30 July 2018

Shlomo and I met Perry at his nearby job-site first thing this morning and borrowed his electric hand planer.  Using that handy device (tee, hee) slowly but surely transformed the 2x12 bevel hack job into an acceptable looking end result.  Then re-glued and added many extra lag screws to three areas of the eastern 24′ mid-span beam as the tops of the two LVL’s were spread apart up to ½″.  Since the strength of that beam depends on the two LVL’s being tightly bonded to each other, figured I’d better fix that problem ASAP.  Had lots more fun (again) shoveling and raking level the west side of the barn foundation.  Then started to backfill the electric conduit trench on the house side of the stone wall, plus dig out the bottom of one of the 4x4 posts that I want to move so that I can cut down the main electric pedestal once the sub-panel is moved into the barn.  Don’t recall this being done, but it sure looks like the bottom end of that 4x4 has been encased in concrete.  WTF, over!  Also the pedestal was put together with Phillips head screws… buried deep.  Let’s just say it’s a good thing I own a Sawzall… and I’m not thinking kind thoughts about the guys who built that structure.  Ian Birkett will be sad to hear this, but had to disassemble my trusty Craftsman radial arm saw (which has served faithfully and without complaint for over 40 years, Ian’s opinion notwithstanding) and, late this afternoon, took the motor and head to a machinist for some minor repairs.

29 July 2018

Two of my pet peeves are (1) carpenters who drive screws so deep that, as soon as the least moisture swells the wood, the screw heads just flat disappear and (2) carpenters who just grab any old screw in their pouch to put in a piece of wood instead of getting a handful of the screws being used for everything else on the project.  Do you sense a rant coming?  First thing this morning went to convert the ceiling joist trapezoid into a rectangle.  With some difficulty, removed the joist hanger (6 nails fastened into the LVL, so holding very tenaciously).  Then went to take out the two screws holding the end of the joist to the LVL.  Both driven almost to China and no matter what angle I held the impact driver bit, they just wouldn’t come out.  Grrrr…  Used my knife to pare away the fibrous overburden to discover that someone (not me) had used star-drive instead of square-drive screws on this joist.  Double grrrr!  After the joist was moved and refastened, took out my frustrations by drilling more holes to accommodate electrical wiring.  Then I decided to get artsy (big mistake!) by beveling off the ends of the two 2x12’s that will catch the top of the barn staircase.  Only problem (other than that I’m an idiot for even trying this) was that my trusty Skilsaw only cuts 2¼″ deep… and, of course, the depth of two 2x’s is 3″, so you have to cut the bevels from both sides.  Obviously, there wasn’t a snowballs chance that the four cuts (two for each bevel) would line up.  So tried to fix the resulting disaster with my jigsaw.  Made thing even worse!  Withdrawing from the field of battle with tail between my legs, after lunch used the Kubota to roughly backfill the barn foundation on the south and west sides, stealing fill back from the space aliens.  (They didn’t seem to mind…)  Then had lots of fun (sic) raking the south side smooth and level.  That done, decided the lake and sauna needed my attention more than the west side of the barn.

28 July 2018

Put up a bunch more hangers on the ceiling joists we hung yesterday, discovering in the process that we managed to create another trapezoid by putting one joist on the wrong side of the mark.  Also filled a few empty holes where joist hanger nails should have been hammered in yesterday…  Ended the day by drilling lots more holes in the joists for electrical wiring runs.

27 July 2018

Sonny and Ty Zimmerman arrived shortly before 7; so much for my beauty rest!  We continued putting up the ceiling joists, getting all but the framing around the staircase done before lunch.  Sean came by mid-morning to review progress.  While he was here, Sean used his clout to expedite the order I had placed with Goodro’s this morning, as work was going to come to a screeching halt unless we got some 2x12’s for the staircase header… 2x12’s I hadn’t ordered until Sonny and Ty explained that the stairs would fall down without them.  What’s the architect versus carpenter score now?  Sean also brought the news that Goose Creek’s further efforts on the barn will be suspended until the week after next.  Perfectly understandable.  Though it’s a story too long to relate here, those who have heard the local news know about the fire in Cornwall last week that severely damaged a 7,000 square foot house… that Goose Creek had just about finished renovating.  After lunch Sonny, Ty, and their cheap-labor assistant brain-stormed the staircase header framing (the architect’s design didn’t pass muster… again!), then built that critter.  With black clouds rolling in, we put away all nonessential tools and materials, then cut and installed the ¾″Advantech^® flooring for the 8′ x 12′ barn loft area.  With perfect timing, it didn’t start to rain until the after-work adult restoratives had been consumed.

 

26 July 2018

Late afternoon, after the rain had abated and while I was busy scavenging mud fill to put around the west side of the barn foundation, Perry stopped by to see how the construction was progressing.

25 July 2018

No geese today.  In spite of that, accomplished quite a bit: finished putting in all of the wall blocking (doing a much more professional job this time around), tidied up the already-run electrical wires, and then put hangers on the east ends of all the joists Sonny and I installed yesterday.  That latter job would have been a bit less frustrating if many of the screws holding the joists to the 24′ LVL hadn’t been right where the joist hanger toe nails had to go.  Final score: 19 nails bent and pulled for 14 hangers installed.  Sonny called at the end of the day to say there would be no geese again tomorrow due to forecast heavy rain.

24 July 2018

Sonny arrived, per usual, at 7.  We first put in all the cripples between the top plate and the overhead door header.  As we finished that task, the Goodro’s truck arrived with most of what I had ordered… and a promise (that was kept) to bring the other items later in the day.  Sonny and I then straightened the east and west walls, installing the second top plate on all the walls as we went… but forgetting until much too late that we had intended to shim those plates so that they were perfectly level.  Checked with the laser level and, sure enough, there is a ¼″ elevation difference between the northwest and southeast corners at the top plate level, a difference that will have to be corrected when we cut the bird’s mouths for the roof rafters.  (The bird’s mouth is the notch cut into a rafter so it sits down flat on the wall top plate.)  In the midst of that activity, Jeff Many from Green Mountain Door came by to scope out the framing preparatory to giving me an estimate for the 8′ x 16′ overhead barn door.  Found out that the Wayne-Dalton 8300 series doors installed in the woodshed and house garages were made in China (boo, hiss!!!), but there is a very similar overhead door made in Canada that is competitively priced.  We’re definitely buying Canadian for the barn!  Sonny and I then put in all the west wall blocking.  That is to say, Sonny put in 11 perfectly aligned blocks in the time it took me to put in 3 very amateur-installed blocks.  Guess that’s why he gets paid the big bucks!  After lunch, we put up the inverse flange joist hangers on the west wall, then hung the 2x6 ceiling joists between the west wall and the westerly mid-span 24′ LVL, straightening the LVL as we went.  By quitting time we both were in desperate need of liquid refreshment.  After Sonny left (and I had mowed the lawn) there also was desperate need for some lake time.

23 July 2018

Luther and Sonny arrived promptly at 7.  A quick inspection determined that somebody (probably me) put the top of the east wall end stud on the wrong side of the mark, i.e. 1½″ out of position.  With two screws pulled and a tap-tap with a hammer on the stud, the wall became a rectangle.  Miracles do happen!  With an assist from Dave Todd (across the street neighbor who was over to check on progress), the fourth 14″ x 24′ LVL was quickly hoist into position.  Then we put up the two 16″ x 16′ 7″ LVL’s that form the overhead door header.  Piece of cake!!!!  While Sonny and Luther checked to see if the walls still were plumb and straight, I installed four king studs that secure the 24′ LVL’s laterally, but that we had left out when we built the north and south walls so we could slip the LVL’s into position.  (Pat-on-the-back-note: We ended up with exactly the right number of rough cut 2x4’s needed for the wall studs.  Talk about luck perfect planning!)  Sonny ventured forth to scavenge staging from other Goose Creek work sites.  As soon as Sonny (or should that be: Sunny?) left, it started raining.  Luther put up the bottom top plate over the garage door and laid out the cripple positions while I chopped “scrap” rough cut 2x4’s into the length needed for those cripples.  (For non-carpenters: cripples are short wall studs that distribute the top plate load down to a door or window header.)  Awaiting Sonny’s return and thoroughly drenched, Luther and I took shelter in the woodshed and did a back-of-the-envelope design for the barn staircase.  At 11:30 the prodigal returned, was quickly unloaded, then, with rain continuing unabated, he and Luther departed for dryer climes, i.e., lunch at Rosie’s Restaurant courtesy of the Sean (aka: The Boss).  At 2:30 the sun came out!  So out to the barn went I, swept the lake off the floor, and started putting in wall blocking.  Got three blocks in when rain started again.  At 4 the sun made an encore appearance, so out went I once again.  This time I didn’t even get all the water off the floor before the next deluge.  So spent the rest of the afternoon checking over the staircase design, catching a few errors, and calling Goodro’s repeatedly to add items to my order for delivery tomorrow.

22 July 2018

Made a run to Burlington to raid Lowe’s and Home Depot for sundry hardware items.  After returning mid-afternoon, finished drilling electrical wiring holes in already-installed wall studs.  Perry came for our weekly sauna, which facilitated a valuable discussion about how to best install the barn ceiling joists so that they also can serve as collar ties for the walls.  (Tech Speak: when the roof has many, many tons of snow on it, the downward pressure wants to squish (that’s a carpentry term) the building flat by pushing out the tops of the walls.  Bad juju!  While joists normally experience a vertical load, collar ties keep the wall tops from moving outward and thus experience a horizontal pulling load.  So, in the barn, we need to attach the joists to the 24′ LVL’s and the east and west walls in such a manner that they can withstand both vertical and horizontal loads.  Just in case you were wondering, the 24′ LVL’s are the collar ties for the north and south walls.  See, that wasn’t so hard…)

21 July 2018

With a few minutes to spare before moving on to other Saturday chores, started to put in the wall blocking.  First block fit snug at the bottom of the east wall but was an inch too short at mid-span.  Standing back a bit, was obvious that the wall was a trapezoid instead of a rectangle.  So stopped the blocking install and instead spent an hour drilling holes in studs for the electrical wiring runs.

20 July 2018

Sonny and Luther arrived at 7.  We got straight to work framing the rest of the walls.  By noon the north, west, and south walls were done, with only the gap above the east wall garage door opening needing to be framed.  The two geese then straightened and plumbed all the walls, attaching bracing in each corner to hold everything in position.  That done, we put the first 14″ x 24′ LVL on the Kubota’s forks and hoisted it skywards… discovering that at the tractor’s highest reach the LVL was 3′ lower than it needed to be.  But, strong and clever guys that we are, the LVL was quickly and easily muscled into position atop its supporting jack studs.  A second LVL soon followed, which was glued and screwed to its sister.  A few minutes later, the third 24′ LVL was in position.  All was going too smoothly…  I was out fetching the fourth LVL when I looked back at the barn and saw, quite clearly, that LVL numero tres was not parallel with numeros uno and dos.  After a bit of head scratching, we discovered that an unnamed person (what happens in the barn stays in the barn) had cut one set of jack studs for the south wall 3⁵⁄₁₆″ longer than for the north wall.  Why 3⁵⁄₁₆″?  Because that is the offset between the beam and the base on the laser level being used to ensure all the walls, jacks, and openings are the right height.  Nothing for it but to get out the Sawzall and cut through the hidden screws holding the high end of the LVL in place, then cut off the offending too tall jacks, and lower the LVL down to the proper level.  On that note, it was Miller time, followed shortly thereafter by lake time.

 

19 July 2018

Luther and Sonny pulled in shortly before 7.  As they got to work continuing the north wall framing, I boogied to Green Mountain Electric Supply (AWG 12-2 wire and ½″ EMT conduit), Goodro’s (more PL Premium adhesive and 2x6 PT lumber), and Carrara Concrete (¾″ washed stone).  Even though the bed wasn’t full, had to stop the bucket loader putting stone into the bed of the Tacoma when the front wheels looked to be in danger of leaving the ground.  However, was able to steer the truck back to Fern Lake by touching the brakes at regular intervals.  There, I looked at the load slip.  Seems I was carrying 2,660 pounds of stone in a truck rated for 1,150 pounds.  Ooops!  Then, while Sonny and Luther admired my sweat-soaked physique prowess, I spent a fun-filled hour shoveling all that stone out of the truck and into the trenches alongside the walls.  The Goodro’s truck came by mid-afternoon bringing another thousand dollars worth of lumber.  By quitting time we had finished framing the north wall and ⅔ of the west wall.  After the guys left, used the Kubota to backfill around the west and south walls, discovering that space aliens have made off with a lot of the dirt needed to complete that process.  Hmmm…

 

18 July 2018

Luther Corcoran from Goose Creek got here at 8:30 and his partner in crime, Sonny Torrey, pulled in at 11.  Was great to see them again as both are hard-working and very experienced master carpenters… and just plain nice people!  Before Sonny arrived, Luther and I went over the building plans, location of materials, then double checked the concrete wall lengths and “squareness”.  The measurements weren’t as bad as what Chree and I found the other day but, that said, the barn walls will be officially 24′ ³/₁₆″ long.  Then we got to work laying out and installing the pressure treated 2x6 wall sole plates.  After lunch we first built and erected the framing for the two short walls that will be either side of the overhead door and then the first section of the north wall.  Because Luther wanted to use a two-bottom-plate construction technique (which, after pondering, made a lot of sense), the barn will be 1½″ taller than designed.  That change also raised the window sills ½″.  In reviewing that impact, the not-so-brilliant building designer realized that there will be no room under the windows for the electric wires that need to feed the outlets that will be in the concrete walls centered under the windows.  Fortunately, Luther quickly figured out how we could cut a channel for the wire in the upper bottom plate.  Goose Creek, 1: Architect, on probation!   

17 July 2018

No Goose Creek folks today ‘cause of forecast rain.  In fact it did sprinkle a bit this morning, but the major deluge (1″ in 20 minutes) didn’t hit until after quitting time.  C’est la vie!  Spent some quality time in the shop this morning making the window jack studs.  In order for the window rough openings to be the correct height and width in the locations I want them, those jack studs need to be exactly 48½″ long and 1¹¹⁄₁₆″ thick.  Enter, stage left, my thickness planer.  In the course of making those jacks, discovered three things: (1) the Orkin pest control treatment of the raw lumber drying in the wood shed was decidedly less than effective, (2) in less than two months the rough cut hemlock 2x4’s have dried to a considerable degree and are reasonably straight (J!), and (3) my 40+ year old radial arm saw finally needs some professional repairs if I want it to cut straight and true again.  Until I was chased indoors by the deluge (see above; also a whiskey and ginger was calling my name), did some more work on the wood walkway this afternoon.

16 July 2018

A quick trip to Goodro’s made me the richer by one 6″ J-bolt (the J portion of which soon was cut off, leaving a ½″ galvanized threaded rod 5½″ long), some 3,200 psi Gorilla^® glue epoxy, and a new ½″ concrete drill bit… plus the 2½″ star-drive wood walkway screws that I ran out of yesterday.  Literally a few minutes after returning to Fern Lake, the missing sole plate tie-down bolt had been drilled and glued into place.  Doing the math, the pulling force that that bolt should be capable of withstanding is more than 7 tons.  Thing that’ll do!  Then got out the Kubota and backfilled and graded the north and east sides of the barn foundation.

15 July 2018

Even though it’s her favorite (sic) job, somehow Chree had an important appointment in Middlebury this morning when time came to tar (but not feather) the below-ground portions of the barn south and west walls.  Used a paint roller this time, which worked surprisingly well; only got a gallon or two on me while applying the rest to the walls.  With perfect timing, Chree got back just as I was finishing.  Checked the position of all the conduit and tie-down bolts protruding from the tops of the walls to verify there would be no interference with wall studs.  Discovered that the Long Ridge crew had left out one of the tie-down bolts!  Merde alors!!!!  Also discovered that I had cleverly placed the conduit for the embedded wood electrical outlet boxes about ½″ too close to their neighboring studs.  Double merde with more alors!  On a positive note, finished moving the planks for another 40 feet of the wood walkway (whereupon I ran out of screws), enjoyed several dips in the lake (whose temperature now is a balmy 80° F), and took an extra long sauna.

 

14 July 2018

A showery Saturday, so spent a few hours meticulously reviewing all the barn construction plans and calculations, plus drawing an elevation view for the north wall.  Too exciting for mere words!

13 July 2017

Friday the 13^th started out with me having just barely (literally and figuratively) rolled out of bed when Brett and the Goodro’s trucked pulled in, bearing the 2x6 PT lumber needed for the barn sole plates.  Dressing quickly, got out to the job site just as Brett finished unloading.  Darn the luck!  After errands in Middlebury, finished parging the dirt-side south wall / floor slab seam.  Chree having gone to Rutland shopping, the parging went much better with lots of inappropriate verbal “encouragement”.

12 July 2018

Troy and the Goodro’s big boom truck delivered $4,700 worth of barn building materials mid-morning.  The first thing we’re going to need from that delivery are the 2x6x12 pressure treated (PT) lumber that will become the wall sole plates, so I looked through the piles to make sure those boards hadn’t gotten buried under something heavy, i.e., the monster LVL’s.  Finding no 2x6 PT, I asked Troy where they were.  “You ordered 2x4 PT”, he said.  “Oh, oh”, says I, (or words to that effect) scurrying into the house to get my list.  Sure enough, I had ordered 2x4’s, knowing full well that we need 2x6’s.  So Troy loaded the 2x4’s back on his truck and promised to send out some 2x6’s before Monday.  After Troy left, finished breaking off the form ties on the dirt side of the building.  After lunch, mixed up some hydraulic cement in anticipation of patching a few areas on the inside of the walls where the person tapping the forms didn’t do a very good job of getting the concrete to flow.  Who, me?  Now, you should know that working with hydraulic cement happens to be absolutely miserable, ‘cause it sets in less than a minute… literally.  So you can only make a teensy amount at a time, then by the time you scamper over to where it needs to be applied it’s getting hard already.  Worse yet, I discovered that the outside seams between the west and south walls and the floor slab (48 linear feet) are in pretty rough shape, so those seams need to be completely parged with that cement.  Many, many batches got the west wall seam done and me worn out.  Chree and I checked the poured walls for square, plumb, and level… twice.  The south wall is perfectly plumb and level and the same length as the east wall… both being ⅛″ too long.  The west wall is sort of plumb and sort of level, but ⅛″ too short.  So far, not too awful bad.  However, the north wall, which is only 11¼″ high, is out of plumb by ¾″ over that short height and is ⅜″ too long.  Not good!  And, because the concrete walls aren’t the same length, the diagonals (which are used to check that the foundation is square) differ by ⅞″.  Looks like we’ll be having some “fun” with the carpentry!

 

11 July 2018

Started work taking apart the concrete forms at the very reasonable hour of 8:30 (that last phrase for Sean’s benefit… keep reading to find out why).  While in the midst of removing the 2x12 forms, stakes, and other wood paraphernalia, the man himself arrived.  We spent an hour going over the barn building plans… and catching up on happenings over the past two years.  Sean found nothing wrong with the plans (whew!).  We also talked about the scope of work Goose Creek will do and who Sean will send down to help with the carpentry… hopefully starting next Monday morning.  Then the bad news: Goose Creek still starts work at 7 am.  Gaak!  So much for the no-alarm-clock retired life!  Soon after Sean left, just as I was about to start snipping the form ties (they have to be cut to release the pressure on the steel rods that hold the forms in place so that said rods and forms can be removed), Victor and Karl arrived… about 3 hours before I was expecting them.  With the three of us working, the rest of the forms came down quickly.  About noon-thirty, Larry and Kyle also pulled in to help finish loading all the Long Ridge material onto the trucks.  By shortly after 1, the concrete crew was gone and I started breaking off form ties. (Once the forms are off two very sharp (I have scars to prove it) metal ends protrude from the concrete; those have to be broken off flush with the wall using a hammer… and a bit of technique, which I learned during the house construction.)  After an hour of hammer swinging all the ties on the inside walls were gone… and my right forearm was completely cramped.  Guess I’d better add swinging a hammer side to side to my gym workout routine!  Finished the day lying in the sun sucking down a G&T cleaning up stray concrete and generally getting the floor slab clean enough to eat off.  Mr. Type A strikes again!   …and, yes, the G&T and BBQ chicken (cooked over a wood fire) did go down rather easily come dinnertime.

10 July 2018

Victor, Karl, Kyle, and Ryan pulled in about 1:30, followed shortly thereafter by Larry and a Carrara mixer bringing 3 yards of 3,000 psi concrete.  Even though the concrete had had extra chemicals added to make it flow more easily with less water (concrete needs water to activate the reaction that causes it to get hard, but too much water weakens the resulting structure), and the crew was using a vibrator to liquefy the mix, it still was so stiff that Larry had to have more water added, twice, to get it to spread out in the forms.  My job (besides taking pictures and staying out of the way) was to beat on the forms with a hammer to get any air bubbles away from the wall surface, i.e., more hammering = smoother walls.  Once the 28 tie down bolts were inserted and the tops of the walls had been troweled smooth and level, Larry and his guys left.  Final step for the day was to inscribe Δ□Ο and 2018 into the fresh concrete.

9 July 2018

Worked most of the day on the wood walkway, getting the next section taken apart and put back together, which brings us down to the aptly-named half-way bench.  My knees may never be the same.  Chree and I also screwed the wood electric outlet boxes to the inside of the barn concrete forms.

8 July 2018

Removed all of the wood walkway boards from the 10^th section (the one closest to the dock) and replaced them with the new boards that Goodro’s delivered.  The new boards were put in tightly butted to each other (the way the whole walkway should have been built!) so that as they dry out and shrink, the proper gap will be left between boards.  Am using the removed (and well seasoned) boards to fill in as needed on the other sections of the walkway, which keeps everything looking uniformly aged.  Finished moving and reattaching all the boards in the 4^th section of walkway… then Shlomo and I went for a well-deserved swim.

7 July 2018

Larry, Victor, Karl, and Trey got here just before 8:30 (this being Saturday morning, they allowed themselves a late start) to form the two 11¼″ curbs (north and east sides of the building) and the two 31½″ “walls” (south and west sides – where the barn juts into the side of the slope).  The Goodro’s truck arrived at 9 bearing 10 pieces of 5/4 x 6 x 12′ pressure treated lumber for the wood walkway.  I had the truck go around to the backyard to unload, thereby testing the strength of the final section of wood walkway put in back in May.  The walkway moved not a bit as the truck drove over it (twice)!  Meanwhile, back at the barn-build site, all was going too smoothly (have we heard that phrase before?), with most of the inner walls in place, when Larry remembered that he needed to put bentonite water stop in the bottom of the forms.  That material swells in contact with water, thereby sealing the seam between the curbs / walls and the concrete slab.  Nothing for it but to take down the inner wall forms, lay down the water stop, and put the forms back up.  Did I mention that the hardest part of putting up concrete forms is aligning the form ties with the inner wall form tie holes?  There’s a real trick to that process but, even though Larry is a master former, it’s still a hard job.  As the forms were going up, Victor checked the diagonal and found that they were ⅟₁₆″ out of square.  Not too shabby!!!!  By just after noon the forms were ready for concrete, minus the wood electrical outlet boxes that I need to install inside the two walls.  Spent the afternoon moving wood walkway boards to achieve the optimal ³/₁₆″ spacing, getting the third section finished.

 

6 July 2018

After seven days of watering, pulled off the HydraCure^® membrane to find a beautiful (and uncracked) concrete slab.  Using my angle grinder, cut the rebar pins down to their proper sizes, i.e., 9½″ for the curbs and 29½″ for the walls.  As new concrete does not bond with concrete that has already set, those pins will keep the curbs / walls from moving laterally (or vertically, for that matter) on the floor slab.  After a brutal week of 90°+ air temperatures, the lake water temperature is up to 84°, the warmest that I have ever observed.