"Paradise Road"......first house on the right

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Snake Farm

Ol school snake charmer!
Joined
Nov 16, 2010
Messages
4,256
Location
Paradise Road.....last house
I posted a thread about three months ago about building my daughters house and several of you expressed interest in a thread about it and Tripper said put it here in the build section......So...here we go with my latest build! Yes it's a bit off topic but it's occupying all my time at the moment so it's all I have to offer. :eek:

I've been a little slow in getting this thread started but frankly I'm off to a slow start on the house. We have had the wettest spring/summer here that I can remember, including a forty day period earlier this spring in which it rained a total of thirty days! So needless to say I'm way behind at this point....hope I can make it up somewhere.

I know everyone likes pictures so for the next few days I'm going to post up a bunch of pics with short captions until I get caught up to where I am currently. Then I'll try to keep things updated weekly.

First a little background. My son-in-law is a mechanical engineer working in natural gas compression and transmission and my daughter ran a successful photography business until the spring of 2008. That's when they developed a five year plan for themselves and my daughter shut her studio down and they hit the road in this rig....



.....this would be their home for the next four to five years as my son-in-law worked various compressor station building/rebuilding projects up and down the eastern third of the US. Then they would settle down, build a home and start a family.
Then in the spring of 2009 to mine and Mrs. Snake Farm's delight they purchased about four acres that joins our property here on Paradise Road. Knowing they would be settling down close by made the rest of their time away more bearable for us.

So, after being back home for a few months living in their one bedroom apartment above the photography studio, and the birth of our Grandson last September, in January of this year we started to clear ground for their new home.

View of new home site from the shadow of their current home......



Must have built 50 of these.......



Some days the weather cooperated........



And some days it didn't......



Cut enough firewood to heat my shop for the next 3 or 4 years.......





Also cut 60-70 saw logs and had my uncle saw them into lumber.......



Cut approximately 100 trees of various sizes including this big Poplar......



To be continued.....
 
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The big Poplar required some safety chains to make sure it didn't go on that garage or power line......



I've cut a lot of trees in my time but my Dad has cut a lot more so I let him handle this one......




At 76 he can still lay one where he wants it........in fact he paced this one off and stuck a stick in the ground and said "the top will land right here"......I never found the stick afterwards :cool:



Once the trees were out of the way it was time for the official ground breaking ceremony.......



The guy in the tie and pocket protector is "Gunner" the chief architect/inspector........



Here he is checking the layout.......



Then comes the real ground breaking.......100 trees leave 100 stumps!



Starting to dig basement hole......



Getting close to grade......



To be continued....
 
Form-a-drain to form the footers with. Just like the name the perforated plastic form is also the footer drain......



Getting the outside perimeter in place......



Gunner comes to inspect......



Sewer and floor drains along with conduit for water lines are put in place under footer.....





Once inside form is in place in goes some rebar.....





And finally concrete!



There were a lot of rainy days in between these sunny ones.......



Finally getting close to laying up some walls.......



To be continued.....
 
Here comes the first load of blocks.......



My first time using these but I like them already.......sure beats lifting concrete blocks!



Alright, now we're getting somewhere!



Okay, we were getting somewhere.......did I mention it has been raining a lot :rolleyes:



Drilling for rebar dowels.......



Ripping the first course........



A little scribe work for a tight fit to the footer.....



And we are stacking!





To be continued.....
 
Practicing my golf swing.........okay, I'm bending rebar



The horizontal rebar lays in the webbing and after the wall is stacked full length vertical rebar will drop into the rings of PVC pipe to keep them in close proximity to the dowels........



Guess what, it rained again.....this tool shed/office is my only shelter at this point.....



Yeah, it's a bit cramped.......



A little cave in from the rain......



Rare sunny day......on my way to 7-1/2 courses high for a total of 10 feet...



All stacked up and starting to brace.....



Brace system has built in brackets for walk planks.......



If you want a hole through the wall now is the time......you don't want to have to cut through 6 inches of concrete and rebar later.......



Dropping in vertical rebar.....



To be continued.......
 
I built a house about ten years ago and used ICFs for the basement. I like them a lot. Next time I build, I'm doing the whole house with them.

Interesting footing form system! Do you put ground clot against it to prevent sand from infiltrating and plugging it up?
 
Great.....

Very impressive, my friend. I really am enjoying your thread. Thanks for taking time to post it. Looking forward to more.[cl[cl[cl

Lynn
 
Ray,

Thank for starting a build thread, by the foundation layout looks like it is going to be a nice sized home. Real cool footer/drain form, never seen that style but looks better then a lot I have seen.

Gold,
I drywalled a house that all exterior walls were that block, owner wanted to save money so synthetic stucco was applied directly to the block work out great. But the drywall was a pain, there are tabs inside the block, but it takes a little doing to figure out the layout to screw the drywall directly to the block, but it work. ran into the owner a couple years later And he said the heating and cooling didn't take him to the bank.

If I ever build a house I'm going with Hebel (autoclaved lightweight concrete) I worked on a big resort project in Crested Butte Co. The floor/roof panels were 2' x 12' x 10" thick and wall panel 2' x up to 24' x 8" some real wild stuff.
 
Man....I'm glad you know what you're doing....

Cause you lost me at "close to grade"... [S I like this build though....is a nice distraction from the norm......also may help somebody out by seeing what is required and how to do it....very nice [cl
 
I built a house about ten years ago and used ICFs for the basement. I like them a lot. Next time I build, I'm doing the whole house with them.

Interesting footing form system! Do you put ground clot against it to prevent sand from infiltrating and plugging it up?

There's several houses around here that are entirely built with ICF's but once they are all finished off you'd never know it..........until a tornado comes along and takes everything but them :D
As for the footing system I like to drill some additional holes in it more like you'd see in perforated pipe......



The exterior gets this 40 mil rubber membrane......



Superior adherence.......definitely





Easy mess free installation.......not so much, this stuff is like human fly-paper! Do NOT let it touch itself or get your face in it LOL

After the membrane I will fill around the foundation with stone all the way to the top, then cover with fabric and put just enough dirt over it to support grass

There's just a couple feet of stone in this pic because there's no weight on the foundation yet to prevent push in.........



So, looking at the last pic it's obvious that this day finally came......



But not without more days like this......



In fact I had nearly three weeks of holdups ranging from weather to the concrete pump operator being off work with an injury! But finally the day came........



To be continued........
 
.......and that days sun set on freshly poured walls!







My interior excavation ended up a little deeper than I wanted so 29 yards of concrete went into the walls and the two yards that were left over I spread out thin to make a little less stone work to bring up to grade.



To be continued.....
 
Well that looks alright!!! You could come do one for me anytime!! So what color they going with? Flat Black? Primer Grey?

Silver over white with a touch of red.

I don't know anything about building a house , but I really like your pink toolbox:D

You kill me Bruno LOL. That pink box used to be "Milwaukee Red" ......might be time for a new circular saw. :eek:

Very impressive, my friend. I really am enjoying your thread. Thanks for taking time to post it. Looking forward to more.

Lynn

Thanks Lynn, I fugured I may as well post about the house cause I sure ain't gettin' nuthin' done on the Willys! :eek:

Cause you lost me at "close to grade"... [S I like this build though....is a nice distraction from the norm......also may help somebody out by seeing what is required and how to do it....very nice [cl

On grade, level, where it needs to be, stopping point etc. Sarge ;) The main requirements so far have been boots, rain coats, umbrellas and sump pumps.........did I mention it's been rainy here? :eek:

And Mike, the total square footage with finished basement will be 3,800

To be continued....
 
So, once walls were poured I turned my attention to getting the floor ready to pour. First order of business was plumbing in floor drains and drains for a full bathroom, slop sink in mechanical room, wet bar in the corner and main sewer drain and clean out to handle the upstairs......





Then came the stone fill, the hard way..........had too much plumbing to run any equipment around inside.......







Fine tuned it to grade with my trusty transit and "one man" story pole.....







Looks like it has the "Blue Measles" .........



Each of those spots represent a shot with the transit to within +/- one quarter inch.......



To be continued.....
 
Called this guy to treat the "Blue Measles" .......



Nice big dose of Termite pre-treatment......



Some 6 mil vapor barrier.......





A form down the middle......



And this puppy is ready to pour! But not until a few more of these days....



[S Did I mention it's been very rainy this year?

Finally after two and a half weeks we get a break in the weather [cl[cl



To be continued.....
 
Great fun and very interesting watching this build.

Twenty years ago we built our house out of styrofoam. It's a bit different system. Think of oversize cement blocks, 12" thick 16" tall and 4' long, only made out of styrofoam. The house is very quiet and draft free. It's doubtful the extra cost of our construction was worth it though.
 
A 3800 sq ft. basement.....wow...

I don't think my house, basement and pole barn total 3800....that place will be a palace.......nice work..... gotta say wow again..3800 ft. basement...
 
.....And we are pouring!!





Okay, so the guys I hired are pouring.....



A little hand work along the edges and some power troweling....



I spend the rest of the day misting it with water to keep the hot sun from drying it out too quickly and the next morning I grab a saw and cut a few lines in it.........







Strip the form and we are ready to go again!



To be continued....
 

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