Windows and doors!

After getting the roof all secured, we started putting windows in.  I haver tried to get by the cheapest way possible.  I managed to get 13 old single pane windows for free.  I was a little concerned about the efficiency of them, but figured they would be good enough for just a 1000 square foot house. 

On one of my many trips to Lowe's,  my wife decided to go with me.  While there we noticed s huge double pane high efficiency window clearanced for only $63.00, it was originally $280ish! Apparently a customer ordered it and decided they wanted something different.  Well after walking around and discussing it awhile, we bought it.  We decided it would be perfect in the dining room.

 

 

 

 

 

Once it was installed I was ready to go ahead with installing the other (free) windows.  My gut was telling me to go ahead and buy all new windows but I was trying to save money anywhere possible.  Well,  my wife cautiously told me that she would rather all the windows match.  What a relief it was to hear her say that.

 

So I went to Lowe's and bought windows that would fit in the already framed holes. Only ended up costing about $500.

 

 

 

The bathroom window, we have had for a few years.  We found it at a garage sale for $5.00

 

 

Also about the same time I found some great used doors online and bought them. Saved about $200. By building my own frames and hanging the doors myself. They both need painted but that's easy enough.

 

Next up, wiring!

 

 

 

Spring 2015 progress

Lots of great stuff has been happening around the House of Duck.  After we got the roof all on I noticed a small leak on the original roof (building 1). When I built the building I never intended on making a home out of it so I didn't worry about the roof leaking a little.  I also didn't put it on in a manner conducive to living in it. I just put 1x4 purlins across the rafters and screwed my tin to them. This allows condensation to form on the underside and drip on everything below.  The proper way for a metal roof to go on is sheathing, roofing felt, then the tin. So after some ideas of just putting a bandaid on it to get by I decided we would be miles ahead if we went ahead and fixed it right.

I pulled off all the tin on building 1 and removed the purlins as well.  While I had that all off, I went ahead and fixed the rafter angle to match the building 2 rafters.  When I put the roof on building 2 I realized there was a noticeable bump between the two. Now was my chance to fix it.

So in a weeks time,  I removed the old roof,  foxed the rafters,  put sheathing on building 1,put felt down and the replaced the tin.  Managed to do all that for under $200.00. The bandaid fixes were all in the $800.00 range.  I didn't manage to get any pictures when I was completely finished since I was rushing to get it done before dark each day after work.

In the first picture you can see the condensation. The second shows the roof with just felt. 

So much for updates...

Since I can't seem to stay on top of regular updates maybe a  few pictures will get everyone up to speed on our progress...

No pictures of the last section of roof, but it's completely dried in now! Ready to start on siding soon. 

Slow boring process

The next few weeks, or it might be months, will be slow progress. I am adding a floor to the current building. Our family is so busy with our current life that we only get a few hours a weekend to work on our next life. Even the pictures I have taken are boring so I won't be posting any of the inside of building 1, as it will be called, until the floor is 100%. I have drawn up a plan and will post it for all to see as soon as I can. Before too long I will also start posting random posts  that will pertain to the whole homesteading ideology. These will be "filler" posts and will also help understand my somewhat crazy ideas. Until next time. 

Thanks for reading!

Change of Plans

Once again, life gets in the way and the priorities get put in check. This means the homestead must be reevaluated and a plan can be carried out or trashed. A reasonable evaluation of my carpentry skills pointed out that I can build anything as long as I take my time. The main problem is I am not patient enough to do everything right. I tend to cut corners and these corners add up quickly. After building the beams, I added a few floor joists. These are what really pointed out my mistakes. So we took a step back and decided on another mode of acquiring shelter.

This building is going to become the basic starting point of our house. It is 16x24, built very solid, and it has a good roof already. The plan is to add another 600sf onto the front side of this to bring it to our minimum 1000sf that is required. I have already put down several floor joists inside, but I didn't get any pictures. Maybe next weekend.

Originally I planned on a weekly update because I thought that would be easy enough. Turns out that is a bit ambitious. I will update occasionally, I plan on weekly but cant make any promises.

Beams

Sorry for the delay, been slowing down a bit in preparation for winter. I don't do well in cold (under 60 degrees) weather. I have managed to finish building the floor beams.

Each one is made of 9-2x10s glued and nailed together to make 40' beams.

That's all for now. Other priorities will be taking over for a few months so new posts will be rare.

Thanks for reading.

Going Up!

After getting all the holes dug it was time to start building piers. I researched as much on the subject as possible but found nothing overly useful. The few sites I did learn a lot from still didn't quite get me absolutely sure how to proceed. I talked to several people with construction experience and from what I had read and what they told me, I felt ready-ish to start on the concrete part of our build.

The one detail still not clear was how to build/support forms for the piers. I had read many stories in which the builder used the sonotube forms, but they all had holes that they could stick the tube down in and back fill around it to get support. My dirt/rock ground wouldn't even think about doing that. So I had to come up with some type of external support system for mine. This proved to be more difficult than it sounds, as my ground is full of protrusions making leveling complicated.

My piers are loosely 18"x6" thick bases with 12"diameter piers on top. I built 24-18"x18" forms, one for each hole. Then what I came up was using 2 pieces of 2x2 lumber that would span the 18" form width ,screwing these to the tube and then leveling the tube from there. All this while making sure the tube was suspended off the bottom of the hole. I struggled quite a bit with the first couple of piers but I quickly found a pattern and got better.

Since we have no water source yet, I brought in a 55 gallon drum of water to use for the concrete work. We only had to fill it once, and didn't use even half of the second drum worth. Many people tell me I should get a well drilled now and build later, but we plan on using rainwater as our only source of water. More on this in a post some other time.

I mainly work on the house Monday mornings for just a few hours, so for about 2 months, I would get 4 piers done a week. Sometimes I would get 3 done, once I got ambitious and got 6 done, but most times it was 4. We mixed each bag by hand in a wheelbarrow and this got old real quick, but we got through it.

Each pier also got a strap embedded into it which will be what we attach the beam to. I found the ready mad straps to be very expensive and began exploring other options. I found a 24" strap at the hardware store that I could bend to my desired shape easily enough. I made a jig at work out of some scrap lumber and just sat there bending away until I got 24 U shaped "brackets".

Now some progress pictures at varying times.

Here you can see my tube holding method, not pretty but it worked. You can also see my "bracket"

And this would be after they were all done. So glad to be finished with the concrete work. I later removed the large cactus in the corner there. I didn't want to contend with it later while under the house.

That's it for now. Almost ready for beams!
Thanks for reading.