a second or two before flying away, but they don’t DIE. Lends a whole new meaning to the phrase, “Dying like flies.”

HUGE Rainstorm this afternoon. We had puddles an inch deep on both levels of the house, which we had to sweep out with a pushbroom. But that was NOTHING compared to the storm we are having tonight! It’s about 11:00 PM right now.Thunder and lightning continuously, on all sides. Hailstones the size of marbles, and a perfect deluge of rain. I don’t know how Barbara is sleeping through it. Lightning is crackling all around us every couple of seconds, making it almost as bright as day sometimes. I can feel a cold breeze, but all the windows are shut tight as tight can be. This trailer feels like it’s inside of a refrigerator. I’m scared to see what’s left of our house in the morning. Blasts of wind-driven rain sound like they are being shot out of a fire hose. Reminds me of flying through a squall line in a commercial airliner. Every few minutes it subsides to a normal thunderstorm, then WHAM! It’s back again. I’m wondering if the deer will survive it. I’m glad we’re insured. Storm lasted until about 12:15, but there were other storms throughout the night. Wow. 

Thursday, August 23, 2018  7:00 AM

I was scared to look at what the storms of last night did to the house, so I did. Not much damage to see. Still some puddles upstairs. Flyswatters blown off their wall hooks, but fly strip is still hanging in the downstairs. Wind outdoors blew the big, heavy wheelbarrow over, so I couldn’t see how much water was in it, but there’s about four inches in the bottom of the bathtub. Still raining a bit from the attic into the main part of the house, but there are dry spots. Fridge is still running. All of the sixteen-foot 2x6s stored in the lower part of the house are soaked. So are the stair stringers and treads. I hope they don’t all warp. They’ll be expensive to replace. Haven’t looked in the basement or the root cellar yet. Wind did blow some of the plywood stored in the attic around, but it all stayed in the attic, so the car parked in the driveway is okay. Next-door neighbor’s truck started right up this morning. No apparent hail or lightning damage to any vehicles, including this trailer, but the pickup bed and small trailer bed are wet. 

Last big storm we had fried all of Spenst Hansen’s computers, up at the top of the canyon. He said it cost him thousands of dollars to replace them, but fortunately all the data was backed up. My data is not backed up, but this computer is obviously still okay, as is the Yeti power center, the solar panels, and the charge controller. Electronics weren’t affected by all the lightning last night. I’m surprised.

 

The mason we hired began working on our hearth for our wood stove.  

 

His dog's name is Dirt.

Friday, August 24, 2018

Drew up plans for the dormer north wall, using a 36": x 36" window, and cut out all the pieces. Then discovered that I had planned (and ordered) a 48"x48" window, so I have to see what changes I need to make. I suspect that I can get by with just replacing the 36" bottom rail with a 48" one, and building a 51" header to replace the 39" header I just made. I’ll also have to cut the under-window cripples down, maybe make an extra one. Not too bad. I’m guessing about an extra hour’s work. Problem is, I don’t have any extra 2x4s. I need to go to Stockton to buy used lumber anyway, so maybe I’ll get that done tomorrow. But there’s a hitch.

This afternoon we drove the truck to Salt Lake City to buy a window we had special ordered for the dining area, towing the trailer to bring back the 1400 gallon water cistern we had ordered. I told Barbara that it’s twelve feet long, but she doesn’t really get numbers. She was flabbergasted when she saw how big it was! I originally intended to put the tank in the truck, and the window and other stuff in the trailer, but couldn’t open the truck tail gate, so had to put the tank in the trailer. Drove all the way back from SLC, towing a trailer with a 1400 gallon tank in it. 

 Putting in the last rafter.

 

I LOVE that truck! I never even had to gear down, coming up the slant from Elberta. Fourth gear the whole way, except for the 30 mph S-turns, where thirty is just too slow for foutth gear. It never lugged or overheated at all! Drives very smooth, with just tiny pressure changes on the gas and steering wheel. Replaced the battery at Walmart-- they’d sold me the wrong one. Cost to replace, ZIP. Checked the mileage. Heavy traffic and load, got ten mpg. Not too bad for a 33 year old V8.

Scott, our brick mason, finished the hearth, but also discovered a HUGE tarantula in the house among the bricks. We caught it in a Mason jar. How appropriate! They creep me out. We’ll give this one away, or release it miles away, if it survives.

 

As we were leaving, got an impromptu visit from Verle, the building inspector. He was in the area and wanted to show his wife what’s going on in Mammoth. I told him there are rumors that he’s retiring this year. He says he has no plans to quit. He likes what he sees. He also says he’ll try to prod Rocky Mountain Power to get us going on our electricity. Yeah!

We went to Salt Lake and picked up our custom window for our dining room and then over to pick up the Moby, our great white whale.  It was close to unbelievable driving back to Mammoth with this in our much too small trailer.  We quickly got out of the crazy traffic on 1-15.

Now, we have this huge, HEAVY cistern in the trailer, that we have to put somewhere until we can get the hole dug and get it connected. Also, have this big picture window in the back of the truck we need to install. THEN, maybe, I can go to Stockton and buy lumber, which I need before I can do much more framing on Monday, when my helper is coming. It’s so much more fun doing everything myself, at my own pace, instead of having to play contractor, which I just HATE. Fortunately, my assistant is going back to college to finish his degree, so I’ll only have his help two days a week. Hooray!

It’s not that I dislike him, or don’t want to finish the house quickly. I like him a lot, and I’m desperate to get closed in. I just want to work on my own schedule.

Saturday, August 25, 2018

Got some neighborhood help in off-loading Moby.

 Don is actually slowing driving the truck forward as Moby slides off.

 It was lifted off the last ridge.

 They rolled it into place,

 We now have to fill it up to make sure there are no leaks.  Our hole digger is coming next week so we can bury Moby.

Big trip to Tooele. I released the tarantula on the way, in the middle of the desert, as intended, far, far, FAR away from any people. Took the truck, which now has a working battery and driver’s side window. Next fix, driver’s side inside door latch. Right now, you have to start the engine, roll down the driver’s side window (it’s electric), reach out the window, open the door from the outside latch, then turn off the motor, put the transmission in first gear (no parking brake), and then, you can get out of the truck. Especially not fun if it’s raining.

There are advantages and disadvantages to having a big truck, that will pull a big trailer. The advantage is, you can haul two truck loads at a time. This is a real advantage when your source of building supplies is an hour’s drive away. Hauling two pickup loads at a time saves at least two hours per trip. The disadvantage is equally simple: you have to unload both of those truckloads, usually without help. Right now, most of the work is taking place in the attic, which means both truckloads have to be shoved, tossed, or carried up a ladder to the second floor. 

I stopped in Stockton and got a truck and trailer load of lumber, then went on to Tooele and bought four eighty-pound sacks of mortar mix for the mason to use in building our hearth. That’s an extra 320 pounds to unload. I unloaded just one bag, felt my back starting to go out on me, and let the mason unload the rest. But the hearth looks gorgeous.

 

Here’s a picture of the truckload, unloaded and stacked in the attic. You can see four stacks of twelve boards --eight-foot 2x6s-- plus another stack of 2x6s that are more than eight feet long. It’s higher than the other stacks, because there were a few left over from the last load. Those are just the boards from the truck.

The trailer contained about the same weight of lumber, only in longer boards. I unloaded all of it but three of the four sacks by myself.

 

Gorgeous sunset this evening.