The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly

I will start with the good.

This past Wednesday I had the pleasure of hooking back up with Alan from WindRiver Timberframes and his crew at a raising near Happy Jack, AZ.

They had been on site since Monday and had the bents already to go by the time we arrived. The monsoons seemed to be in full swing in the area with rain and lighting stopping work a few times but we managed to make quite a dent in the frame by the end of the day.
The house is 4000 square feet, and will really be a beautiful home when completed. As usual Alan and his crew did excellent work on the frame. Although it is only my second raising I am still amazed at the joinery and the way the frame fits together like a glove!!!

Thank you Alan and crew, and thank you Adrian for letting us help with the raising, as usual it was a real pleasure working with all of you.

Now for the bad and the ugly.

I am sure every project of this size has its bumps in the road. We have hit our real bump in the road. My wife and I have taken quite some time up to now paying attention to detail and trying to make sure that we are doing the right things constructing this house.

As I write this it seems that it will be a miracle if we ever get a roof on this house. The roofing company we hired to install the metal roof got a late start which got things off on the wrong foot. So to pacify me what I would guess would be a third string crew was sent out to get started installing the fascia wrap. To make a long story short it was installed on a Friday, and with few words spoken on my part it was removed on Monday. I should mention that nearly half of the fascia wrap had been installed.

So by now as you can imagine my suspicions are up as to what kind of job will be done. Work progresses slowly and next the crew moves onto installing the roof panels. These are rolled out on site. The panels look terrific!! I feel as if we are on our way and what had started out as a marginal job looks to really be coming together. WRONG!!! Wednesday rolls around and no crew shows up for the day. I am assured that they will be there the next day. They are there the next day. At 11:30 AM leaving at 4:30. I now know why work has progressed so slowly.

Where the craftsmanship comes in to play is in the flashing in my opinion. I have yet to find any when it has come to the flashing. By Friday I have had several conversations with the representative from the company, some of them rather heated. Without saying anything he has offered to refund my money and remove all metal that has been installed.

I have met with one other company and will be meeting with another one on Monday. My hopes are to come up with someone that can get on the project relatively soon due to the fact that the monsoons are under way and we are watching all of it just hit the ground.

I will be the first to admit that we are being very critical but when you see the pictures that follow you will see that there is absolutely no craftsmanship involved in the job that is being performed.

So I am feeling pretty confident that we will be moving onto another company and hopefully be getting a metal roof on at some point.

Work continues on the inside with most of the second floor Aspen being completed. We have been told that the windows that we have ordered should be arriving on site this Thursday, so we can get under way installing them.

Also all 4" pipe has been buried and is ready to connect to the rain catch tank, so we are ready to catch rain as soon as we can get a roof installed.

Ready for the Metal Roof

After taking a week off to go back and see family in MN. we are back at it.

The roofers are scheduled to start this coming
Wednesday. They will start with drip cap then move onto the roof metal. After that is complete they will install the fascia wrap and then the rain gutters.

They estimate that the entire roof should be completed in a week.

We have competed all of the sub-facia work, all of the Grace Ice and Water shield is completed, the fireplace chase is on the roof. Also we cut in a solar light for the upstairs bathroom, and have all of the sewer vents cut in.

The fireplace chase gave us a little problem. The problem was where exactly to locate it. Code requires the stove pipe be 3' away from the valley. And the roofer strongly urged us to keep the chase out of the valley. This all sounds fine but the inside location of the fireplace does not give us a lot of options to move it. We finally came up with a solution that we think will solve both problems. We did give in and move the fireplace slightly ahead which gives us more clearance on the valley and also meets code with the 2+ inches of clearance needed on any nearby timbers.

We also started to install the Aspen on the second floor which is really the ceiling for the first floor. This may seem a little out of order, but it allowed us to locate and do our cutting in on the roof from ladders on the second floor. This made it a lot safer and easier. It won't be long and we will be starting inside walls upstairs and down so this would have to be done anyway.

Along with getting the roof ready we had the trenches dug for the water pipe for the rain collection system. We spent a few hours installing the pipe and getting it back filled so that we are ready to start collecting rain water as soon as the gutters and down spouts are in place. We ran about few pieces short so we have not completed this yet, but plans are to have the connection to the rain catch tank sometime next weekend.

Fortunately it seems that the monsoon season is trying to get going so hopefully we will soon be getting some badly needed rain.

We Have A Roof!!!

Thanks to Mat and Jaime

from WindRiver Timberframes!

They arrived on Thursday and went right to work measuring and cutting panels. After two and a half days all panels were cut and up on the roof.

As usual, what a terrific job they did!! They made the transition cuts, that I hope never to have the pleasure of cutting again, look easy. I can honestly say, I am glad to be done with this portion of the project and just about ready to move on to other phases of the house.

Thanks again Mat, Jaime and Alan. We really appreciate the help and always look forward to working with you.

The main push now is to finish up all of the ridges and sub-facia and get the rest of the Grace Ice and Water Shield on before the monsoons start up. Right now we are probably looking at being ready for the steel roof sometime shortly after the 4th.

A couple of weeks ago we managed to get the 10,000 gallon rain catch tank buried. The crew doing the job mentioned that they generally use the backhoe to set the tank. I still have not figured out how they manage that. Anyway I offered the Skytrak to set it with and all went very smoothly.

Our hopes are that the fresh water tank will be installed this week. It arrived on site last Thursday, but due to all of the roofing activity we held off having it installed until sometime this week. At that time, all trenches for the water lines and rain catch system will be dug as well.

The Undergound Bunker has Arrived

Just kidding!!

Our 10,000 gallon water tank has arrived. Hopes are that it will be in the ground by the end of the day today.

Four truck loads of back fill (cinders) have been delivered, this will be spread at the bottom of the pit and then around the tank itself.

The tank will have a 4" inlet pipe connected to it, and then a 4" over flow which hopefully at some point will be connected to another 10,000 gallon tank.

The original plan was for 20,000 gallons of rain catch but cost and actually being able to capture that volume due to the prolonged drought will dictate whether or not we at some point will add another tank.

We had the option of going with a galvanized fresh water tank but my concern there was a possible metallic taste to the water. Cost would have allowed for a bigger fresh water tank going galvanized but we opted for a fiberglass tank for fresh water instead. The rain water tank will be connected to the washing machine, toilets, and dishwasher.

This past week I have been working evenings on getting the wiring in that needs to be completed before the rest of the roof SIPs are applied. Some things that we have thought of recently are any holes that will need to be cut in the roof prior to getting the metal roof installed. They are sewer vent pipe, fireplace and a sky light in the up stairs bathroom.

In addition to this we would like to get the upstairs loft windows in place prior to the metal being installed so as to hold down on any foot traffic on the metal roof. These considerations may push us out a little further on getting the metal on, but once the remaining SIPs are installed, inspected and the Grace Ice & Water Shield applied we will at least be dried in.

Calling In Reinforcments

About a week and half ago, I started thinking that it would not be long before the end of June is here. The end of June and the first part of July marks the beginning of our wet season.

Huge thunderstorms will build up like clock work in the afternoon and at times can dump a lot of rain in a short amount of time. This whole scenario is if the continued drought decides to let us get back to somewhere near normal with rainfall.

Anyway, we still are without a complete roof and it is looking like by the time the monsoon season arrives we would not quite have the house dried in. On top of not being dried in, my hopes are to start catching rain water with this monsoon season. Given all of this, I put a call in to Alan Bernholtz of Windriver Timberframes and asked if he could spare a couple of his crew members to give me a hand finishing off the east side of the roof.

The reason my first choice was Alan was, I have been running into a lot of people who are not familiar with this type of construction, and I do not need somebody that has to get over a learning curve at this point. Alan and his crew have had a lot of experience with SIP's. Fortunately, Alan is able to spare a couple people for two days which should allow us to complete all SIP work.

So our big push now is to complete the Aspen work and some wiring that needs to be completed prior to finishing the roof off. We have scheduled the metal roof to be installed the middle of June. So as soon as all SIP work is complete we will need to get the rest of the Grace Ice and Water shield on and also finish installing the rest of the sub facia.

Also, currently under way is the installation of our rain water catch and fresh water tanks. We also have the crew installing them doing some other trench work.

So far, they have dug the trench for our Eco-Flex pipe which runs out to the solar collector for the radiant floor system and hot water heater. I also asked for them to do a little more digging for the electrical service conduit so that it will come in a little bit closer to the corner of the house.

The 10,000 gallon rain water tank should arrive and be installed today. The fresh water tank should arrive within the next couple of weeks and be installed at that time. Trenches from the down spouts will have to be dug in after the tank is installed. Roof washers will need to be installed, as well, prior to final hook up. The rain gutters will be installed by the roofing company so our hopes are we will be ready to catch rain in time for the monsoon season and have a dried in house!!

Slow Going

The east side, as we thought, is taking considerably longer than the west side of the house.

Last weekend we finished off the east side roof over the balcony/front porch. We also installed the sub-facia on the the front roof which really gave it more of a finished look. We also started on the dormer roof SIP. This proved to be quite a project in itself.

The first SIP on the dormer intersects with not only the balcony roof, but also the back of the SIP makes up half of the valley on the main roof. All of this, on top of having the SIP at a 9 /12 pitch. Needless to say, much more time than we care to admit was used getting the SIP to fit into place.

Also, a fair amount of wiring has to take place due to the open space of the dining room and great room. This has been going well with the chases that have been burned out in the SIPs, and a fair amount of planning ahead.

This Saturday morning found us contending with a inch of fresh snow. This scratched working on the roof for the day. Although the snow did test our west side and it really shed the water and snow well.

So, we turned our attention to framing the east side great room wall. This went well, although we did not have a lot of lumber to get too far but made a good dent in it anyway. This has to be completed relatively soon due to the fact that SIP's will be placed on the upper portion of the wall and they must be put in place prior to the great room roof going on.

This week will find us working on the south side of the dormer. As I mentioned earlier, more wiring will need to take place on this side before any more SIP's can be put in place, as well as a little more Aspen having to be put down.

East Side of Roof Under Way

This weekend found us getting well under way with the east side of the roof.

We started off by getting more of the Aspen in place prior to starting any more SIP's. I will have to admit, there are some areas on this side of the roof where it is getting rather tricky to find a place to stand and install Aspen.

I think to solve this problem though we will be relocating the scaffolding into the great room and adding a third section before applying more Aspen.

We started applying SIP's to the east side of the balcony area. Some more wiring will have to take place this week before we can go too much further with SIP's

My wife took some time out this weekend to start marking out the location and size of some of the windows prior to ordering them. This will also help serve as a bit of a reminder while doing some wiring before cutting the windows in.

Next weekend will find us starting some of the more tricky valley cuts on the roof SIP's. Hopefully, we will have warmer weather to work in.

West Side SIP's Complete

We've completed the SIP's on the west side of the house and, as of this weekend, we have this portion of the roof over the house dried in with Grace Ice and Water Shield. We have also started work on the east side with quite a bit of the Aspen already put up.

The Grace Ice and Water shield gave us a little difficulty at first but after about the the third strip we got a technique down and things progressed well. That was until Sunday morning while putting more of it up the wind decided to pick up (which is a huge understatement). We managed to get it all up but ended up having to tack down boards to hold it down. The adhesive stuck to itself well but wind would get underneath it and start to pick it up off of the roof.

We had a couple of times when we thought it may all get peeled off of the roof but managed to get it all tacked down before that happened. The thought of that happening was a sick feeling, given the cost of the product.

As I mentioned earlier, work on installing Aspen on the east side of the roof is well under way. We have the entire balcony/ front deck area covered, as well as the dining room small dormer.

Also, this weekend, we have finished the Aspen on the majority of the north side of the great room. My thoughts now are to get the right half of this side of the roof covered with Aspen and then start installing the SIP's. Although some wiring will have to take place prior to this as well.