29 June 2018
The Long Ridge crew (Victor Fifield, Kyle, Karl,
Ryan, and Trey Hood) arrived promptly at 7:30, with the first (of two)
Cararra’s concrete trucks getting here at 8.
By 9:30, 12 cubic yards of 4,000 psi concrete were in the forms. Victor and Ryan stayed until 2:30 to do the
final finish work. End result is a nice
smooth floor. Final step was to put
HydaCure® membrane over the new concrete, which I will have to soak
with water three times a day for the next week.
The concept here is that if the concrete is kept wet then it will cure
evenly and not crack. Good concept!
27 June 2018
Doing a reverse spin on Murphy’s Law, Chree and
I did not take her car down to Brandon yesterday afternoon to drop it
off for a scheduled brake job, figuring that would ensure that Long Ridge would
get started on forming the barn concrete slab first thing this morning. Sure enough, Larry Kaufmann called at 7 to
say he and his crew would be here in an hour.
So Chree and I scrambled to get her car down to the shop. On the way back to Fern Lake, we picked up a
young lady hitchhiker (yes, in Vermont, people still get about with their
thumbs). She wanted to go up to Brandon
Gap to continue her through hike on the Long Trail. Thinking we didn’t have enough time to drive
up there and back, we dropped her off in Goshen and hurried back to the
house. Big mistake! If we’d driven the extra distance, Larry
would have arrived early. Because we
hurried home, he and his guys (Kyle Cram, Karl Kaufmann, and Ryan Sweeney)
didn’t show up until 9:30. By just after
noon they had installed the concrete forms for the barn thickened edge slab,
put down an anti-moisture barrier of 6 mill poly, laid down a layer of 6″ steel
mesh, and put in two runs of #4 rebar (reinforcement for the thickened
edge). Knowing that the building
footprint had moved somewhat (again!) when the forms were put up, went out
after lunch to verify that the electrical conduits still were properly
located. Good thing I checked! Moving the building meant that each conduit would
have come up through the concrete precisely under a wall stud… a big
no-no. So spent a half hour wrestling
the conduits into positions where they will protrude into the wall cavities
exactly halfway between studs. Oh, the
joys of being your own building designer!
25 June 2018
Liam Murphy arrived first thing and pulled the
accumulated radon test data out of his machine.
Great news! The highest sample
was .7 pCi/L and the average of the hourly samples over the long weekend was .2
pCi/L. With the Vermont State Health
Department recommended maximum being 4.0 pCi/L, we are no longer glowing in the
dark. Major procurement run to Lowes in
South Burlington this morning for much of the electrical paraphernalia that the
barn will need. Upon return, reinstalled
a 20 amp GFI outlet and associated circuit breaker on the outdoor pedestal
where our main electrical breaker is located… which just happens to be in close
proximity to the barn build site. Larry
Kaufmann called this evening with a tale of woe, the bottom line of which is
that he and his crew won’t be here to frame and pour the concrete until after
July 4th.
24 June 2018
I have GOT to stop waking up! No, really!
This time zero-dark-thirty reveille came with the realization that the
design for the barn storage loft (and the stairs leading thereto) just wasn’t
going to work because of a conflict with the beams that will be holding up the ceiling
joists. Bother! So spent much of the morning figuring out a
new design that would work, albeit with the bottom of the stairs not in close
proximity to the people door, as I had wanted from the get go. Oh, well!
That done, built four electrical outlet “junction boxes” out of ½″ pressure
treated plywood. I like my outlets to be
standardized (Mr. Type A here) with their tops 18″ above the floor, but two of
the concrete curbs (on the up slope west and south sides of the building) will
be 34¾″ high, so those “boxes” with an 18″ length of ½″ PVC conduit sticking
out the top, will have to be placed inside the forms before the concrete for
those two walls is poured.
22 June 2018
Liam Murphy came by at 8:30 and set up his
short-term radon testing device in the utility room. That device will sample the air once an hour
for the next three days. Stay tuned for
results… Late morning met Tammy Walsh
(and her stone wall building crew) over at Steve Ingram’s where I traded a nice
bottle of Riesling for quick use of her plate compactor. Not only is compacting stone much easier with
the machine, the stone ends up much firmer than with a hand tamp… no
surprise. In fact, after a thorough
beating, the barn floor elevation will end up being 1½″ lower than I had
planned originally… which is a change in a good direction. En route to picking 20 pounds of strawberries
in the hot sun (I now have much stronger respect for migrant farm workers),
stopped by Green Mountain Electric (where else?) to get another 1″ PVC
coupling. Finished the conduit run upon
return to Fern Lake.
21 June 2018
Made my daily stop at Green Mountain Electric
where, for a whopping 69 cents, the good folks there sold me the special
reducing washers needed to create a 1¼″ hole from a 1¾″ electrical panel
knockout. Problem solved! They also sold me the special frost-heave sleeve
that I needed for the conduit because, believe it or not, the ground does move
up and down quite a bit hereabouts in the winter. Spent much of the afternoon moving stone,
by hand, from point A to point B putting the finishing touches on the compacted
stone base for the barn foundation. Called
and left a message with Long Ridge Concrete that we’re now officially ready for
their ministrations. In case you didn’t
know, it’s a lot easier to compact stone with a gasoline-powered plate
compactor than it is with a manually operated 8″ hand tamp. After the foundation stone base was done (and a thing of beauty it
surely is), went to put the last few pieces in the 1″ PVC electrical conduit. Even though my measurements showed that I
might have just enough conduit, rather than take a chance of being royally
screwed if I was wrong on the short side, I cleverly inserted an old 7½″ piece of
PVC left over from a previous project.
But doing that used up my last coupling, which meant I was one coupling short
when I went to put in the final piece.
And, don’t you know, after cutting that last piece I ended up with 8″ of
left over conduit, so, if I had trusted my measurements, I would have had
exactly the right amount of materials to finish the job. Grrrr!
Chree and I sucked a string through the conduit and then pulled a rope
through, said rope to be used to pull the 4 AWG wire that eventually will
provide power to the barn electrical subpanel.
20 June 2018
Woke up at 3 am just knowing that the banks on
the south and west side of the barn-build site were going to be much too close
to the barn walls to allow the concrete forms to be placed and (Chree’s
favorite job!) those concrete walls to be tarred (but not feathered) later on. Couldn’t excavate the west bank (full of
roots for some trees we’re trying not to kill) so Chree and I moved the foundation
marking stakes 6″ east. I was just
starting to dig the bejesus out of the south bank with the Kubota when Liam
Murphy from LTM Environmental arrived to install our new radon abatement
fan. That job quickly and easily
accomplished thanks to the Steve Ingram Memorial Attic Walkway, went back to
playing in the dirt. Moving the building
meant, of course, that a lot of the stone so carefully placed and compacted
yesterday now was in the wrong location.
So, idiot sticks in hand, scavenged stone from where there was too much
and moved it to where there wasn’t enough.
Also had a middle-of-the-night epiphany about how to bore the hole under
the stone wall using my 3,000 psi pressure washer. Took an hour of alternating water blasting
with pounding some more with my steel bar and hand scooping muck and stones out
of the hole, but eventually a piece of 1″ PVC conduit slipped under the stone wall
pretty as you please. Connected the
conduit from the barn back towards the main electrical panel, but stopped a few
feet short to figure out how I was going to connect the 1″ male box connecter
(whose outside diameter actually is 1¼″) to the panel, whose smallest knockout
is for 1½″ conduit. Figured I’d just
drill (very carefully) a 1¼″ hole in the bottom of the panel. Only problem is that I don’t have a 1¼″ drill
bit, never mind one for drilling metal.
When in danger or in doubt run in circles, scream and shout call
Perry! All Perry has is a 1¼″ spade bit
(good for drilling holes in wood but quickly ruined drilling in metal), so he
suggested I ask the Green Mountain Electric folks for their ideas. Now why didn’t I think of that?!?!
19 June 2018
Was almost finished with my morning coffee just
before 8 am when Jim Ploof’s big dump truck deposited 14 cubic yards of ¾″
washed stone on the barn driveway. Spent
the rest of the day spreading and compacting that stone in a layer 6″ thick
under where the barn foundation concrete slab will be poured. My calculations (now there’s a hopeless
cause) said that I would need 12 yards for that area and thickness… leaving 2
yards to spread around for the barn driveway.
Ran short of stone, OF COURSE, before finishing the barn area. Took the plate compactor back to Taylor
Rental and went to Green Mountain Electric to trade in the 1½″ PVC conduit and
fittings for the 1″ variety that I should have bought originally. Back at Fern Lake, renewed the attack on the
hole under the stone wall through which the conduit must go. Tried pounding my 4 foot solid steel rock
persuader (formerly a Model T axle that my grandfather made into a pry bar)
through using my big sledge hammer.
Great exercise and some progress, but no daylight. Eventually gave up that endeavor in favor of
an ice-cold adult beverage.
18 June 2018
Ordered the windows and people-door for the barn
from Goodro’s this morning. Those items
certainly haven’t gotten less expensive over the past three years! Went with Anderson 400 series casements again
as the only difference between the 400 series and the 200 series is that the
400 series has low e glass… and costs about $25 more. Stayed with ThermaTru for the people door,
same as is in the woodshed, sauna, and house.
They make a quality door for a reasonable price. Also bought $100 worth of electrical odds and
ends from Green Mountain Electric… and then did some research upon returning
home to verify that I did, indeed, buy the wrong size conduit and
fittings. Bother! Picked up a plate compactor from Taylor
Rental, then spent the remainder of the day beating the snot out of the barn
footer trenches and the area that will be under the floor slab. Ran a string line around the perimeter of the
foundation site to verify that I did, indeed, not dig the trenches wide enough
on three of the four sides. Discovered
that using a shovel-ended idiot stick gives you a great abdominal workout…
especially when the heat index is 95 degrees.
In the midst of sweating bullets, thunder started to rumble and a few
drops began to fall. Scrambled to get
all the tools and equipment under cover.
Literally the second I finished putting everything away the sun came
out. Next time it started to rumble I
didn’t rush quite as fast… and got soaked as a result. Go figure!
17 June 2018
Finished (sort of) the wood walkway. The reason for the “sort of” is that, while
there now is a continuous wood walking surface from the patio to the dock, 300
feet of walkway deck boards have shrunk to the point that the 1″ gap between
adjacent boards is painful to walk on with bare feet. Those gaps, originally ½″, all need to be
tightened up to 3/16″… a project for another day. Had a few extra minutes after the walkway was
done, so quickly built a retaining wall on the west side of the lower
“driveway” immediately south of the section of walkway just completed. Amazingly (yeah, right!) only had to import
one rock to make that wall, all the other stones were just lying right there in
the woods.
16 June 2018
All I had to do this morning was dig the final
footer trench. Took me three tries
before I got it in the right place and the right depth! Ace backhoe operator! Then I rough graded the “driveway” that will
connect our paved driveway to the barn door.
That was done by mid-afternoon, so transitioned to working on the wood
walkway. Had to take up the 2x6 planks I
installed the other day in order to pound sand… literally. Each plank has to sit firmly on firm ground
if they hope to survive being driven over by Delores (she tips the scales at somewhat
over 15,000 pounds). After just a few
minutes the handle on my hand tamp broke clean off. (Obviously all that time in the gym is
starting to pay off.) Took awhile to
figure out how to get the stub out of the base and then reverse-engineer how
the handle was being kept in the base.
All the cool weather this past week has dropped the lake temperature
back to 70°... which still felt
pretty wonderful after playing in the dirt all day.
15 June 2018
Perry dropped off the laser level range rod
first thing in the morning. The good
news: my eye for flat is pretty darn good.
The bad news: the barn-build site was consistently 5″ higher than what I
want. So spent the entire afternoon
scraping the site down and then re-digging the footer trenches. So by close of business I was right back to
where I left off yesterday, just 5″ lower.
Of course, this being the rock capital of the world, I dug up several
bucket-loads of nuggets. Those were
piled up on the north side of the house where yet another stone wall needs
building.
14 June 2018
Dug three of the four footer trenches for the
barn, scraped the center of the footprint down a few inches, and leveled off
the area. All done by eye... and looks
pretty darn flat to me. Perry came by
after work with his laser level and gave me a quick operating lesson. He forgot to bring the range rod that goes
with the laser level, so it’ll be a day before we can accurately judge just how
good is my “eye”. Any side bets? Chree, sweetheart that she is (she seriously
dislikes shopping for hardware), visited just about every lumber yard and
hardware store in a 15 mile radius and finally found the special 3″star-drive deck
screws needed to finish the wood walkway.
13 June 2018
Did some scratching around in the dirt in the
morning before the rain started. Mostly
removed overburden from the barn-build site.
Thought I’d be clever and put the excess dirt in the Tacoma’s bed rather
than schlep one Kubota bucket load at a time out to where it is needed
alongside Lake Dunmore Road. Turned out
to be a not-so-clever idea, as it took far longer to hand-shovel all that dirt
out of the truck bed than it would have taken to drive the Kubota back and
forth a half dozen times. Good exercise,
though!
10 June 2018
Worked most of the day on the final section of
the wood walkway. Would have had it
finished except that I ran out of the 3″ star-drive deck screws that hold the
2x6 planks to the longitudinal supports.
9 June 2018
Got started on the last section of the wood
walkway. After considerable
head-scratching, finally figured out that three small (4½″) steps are needed
(two at the upper end and one at the lower end) to keep the side hill pitch
within reasonable limits where the walkway crosses the lower driveway. Minimizing side hill pitch is critical
because someday a septic system service tank truck will need to drive over the
walkway to access the tanks buried in the backyard. Delores, as well, has to enter that area once
a year to have her sanitary system tanks emptied. At 12:30 Jim Ploof arrived with his largest
excavator (John Deere 160). In literally
less than a minute he rolled the first 11 ton boulder out of the ground. Then the fun began! Seems the first boulder’s shorter but dumpier
sister was a tad plumper than I thought.
In fact, she was positively obese… at least twice the size of the first
rock. Jim worked for an hour, but, in
the end, all he could do was dig an enormous hole next to that bad girl, roll
the porker into the hole, and cover her back up… a couple of feet deeper than
before. In digging halfway to China Jim
encountered a few nuggets (this is Leicester, after all) but mostly all he excavated
was the most perfect pea gravel I’ve ever seen.
6 June 2018
Note in the picture that the beam above the
completed walkway has been painted with low headroom warning stripes. Even though I absolutely knew there was only
5′ 1″ clearance between the beam and the walkway, that didn’t stop me from
smacking my nose on the beam, drawing blood, while finishing installing
electrical wiring and fixtures. About
the same time, one of my best screwdrivers went missing out of my tool
belt. Searched the piles of cellulose
insulation alongside the walkway to no avail… you could probably hide a body
under that stuff and never find it.
Sometime later, while applying paint masking tape to the beam, dropped
the roll… which landed right next to the missing screwdriver. What are the odds?!?!
5 June 2018
Spent the morning at the gym (50th
high school reunion coming up in August!) and making a food run… we were totally
out of tonic water, not to mention low on ice cream! Steve Ingram (neighbor, good friend, sauna aficionado)
came over just after noon and, in two hours, we totally trashed the place
built the attic walkway. All the fuzzy
dots in the picture are backscatter from cellulose dust in the air… which is
why respirators were de rigueur while working on high. Inquiring minds want to know: is there any
cellulose left in the attic? The answer:
what happens in the attic stays in the attic.
Right, Steve? After Steve left, I
did most of the wiring for the new attic light and outlet, getting the mess of
spaghetti (12 wires) in the main junction box sorted out correctly the first
time. Even a blind squirrel…
4 June 2018
Spent much of the day in the house attic wearing
a respirator. Again you wonder, what does
that have to do with building a barn or a stone wall? The answer, again, is nothing. But flash back to the end of May 2014 when,
at Tom Whittaker’s suggestion, I put a holey PVC pipe under the basement concrete
slab “just in case” we ever had a radon problem. Then in May 2016, when the rest of the house
plumbing was installed, we ran 3″ PVC pipe from that under-slab holey pipe up
to the attic. I also ran a dead-end
electrical wire up into attic “just in case”.
Well, for the last two winters we’ve been testing the air in the utility
room for radioactivity. The first winter
was with no radon abatement, ‘cause the pipe was capped off in the attic. The test results letter that came back from
the Vermont Department of Health in March 2017 started off, “We’re all going to
die, but with the radon levels in your house, you’re going to die sooner.” Actually, the letter reported that we had a
radon gas measurement of 13.4 picocuries per liter (pCi/L) of indoor air,
rather higher than the 4.0 pCi/L maximum recommended level. Not good news! So, last summer Tom Morrissey (remember Uncle
Tom?) and I uncapped the PVC pipe and ran it through the roof on the north side
of the house. Doing that established
what’s known as a passive radon abatement system. Tested the air quality again this past
winter. We got the test results in early
May. This time the letter just said,
“Die!” No, no, the letter really said we
now have 21.9 pCi/l, a 63% increase in radon gas level. Obviously, something ain’t kosher. Equally obviously, we now need an active
abatement system (aka an in-line fan that sucks contaminated air from beneath
the slab (remember the holey pipe?) and exhausts it out the roof pipe). But before that can be installed, I need to
build a walkway, above the 14″ of attic cellulose insulation, from the access
hatch over to the radon pipe, plus wire in an attic light and 110 volt
outlet. So, shoveled a path through the
cellulose (hence the respirator), took necessary measurements and did a
back-of-the-envelope design, then Shlomo and I went to Goodro’s for
lumber. Always a fun time… and dogs love
trucks! The rest of the day was spent making
sawdust crafting the saddles that will support the walkway… and tracking
cellulose insulation all over the carpets that I shampooed two days ago. It’s a good thing Chree is over in Maine
visiting her parents this week!
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