Beginning interior framing, temporary windows, and shingles, shingles, shingles.

On Wednesday November 11 the framing crew finished what I had contracted them to do. The deck was complete on the breezeway, and interior framing of the solar chimney and the ends of the cathedral ceiling was complete. I had started the shingle preparation, putting the starter edge on the south face of the garage roof, installing the ridge caps for the hips on its edges, and putting the EaveGuard on the south edge of the roof. Then began screw shingles into place. Slow process as I am learning the procedure and with expensive materials don’t want to make mistakes. Pretty much every morning has been a slow start for roof work this week, with frost or dew on the roof that has to dry off before it is safe to be on the surface, and with the short daylight hours too dark to work safely past 5:30PM.

By Friday shutdown time I had nearly completed the shingles on the south face of the garage, and had starter edge on the east roof face and the EaveGuard in place too. More sunny days forecast, so hoping to move right along, and pick up speed as my confidence in managing the steel shingles builds.

The interior of the house is now starting to look and feel like a house. I am very pleased that sun patterns are happening exactly as designed. FIrst light in late Fall winter comes into the dining area, and warms up the whole great room all the way to where the back wall will be. The solar chimney has been framed inside, and has plywood panels in place defining how it will bring light into the back of the great room, and exhaust hot air in summer. Pictures below show light patterns early morning, and again about noon.

Dining room, great room sun at 8:00 AM.

Master bedroom, sun at 8:00 AM

Great room, sun at about noon. Note the solar chimney above the sweeper.

East face of garage roof, starter edge and EaveGuard in place.

Friday, November 13, South face of garage shingles nearly complete.

Installing house trusses and finishing the roofs.

I picked up the Triflex roofing underlayment and Eavguard ice shield on Halloween, expecting I might be able to prepare the roof on the garage for the steel shingles which were ordered on Tuesday, and maybe arriving on following Tuesday. Then went over the installation manual from Wakefield Bridge, and it was not clear the sequence of applying Triflex and Eaveguard. So had to wait till Monday to get clarification from the roofing guy before moving ahead. It turns out that the Triflex is installed first, then the starter shingles, and over that the Eaveguard. So set up my ladders and scaffolds around the garage, peeled off the tarpaulin and started putting on the Triflex. My neighbor across the street Richard, came over and gave me a hand, and we got the north and south faces of the roof covered and then the rains came chasing us wet and bedraggled off the roof.

Tuesday morning, Nov 3 the crew to intall the trusses arrived, but the big crane was not available that day, so they put the master truss in place by hand, aligned it vertically as the reference plane, installed the hips and jacks on the west end of the house, and put the plywood deck on that small section of the roof. Then we went to the east end of the house and set about construction the beam array which will support the roof over the screen porch. This consisted of 4 6×6 treated wood posts supporting firbrolam beams that are the base for the jacks which form the corner and eastern edge of the roof. The engineered beams are enormously strong, but also very heavy, the long one weighed nearly 400 lbs. We got it finished and properly braced, and the rains arrived again and the crew dispersed, but with the promise to be there at 7 AM with the crane to put up the rest of the big trusses.

A point of pride; Tom Ritchie the framer complimented me on my wall and nailing plate alignments. The north and west wall were less than 1/16 inch out of perfect square on the long diagonal. As we did the whole set of big trusses, the heels were within 1/4″ of aligning perfectly to the edge of the nailing plate on the 30 foot span, so all my attention to detail in building the wall paid off.

November 3, Lifting the master truss into place on the nailing plate.

Bracing the master truss in the true vertical position, all the rest are referenced to this truss.

Finishing up the alignment of the master truss.

Setting and nailing the "jacks" on the west side of the master truss.

Jacks and hips in place, starting the plywood deck.

More work on the deck.

Most of the deck in place.

Deck and the fascia on the gable complete.

Fibrolam beams and 6x6 posts set in place and braced on the screen porch slab, ready for the jacks to complete the roof profile.

Wednesday, November 4, The crane arrived minutes before 7 AM, set up and the crew was at it at full speed. Since the crane gets $200/hr, it was very useful that the trusses were going into place virtually perfectly with no need for any fiddles to make them right. When they were all in place and minimally cross-braced, the crane packed up and left and the crew set about getting the more permanent bracing in place and putting the plywood deck on the north face of the roof. Things were going great guns, until about 10:30 AM, when the rains descended upon us again. It was dangerous to be on the roof, and the crew had a job down the street, that was inside, so they went there, hoping the weather would break, but it was not to be.

Wednesday, November 4, Picking up the first truss of the day.

Headed for the nailing plate.

Putting the first one in place.

Set on the nailing plates.

Moving along with the trusses.

The last big truss in place, disconnecting the cable.

Tying in the last truss, and the crane getting ready to go away.

A bit of a curve in the bottom chord of the last truss, some adjustment required.

My neighbor Lloyd surveying the work.

Looking up at the cathedral trusses.

November 5, Putting on the roof deck on the south face of the roof.

Working on the deck, jacks over screen porch still visible.

Gable on the west end of the roof complete.

Thursday morning dawned grey and threatening more rain, but by 10 AM it cleared and the crew showed up and went to work. They first installed the jacks over the east end of the house and built out the hips. Then they set about putting the deck on the south face of the roof. Not all done by the time they quit around 5 PM, but not much left to do. I worked through the morning measuring and cutting firring strips to attach 6 mil clear plastic over windows. This is to protect against overspraying of the polyurethane foam into the house and on the floor, and also to keep the wind and weather out. After lunch the wind was down a bit, so I was up onto the garage roof applying Triflex to the uncovered surfaces. Had to run over to McNaughtons and get more since I ran out, and now have enough to at least get a good start on the house roof as well. Finished the garage roof as it was getting dark, about 6PM. Good weather predicted for the next 3 days, so hopefully will get the Triflex on the house roof to keep the water out, and get a good start on the shingles for the garage.

Friday morning dawned cold and sunny. Frost on the ground, and on the roof. The crew arrived bright and early and set about putting deck on over the screen porch and working on the gable above it where they could put dry plywood. After the sun had been out a while they were able to finish the upper east end of the north face of the roof. When that was done they went at building the solar chimney, which which will give passive ventilation in the summer. They finished about 3 PM and I got started on putting the triflex on the north face of the deck.

All day lots folks driving past VERY slowly looking and wondering. Tom decided to pull peoples chain a little, asked if he could put a cross on the back of the chimney, and I suggested, put a phony machine gun on top. The final result was a silhouette of a soldier with a rifle, and a label “Lest we forget” since it is Remembrance Day this weekend.

When the crew dispersed, I headed up on the roof and before dark got Triflex on the first 12 ft of the north face. Good weather predicted tomorrow so maybe get the whole roof done if all goes well. Shingles for the garage will be delivered tomorrow, so maybe as start on them too. Need to work when the sun shines!

Friday, November 6, most of the east end of the house has deck complete.

Filling in the last bit of deck on the trusses.

The last section of the deck going on.

Putting the last piece of plywood in place.

Laying the foundation for the solar chimney.

Setting the corners on the framing of the chimney.

The temporary bracing on the south side to keep the corners true.

Putting the plywood deck on the top of the solar chimney.

The framing of the chimney from the northeast corner.

Nearing completion, putting the plywood fascia in place.

FInished solar chimney viewed from the north, note the outline of soldier and gun on top.

View of solar chimney from the south, with the window frame which will allow hot air to be vented.

Saturday was a mild sunny day and I got in a long day applying Triflex. Finished three of the four faces of the roof by dark, and was ready to rest my weary bones. Sunday morning was sunny but started with a thick ground fog which took a while to burn off. Headed off to church, and came back in the afternoon to dry roof and mild sunny weather again. Got up on the roof and by dark finished the remaining face of the roof. Was hearing the bagpiper playing down the street at the Remembrance Day ceremonies at the cenotaph.

Sunday November 8, FInished putting Triflex underlayment on house roof view from the north side.

View from the south side of the house.

Remembrance Day recognition on the solar chimney.

View from the north, house and garage with Triflex in place.

Monday morning bright and early the crew showed up and started work on the breezeway beam structure. A lot of thinking and discussion since only the rough outlines were on the truss plan. Really glad I had a person in charge with a lot of experience and a sense of pride in doing a good job.

Monday, November 9, the first fibrolam beam in place for the covered walkway between house and garage.

Second beam of breezeway in place.

Setting the trusses on the breezeway.

Attaching the fascia to the truss tails.

Doing the creative framing to blend the two roofs gracefully.

Putting the first plywood sheet on the breezeway.

Much of the deck in place, the crew gone for the day.

View from the south, most of plywood in place on the breezeway.

September 28, Preparing wall surface, applying SBC, and House Roof Trusses.

Unfortunately, I was only able to get old stock of the drystack blocks from Santerra because the block design had been changed by the patent holder (Azar), and new design blocks did not mate with old blocks in my foundation. The blocks I received had obviously been “around” for quite a while, and there was a lot of breakage, damage of joints and soil contamination in the pallets. 120 (1 2/3 pallets) blocks were so bad, they could not be used, and many that were used had smaller defects in the joining boundaries which then had to be repaired with mortar to give an even surface for applying surface bonding cement. Because of the amount dirt on the blocks, and the fact that there were large mismatches between the joining surface for stacking, I am convinced that many were blocks that were returned by other contractors as unsuable. I had no choice, and with at least 2/3 of the order had to use my right angle grinder with a diamond wheel carving the joining surfaces to get solid level, plumb seating of the blocks. In comparison to my experience last summer with fresh production blocks, it doubled or tripled my stacking time, which was not nearly compensated by the 9% discount I was given on the order. That did not take into account the extra days of work and materials needed to repair the “wounded” but not mortally damaged blocks.

When I finished the cement pours in the reinforcing columns, I hit a period which continues even now of unseasonably cool and rainy weather with occasional sunny breaks. I slogged on and by Thursday October 1 had finished the preparation of walls for SBC. I had ordered the roof trusses when I finished the last wall pour, since I knew from the garage that it would be at least 2 weeks to delivery (October 14 is D-Day).

Also began to sort out the ordering of roofing materials. My preferred product is Wakefield Bridge steel shingles, and they have a new color this year, Classic Copper which has the highest solar reflectance. I had initially chosen the Terra Red shingle which was the highest before the new product and the one that appealed to me visually in relation to the “stucco” exterior wall finish I intend to use. So you will see samples of the two shingles against the block wall in bright sun to compare. I found that the nice copper shingle, also has a nice price 30% more than red, and visually I prefer the red; so a small sacrifice on efficiency for aesthetics and price.

October 1, Bedroom/Great Room wall with patches.

Guest bedroom wall with patches complete

North wall patches finished.

Inside of North wall patches finished.

Classic Copper and Terra Red Wakefield Bridge shingle samples.

October 7, Great room wall, unused pallet of blocks taken away by Santerra.

October 7, SBC complete on north wall of garage/workshop.

SBC complete on outer south wall of Garage/Workshop.

SBC complete, west wall garage workshop.

October 8. SBC Complete on outside of north house wall.

October 9, SBC complete west outer wall of house.

October 10, SBC complete outer south wall of house.

Sunday October 11, last section of outer house wall completed SBC.

On Wednesday October 14 the trusses for the house arrived and were deposited in the front yard, and I put the SBC on the first interior walls of the garage. This was regular SBC made with gray portland on the actual garage section. All the people occupied spaces will have SBC made with white portland. On Thursday afternoon the cement finisher and excavator with a 2 ft auger arrived to drill holes for sonotubes that are to be filled with concrete to support the posts on the screen porch that are under the edge of the roof, and for the covered walkway between house and garage/workshop. Once the holes were drilled I mixed cement, and they put a mixer load in the bottom of each hole, set the sonotubes in the base, and then we filled them to the level needed to support the posts. Actually in the case of the screen porch, to the level where the slab will be poured above them, which will be where the posts will really sit. Made a bunch of cement in a hurry, and had to dash off to McNaughtons and get more portland to finish the task.

That night the temperature went down to freezing and we had our first sprinkling of snow

I had checked with the electrical inspector as to the code for wiring within concrete block walls, and determined that I needed to use BX armoured cable. So bought a spool of BX and boxes and clamps I needed to install the cable. Put in the cable stubs with the 4 outlets that are in the outer walls of the workshop so they could be embedded in the SBC. Another 8 outlets in walls of the house.

October 14, First interior wall of garage coated with SBC.

Garage wall with SBC.

October 16, First snow!

House roof trusses under the tarp in the front yard.

October 18, interior walls of garage complete with white SBC.

South wall of garage/workshop with white SBC.

Friday I did more prep work on the screen porch. Have shaved down the sand to the level where insulation will rest with concrete poured over it. This will prevent any frost heaving of the slab, and also act as a thermal buffer between the house and outside ground. Was not a pretty day, gray and cold, also now working to keep leaves off the wet floor in the house to prevent staining of the concrete. The final task for the day was in the shed, mixed up 14 batches of SBC for the interior walls of the house. Again rain overnight, so some sweeping and scooping of water off the floor on Saturday morning with leaf removal. Then put down tarps along the entire east wall from the entry hall to the southeast corner. Saturday afternoon was SBC mixing, spraying and troweling. By 6PM had the east wall a part of the north wall of the entry hall covered and cleaned up the tools. The walls look very nice, should be very white when the cement is fully cured, already looks quite bright.

October 24, East wall of kitchen and door frame to the screen porch SBC done.

Entry hallway, SBC complete on east, partial on north wall.

Screen portch sand bed preparation. Note sonotubes in foreground for support posts.

This week I have been working methodically to finish the SBC application to the interior walls of the house. On Monday morning I got a callback from my cement finisher promising that his crew would show up on Tuesday to form and pour the screen porch floor.

My cement mixer, showing the wear and tear of all the cement and and mortar mixing for the last year and more, was starting to have major deterioration of the big ring gear on the mixer tub, and I decided to deactivate it for repairs before it really broke badly. Rick my neighbor across the back fence had offered to loan me his cement mixer earlier in the summer, so I walked over and asked if I could use it now, and also asked if he could maybe help repair the gear. He has welding gear, and is a experienced welder for doing body work. So I have been using his mixer which came from the same store Harbor Freight, in the USA, but is electric rather than gas engine I have. It has been working quite nicely and has let me finish up my SBC work this week. I have taken off the mixer tub, and deposited it over by his shop so he can work on it at his leisure. I will need it again, since I have decided to apply stucco as the finish surface over the polyurethane foam using a version of surface bonding cement which will be sprayed and troweled into stucco mesh fastened to the foam. I have done a test panel and it is strong and attractive.

Tuesday morning, as promised, the cement crew showed up and I spent a good part of the morning helping them fitting the 4″ styrofoam in the form for the slab. The cement truck arrive about 1 PM, and the finishing work was done mid afternoon . I set back to work on my SBC, and finished another wall section before dark. On Wednesday, finished the west wall and bedroom section of south wall. One more full day to finish the interior wall.

Thursday morning, did the prep work putting the tarps down to catch the splatter, and taking off most of the rough spots from patching plaster on the remaining walls. Got hard at it and a little after noon became aware there was a backhoe trucks and people in my front yard. Lo and behold the Union Gas crew was there to install my gas line and regulator. My plumbing contractor had predicted 5-6 weeks after filing a request for service, and secretary processing my form said 4-5 weeks, they actually arrived after 3 weeks, a bit of a surprise. After a bit of discussion they agreed to put the installation approximately where I wanted it. Something about the regulator had to be at least 36 inches away from an openable window. Then they had at it with the backhoe, and very shortly had dug into my sew line, and taken the top off the cleanout cap on the village sewer line. It cost me about an hour and half getting the repair bits from the leftovers from my earthtubes. So they got it all patched together and then covered it up and were gone, and I got back to my mixer and mortar sprayer. Because of the time lost, I had to get out my worklight, but finished the last of the interior wall and cleaned up my tools by about 8 PM.

Friday morning it rained. but I was out doing cleanup of the splatters and getting the tarps off the floor. Picked up the ice guard and Triflex roof membrane from McNaughtons, thinking I could get started on the garage roof, but discovered on reading the installation manual, that I need the starter shingles first, so will be next week when the shingles arrive. That is when it is likely the trusses and deck for the house will also go up. Then we measure and order the shingles for that roof.

October 26, Screen porch floor formed, insulation in place and rebar in place.

Starting the cement pour.

First fine troweling done, looking like a floor.

October 28, Finished screen porch floor with form removed.

SBC finished in master bedroom.

SBC finished in great room, south wall.

September 8, Wall building; the last stage begins.

I spent the Labour Day weekend, labouring and finished filling the remaining reinforcement cores on the West wall. On Monday began stacking the columns for the south wall of windows, forming them to the 6 course level above the bottom sill and putting in the rebar. On Tuesday, when I finished the forming and steel, thought I would finish pouring and vibrating the cement in the “half columns”, but ran out of “gas” (me, not the cement mixer) at about 9:45PM with 3 columns to go. Wednesday morning Tom Ritchie and two helpers arrived to put up the trusses on the garage. Tom is a a local framer, who for many years lived on the lot next door and had his water supply from what is now my well.

I was up an at it before they arrived hoping to be able to mix the last cement and get it in the columns while they were doing trusses, but it turned out they and the boom truck occupied the work area by the gravel pile pretty completely all morning so did other things to prepare. I had moved 75 blocks to another pallet out of the path where I have the masonry wall planned to divide the living room and master bedroom. Ended the day with the remaining cores poured, the base course of the bedroom wall set, and with excess mortar a lot of the chips and gaps on the east wall of the house filled.

Picture below show the benchmarks of the day.

The first truss being placed.

Truss braced and forming the reference plane for the roof.

Another truss in place.

Truss assembly complete, looking from the house entry door.

Garage trusses complete, looking from the end of the driveway.

Half columns of the south wall, southeast corner dining area.

Looking down the south wall from the inside.

Looking down the south wall from the outside.

Base course of blocks and rebar for the bedroom wall.

Thursday, Sept. 10, installing the roof decking.

Finishing nailing the last few pieces of roof decking.

My garage roof wearing a shower cap

Sunday morning, Sept 13, the end of block stacking is in sight!

A gift from Perry MacDonald, my excavator, free, real dirt.

With the last cement pour, I figure out a foolproof way to cover the keyholes for rebar tying The next house

Sunday evening, wall stacked and rebarred to the edge of the master bedroom.

I took 6 days off from construction to help my son Rafael and his family move to Winnipeg from Toronto. Drove up and helped load the UHaul on Monday, and hit the road early Tuesday morning. Three days of shared driving with the truck and an auto carrier with their car. Did some unloading on Thursday night, but the bulk on Friday. Friday afternoon, his wife Meran arrived by plane with Sam the 3 year-old and Anastasia the new baby (4 weeks). Did some more unpacking on Saturday morning, and I was put on the plane back to Toronto mid afternoon, where I picked up my car and drove back to Newbury. I was back at it on Sunday, and on Monday finished the blocks in the south wall. Tuesday I finished stacking the interior masonry wall and did all the rebar insertions in preparation for the last cement pour for the wall columns. Pictures of the stacked walls Tuesday night September 22.

Tuesday Sept. 22, Stacking and rebar complete on South wall

Stacking and Steel complete on interior masonry wall separating great room and master bedroom.

Looking at the walls and window of the master bedroom.

As usual my estimate as to how long it would take to do the cement pour was too optimistic. I finished the actual wall structure on Saturday Sept 26 with a rain interlude.

Saturday August 8, Starting the House Walls

After finishing the primary wall work on the garage/workshop, I did a bit of cleanup and and moved the remaining few blocks out and over to the house slab to begin constructing the major wall (the north wall) of the house. It became clear as I stretched my mason’s line that there were some adjustments needed to bring the wall coming off the foundation to a truly straight and level condition. This involved grinding up to a 1/2 inch off some blocks and shimming others to get things up to snuff. Was a tedious and dusty business, with all the cement dust flying and wearing my dust mask to keep the bad stuff out of my lungs. Summer also really arrived with temperatures 33-35C and the humidex of over 40C. Drank lots of water and produced lots of sweat! By 7 PM Tuesday the north wall had been fixed and two full courses of block above the base course were in place as shown below.

August 11, Tuesday night north house wall stacked two courses above base and ready for more rapid stacking.

West wall at window sill level.Thursday, August 13, North and west walls stacked to window sill level, and part of the east wall is now at 2 courses above the base course.

West wall at window sill level.

North and West walls at window sill level, ready for rebar and cement in window sills.

Beginning of the east wall of the house.

This week, Monday August 17, I had another volunteer helping me. Nik Mueller a grade 10 student was an extra set of hands on Monday for putting up the nailing plates and header on the garage, and on Wednesday did yeoman duty cutting “half-blocks” for the window borders of the west wall. Next week will be here again for a couple days

Friday August 20, West Wall window sills poured, stacked to top of windows.

Looking across the north wall at the west wall and scaffolds in place.

Looking across the house from the east, all window sills poured.

Garage with garage door header and truss nailing plates in place.

Saturday, August 22, west wall and NW corner to first window, blocks to the top of window ready for framing.

Looking west along the north wall, blocks to top of window from entry door frame to first window.

Sunday August 23, north wall all halfway to top of window frames

Monday August 24, north wall to top of window, ready for frames, only 3 more courses for the east wall to the same level.

Tuesday afternoon Aug 25, finished stacking east, west, and north walls to top of window frames. Beginning to really look like a house.

Looking along the north wall.

The garage roof trusses arrived as well just as we were nearing completion on the house wall.

Looking east out the entry door.

August 29, Sunday, West wall stacked, all window frames in 3 walls, East end and West end of North wall stacked to top

Monday night August 31, North wall complete to top.

East wall complete to top except for one course on top of entry wall. Tomorrow the door frame and rebar into the wall columns.

Tuesday we finished the block stacking to the top of all three walls, and the door frame and lintel blocks on the entry door. Got started on cutting and bending the rebar for the vertical columns. Wednesday morning, the last day for my helper Nik Mueller who is back to school next week, we finished up inserting the rebar, including the horizontal bond beam, and tied all the connections with wire ties. He did the top on the bond beam while I did my “keyhole surgery” tying the vertical rebar into the stubs in the foundation. That afternoon we started the cement pouring into the vertical columns, lintels and bond beam. Started on the south end of the east wall, and by Thursday night had the entire east wall poured with attachment studs for the nailing plate in the bond beam as shown in the pictures below. Friday morning I start down the north wall.

Thursday Sept 3, East wall of the house stacked, cement in columns and lintels.

Looking from the entry door down the north wall, next in the cement pour exercise.

July 7, More Wall progress

After the fill was distributed, on Tuesday I had a load of cement gravel delivered and got a small batch of portland cement to mix and pour the bonding layer in the base layer of blocks. Also order the delivery of the rest of the blocks needed to complete the walls for Thursday. Worked away at the cement pour with an interruption when the blocks arrived. Finished the last segment of the cement pour on Sunday afternoon, and on Monday, after a run into London to get a back support began to stack the first section of “real” wall.

The cement mixing station, on the driveway with gravel on the fill between garage and house.

Delivering the last batch of blocks for completing the walls.

All the blocks on the house slab, ready for the heavy lifting!

All the block on site, and puddles from the rain that arrived the next day.

Sunday afternoon, the last section of blocks with cement poured.

Monday afternoon, front wall of garage workshop to the window sill level.

Status of wall on Tuesday evening.

Loking at he back of the wall Tuesday.

Wednesday evening, windows taking shape.

Wednesday, beginning the East wall of the garage.

North wall of garage Saturday with scaffold in place.

East Wall of Garage Saturday night.

Tuesday July 21, East Wall of garage to window top.

Tuesday July 21, East wall of garage through big door.

Tuesday July 21, inside North wall, scaffold in place.

Friday July 24, North wall, at full height, half of re-inforcing cores and window lintels filled with concrete.

Friday July 24, East wall at full height, with cover to keep out rain.

Friday July 24, inside North wall, scaffold with 'sky hook' for pouring cement cores.

July 25, Mike on the wall pouring cement into the reinforced columns.

A better view of Mike working the the bucket.

July 26, View of the scaffold and "skyhook" ready to begin pour of the east wall.

Finished pour on the east wall.

Finished, poured, north and east walls. Bond beam will be poured later.

July 27, Partially stacked west wall.

Rebar in the top course, part of the bond beam reinforcement.

Rebar detail at door lintel, rebar at top in bond beam, and 20 mm rebar below across the lintel bottom.

July 30, West wall stacking completed, ready to pour.

West wall beginning pour of columns and lintels.

August 2, Sunday; the column and lintel pour is complete on West wall, south wall columns nearly done to top of windows. Narrow columns poured at 6 courses high for stability, the rest will be poured when the lintels are poured.

August 4. Tuesday; coming down the home stretch on the south wall of the garage.

Details of the steel put into the lintels, the larger rebar gives more strength to the poured concrete in the lintel blocks.

Top of a narrow column, with lintel steel going over the top of each window lintel bounded by the column.

Tuesday night, The garage wall is completely stacked, lintel steel in place and column steel tomorrow.

August 5, Wednesday, I finished putting the steel into the columns and was ready to start the pour. I was checking out the skyhook and discovered the switch was not controlling the winch, in fact the winch was not working. Spent the next 3 hours dissembling the switch, cleaning the contacts and extablishing that the switch was not the problem. A bit of investigation with my voltohmeter determined that the real problems was corrosion on the battery terminal. Cleaned that up and now it was all ready to go, but too late for Wednesday. On Thursday had a really long day, starting about 9 AM and finally cleaning up and putting the tools away at 9:45 PM. Poured all the cores on the south wall, and the bond beam for south and east walls. Was one tired puppy! Friday put in a much shorter day, and by 4:30 PM had the remaining two walls of bond beam poured and the steel bolts for fastening the truss nailing plate embedded in the cement. Primary structure of the garage walls is complete; surface bonding cement for additional strength, waterproofing and the finish surface on the inside is yet to be applied.

Looking in through the garage door, north to south all columns and bond beams poured.

West wall of garage structure complete.

South window wall of garage with columns and bond beam poured.

June 24, The walls begin!

After the successful slab pour, I wetted down and covered both house and garage with the tarps and kept them wet for a week.   This was not difficult as the rains came again.  I never seems to stop, the local farmers are complaining about the wet spring and there is standing water in many fields.  Usually by this time of the summer they are complaining about drought.  Farmers always complain

A week after the slab pour I started on the first block course above the floor.  The first step was to put a horizontal course of rebar tied to the stubs sticking up from the foundation.   Then I set about placing the first course of blocks, but being exquisitely careful about getting these blocks as perfectly level and plumb as possible. This involved a lot of level use and the judicious modification of blocks whose base was not perfect, with a diamond blade in a right angle grinder. The first course of blocks will be bonded to the foundation with a pour of cement to embed the horizontal rebar, and lock the base course to the foundation.  First was the garage workshop as seen in the pictures below, with details of the rebar placement.    At the same time it was necessary to get the fill in around the foundation in preparation for moving the wall up to full height.   My plan was also to extend the grade from the the driveway  to the entry door of the house, place the sand fill for the floor of the screen porch and the breezeway path to the workshop entry door.   Was going to try and get 4 loads of  fill sand from the driveway into the space between the house and garage, but the dump truck began to sink in so fast once he got on the last layer of sand we only dumped 2 loads off the edge of the driveway in the right direction.

  My neighbor Rick across the back fence, who got a new toy ultimate garden tractor a couple weeks ago  (John Deere 3020  with a front end loader and a grader)  has been itching to move dirt.   So he had at it, and after a few hours the two loads of sand were distributed.    This was interrupted with a short period where he was stuck up to his axles in the soft spot on the south side of the house foundation were the rain runoff accumulated.   He consulted with friends about getting another tractor to pull him out, with limited success.   The the son of my neighbors diagonally across the road, who is a farmer near by, appeared, evaluated the situation and declared  he could pull it out.   Disappeared for 20 minutes and reappeared with another slight larger John Deere,  Rick attached a sturdy chain, and voila he was back on solid ground.   Thereafter he was much more careful about entering the soft area before putting a lot of fill sand in first.  By the time he was done, the back side was filled so the water runs off instead of collecting.

Took a couple days on the weekend to visit my son and family in Toronto, and of course it rained again. Was planning on installment 2 of the sand on Tuesday, but it was actually delivered on Wednesday, Canada Day which I thought was a holiday. It turned out the aggregate company, moved the holiday to Friday for a 3 day weekend, and when I tried to get some cement gravel on Friday afternoon since I had finished leveling and placing the first course, nobody was there. On Monday I was ready for the last sand delivery, called at 7AM had both loads in place by 10:30. Rick the earthmover turned up mid afternoon, and all the sand was in place by 8PM. A busy day with all the fine tuning of the sand fill with rake and shovel, but it is starting to look pretty good, at least to my eye.

Garage/workshop first block course complete and verified level.

Detail of rebar in the base course of blocks. Note level on block.

Detail of rebar in base course. Note horizontal rebar tied to vertical rebar stub.

Partial sand fill of space between garage and house.

Two dump truck loads of sand fill on the edge of the driveway.

Rick on his John Deere distributing sand.

Fill nearly complete along south side of house.

Fill between House and Garage.

Rick doing his thing.

Placing fill on the screen porch location.

Finishing up the second batch of sand.

Completed first block course on the house.

Fill on the south side of the house foundation.

The sand fill for the screen porch slab.

Fill and grading east of the garage, to improve drainage to the catchbasin.

Looking across the expanded driveway/parking space to the front door, now up to grade.

June 16, Slab pour is done!

Tuesday morning, another sparkling day.   The crew arrived at 8AM and minutes later the first cement truck pulled, so it was off and running.   I have the pictures in a gallery format below, double click on the thumbnail to see the full size version of the picture.    The crew slimmed down to just 3 for the fine finishing, and everything was done by about 1PM

Bright and early, the first bit of cement hits the ground.

Spreading the cement, starting from the Master Bedroom.

Moving the cement.

Moving the cement along the south wall.

Starting to look like a floor.

Moving the conveyor to the east side of the house.

Partly distributed cement on the south side.

Putting in the strain relief slots.

More strain relief devices.

Dropping cement in the dining room area.

Bull float, and edge troweling.

The second load of cement, regular truck.

The last of the cement in the entry hallway.

Troweling and leveling the last piece of cement.

Leveling and rough troweling done on whole floor.

Finishing the floor in the machinery room around all the pipes etc.

Power troweling, coming down the home stretch.

Finishing the threshold of the entry door.

Power troweling and inspection by Shawn, the head finisher.

Patio blocks made from the slight excess of cement for the floor.

All done, looking from Master BR to entry hallway.

Looking from guest BR toward the dining room corner.

June 15, Finally concrete!

Well, all the best laid plans…….   Friday was supposed to be cement day, but there was confusion with the ready-mix company and no conveyor truck available, so postponed to Monday.   Monday was to be a big day, both slabs to be done.  Again, two people had thought they booked the long conveyor, so all we had was the shorter one.  The good thing was that we did get the garage/workshop  floor poured and finished.   Had to tie up the last loose ends with encapsulating the brass splices in shrink tubing and tape, but everything was go long before the cement truck arrived.  Shawn the cement finisher showed up at 6:30 to take the special cement fiber to be added to the mix.   So a long day.  Below are pictures of the day’s activities.

The crew planning the day.

Marking the top of slab on pipes and foundation.

Cement truck arrives, and reels out the conveyor.

First of the cement goes in the far corner.

Leveling the cement, rakes and power screed.

More of the spreading and leveling.

Closing in on the last section of cement, starting to look like a floor.

Dropping in the last of the cement for the garage.

Power troweler at work, and putting the taper in the garage door.

Working the surface with the “bull float”

Working on the final finish with the power trowel.

Garage slab wetted down and covered with the tarpaulin for the slow cure.

June 10, Radiant Heating tubes complete!

Worked through the week, dealing with the rain,  put the pex tubing in place for the 7 radiant heating loops planned for the house and garage/workshop.   The plumbing folks predicted they would have the last roll of tubing on Friday, but no go.   It was delivered on Monday.   All but the last big loop were finished by Sunday night.    Had rain on Sunday night, so I was shopvacing the water off the tarpaulins before I could peel them back and do the last loop of tubing Monday afternoon.   Tuesday was tying up the loose ends, placing the  ends of the loops in a neat array for connection to the heating manifolds, and putting form lumber over the cutouts where the slab will be poured in the various doors extending to the edge of the foundation.   Tuesday morning the cement finisher dropped by to tell me we are scheduled to pour on Friday morning, so went down immediately to alert the plumbing contractor.   Today, Wednesday the boys came round to put in the splices in the pex sections, connect the manifolds  and pressure test the whole assembly.  All done by 5PM and will  check back in the morning to confirm there are no leaks in the system.  Pictures below of the fiinished product.

Machinery room, heating manifold, city water, potable water connections and feed of hot water to the garage, ready for pour.

Looking across the house foundation toward my trailer, pex completed.

Master Bathroom plumbing layout; vanity foreground, CCW tub, toilet, bidet, and shower.

Workshop/garage manifold and pex complete.