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TehRedWheelbarrow
Mar 16, 2011



Fan of Britches
a child could do it what could possibly go wrong?

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kastein
Aug 31, 2011

Moderator at http://www.ridgelineownersclub.com/forums/and soon to be mod of AI. MAKE AI GREAT AGAIN. Motronic for VP.
I am soooooo loving tired of nothing being level, square, plumb, true, or parallel. It's like trying to do carpentry while looking at everything with a funhouse mirror.

Currently finishing the furring strips in the second floor hallway so I can put up the vapor barrier. Hoping to have it and the closets done by tomorrow so maybe I can rent the insulation machine and get this place a little less painful to heat. 600 dollar gas bill last month... Still beats 900 for the same month last year, and 1500+ to rent a house this size in this town while fixing this one.

Liquid Communism
Mar 9, 2004


Out here, everything hurts.




I can't wait for the terror that is you being given a blank slate to overbuild from the ground up.

Everything will be done right.

cakesmith handyman
Jul 22, 2007

Pip-Pip old chap! Last one in is a rotten egg what what.

kastein posted:

600 dollar gas bill last month...

I thought you didn't have any missing walls anymore? :haw:

Pershing
Feb 21, 2010

John "Black Jack" Pershing
Hard Fucking Core

Liquid Communism posted:

I can't wait for the terror that is you being given a blank slate to overbuild from the ground up.

Everything will be done right.

This is gonna turn out like some medieval town building a church...generations after generations working towards perfection

tetrapyloctomy
Feb 18, 2003

Okay -- you talk WAY too fast.
Nap Ghost

Pershing posted:

This is gonna turn out like some medieval town building a church...generations after generations working towards perfection

But with perfection being the enemy of the good and all, it could make for a fun build thread for sure as he deals with subcontractors who are less exacting.

kastein
Aug 31, 2011

Moderator at http://www.ridgelineownersclub.com/forums/and soon to be mod of AI. MAKE AI GREAT AGAIN. Motronic for VP.
No missing walls, but the second floor ceiling is extremely leaky even with poly mostly covering it and the roof peak vents basically let all the heat out. Even a couple days of having the plastic partially pulled down to work on ducting or wiring can put a big bump in the gas bill.

Liquid Communism posted:

I can't wait for the terror that is you being given a blank slate to overbuild from the ground up.

Everything will be done right.

When you build from scratch you get to just make everything square and level in the first place and pretty much just slap drywall on it and run. The new walls I built in the second floor were like this, I think it took me all of a day to frame them out.

Anyways, I got some poo poo done. Not as much as I wanted but... Some poo poo.




Not much left in the hallway before I can put the final poly sheet up and seal it up well, then just need to finish the same thing in the closets (way easier since they're utility space and a little more slop is acceptable) and I'm ready to insulate the rest of the second floor and sheetrock it.

Liquid Communism
Mar 9, 2004


Out here, everything hurts.




kastein posted:

When you build from scratch you get to just make everything square and level in the first place and pretty much just slap drywall on it and run. The new walls I built in the second floor were like this, I think it took me all of a day to frame them out.

That's the part I'm looking forward to, the moment you walk onto the build site while some subcontractor's doing something and just tell them from a glance exactly what way they are making your poo poo harder by being wrong.

kastein
Aug 31, 2011

Moderator at http://www.ridgelineownersclub.com/forums/and soon to be mod of AI. MAKE AI GREAT AGAIN. Motronic for VP.
... subcontractor?

I don't intend to have anything contracted out except the foundation, septic, and well, because the cost of failure on those and the cost of equipment are both high enough that it's cheaper to have it done than gently caress up even once. Most stuff beyond that, I can do it, learn from my mistake, rip it down, and do it again and still come out ahead. Really looking forward to being able to build effectively 11 months a year instead of like 4, too. Here it's so nasty and swampy in the summer I don't want to move, and so cold in the winter I don't want to go outside and can't use caulking or paint outdoors, which limits what I can do a lot.

I didn't get much done this weekend aside from general cleanup, some ducting, and furring strips and vapor barrier in the upstairs hall. Vapor barrier is boring so here is the ducting. I've been worrying about this one for a while since I wasn't sure of working space and hadn't used these fittings before.



This is the dining room AC return register. It didn't take long at all and was way easier than I thought it would be.

Ferremit
Sep 14, 2007
if I haven't posted about MY LANDCRUISER yet, check my bullbars for kangaroo prints

I dont know what your blackberries are like, but here in Aus the black berries beat EVERYTHING.

I've got places at work where 6' thick tree trunks laying on the ground have dissapeared under ANOTHER 6 feet of blackberry.

kastein
Aug 31, 2011

Moderator at http://www.ridgelineownersclub.com/forums/and soon to be mod of AI. MAKE AI GREAT AGAIN. Motronic for VP.
I'm 6'5" and they were well over my head in places.

They die out after the trees get tall enough to shade them though.

kastein
Aug 31, 2011

Moderator at http://www.ridgelineownersclub.com/forums/and soon to be mod of AI. MAKE AI GREAT AGAIN. Motronic for VP.
I've now finished the furring strips in two of three closets and hung the vapor barrier plastic. It looks like this in the other closet and the hallway too I assure you.


This week I got the call from Home Depot indicating that my latest window order had arrived. With snow looming in the forecast for tonight and my 2wd open-diff truck very unimpressed with things like hills and snow, we decided to take my wife's Roadmaster wagon to pick them up. It's really nice having a station wagon big enough to put a 60x40 and a 69x40 window in the back and still be able to close the hatch. The weather was good enough (above 40, not raining) to install them so I did. One of these went in the new living room wall that I framed out for this window in late 2015 and just sheathed over till we had the money, the other replaced a very broken and extremely drafty original window.




That will likely be all for today except maybe some conduit in the attic. I'm beat from dragging those windows around and whatnot.

daslog
Dec 10, 2008

#essereFerrari
Question:. Are you planning to scale back some of your enhancements because you are going to move as soon as you finish?

kastein
Aug 31, 2011

Moderator at http://www.ridgelineownersclub.com/forums/and soon to be mod of AI. MAKE AI GREAT AGAIN. Motronic for VP.
I'm not finishing the built in air compressor setup (using what pipes I've already bought for it and hooking it up but that's it, it won't go all the way around the basement as originally planned) and I'm not going to put in the networking system I was going to. Basically everything else is already bought, needs to be done regardless, or is done.

I'm not building the big brick fireplace I was going to (we might install the wood stove I already bought though, or just sell it) or the outside BBQ pit I was going to build, and we may or may not get around to building the pergola I was going to put over the back porch after rebuilding it. I'm probably not putting the 200A main panel I was going to in either, most people will be fine with 100 in a house this size with gas heat. I was going to have a 200A panel with all my machine tools on it plus a 100A breaker running to the generator ATS input with the 100A panel with all important loads on it, but that's overkill and most people wouldn't see a reason for it. So it'll just be the 100A ATS feeding the standard 100A main panel.

We probably won't do much landscaping other than making the lawn look nice either. That's something the next owner will likely want to do to their own tastes anyways.

kastein fucked around with this message at 23:45 on Mar 4, 2019

dreesemonkey
May 14, 2008
Pillbug
Hey Ken this guy on youtube is kind of the post frame building whisperer, I figured you'd appreciate his level of obsession getting things perfect and he more or less shows every step of the build. If you plan on building your pole building it would be excellent homework for you.

kastein
Aug 31, 2011

Moderator at http://www.ridgelineownersclub.com/forums/and soon to be mod of AI. MAKE AI GREAT AGAIN. Motronic for VP.
Cool! I'll have to take a look. We haven't decided on wood or metal framed yet.

I haven't gotten much done except I finished the wiring for the central AC and smoke tested it. No smoke! All the parts came in to finish hooking up the refrigerant lines as well so doing that and vacuuming it down to check for leaks are probably on this weekend's list.

TooMuchAbstraction
Oct 14, 2012

I spent four years making
Waves of Steel
Hell yes I'm going to turn my avatar into an ad for it.
Fun Shoe
Are you designing the new house (on the land you bought) yourself, as well as building it? If so, how are you going about the design? I'm curious about your process here, including deciding how big the place should be, what if any outbuildings you want. Basically anything you want to share about that process.

kastein
Aug 31, 2011

Moderator at http://www.ridgelineownersclub.com/forums/and soon to be mod of AI. MAKE AI GREAT AGAIN. Motronic for VP.
It's still very much up in the air.

We are definitely building a 40x60 pole barn or metal barn for all the cars, tools, and electronics shop.

House? Well, I was assuming I'd be building a regular 2-3 bedroom 2 floor house with a basement and stuff. However, my wife thinks that's silly and wants to build a tiny house. I don't particularly care as long as I've got somewhere to crap, shower, cook, and sleep, so I'm certainly not going to argue very hard if that's what she's set on. Tiny houses are cheaper and faster just because they take less materials. I'd vote for a bachelor style garagehouse but I think they look kinda silly unless you make substantial compromises security and storage wise by putting in some house style windows so I'm ok with the tiny house and big barn idea.

If we decide to have kids I feel like a tiny house will get too small very quickly. We'll see. We can't build more than one residential structure due to zoning but I guess we could do an addition.

tetrapyloctomy
Feb 18, 2003

Okay -- you talk WAY too fast.
Nap Ghost

kastein posted:

It's still very much up in the air.

We are definitely building a 40x60 pole barn or metal barn for all the cars, tools, and electronics shop.

House? Well, I was assuming I'd be building a regular 2-3 bedroom 2 floor house with a basement and stuff. However, my wife thinks that's silly and wants to build a tiny house. I don't particularly care as long as I've got somewhere to crap, shower, cook, and sleep, so I'm certainly not going to argue very hard if that's what she's set on. Tiny houses are cheaper and faster just because they take less materials. I'd vote for a bachelor style garagehouse but I think they look kinda silly unless you make substantial compromises security and storage wise by putting in some house style windows so I'm ok with the tiny house and big barn idea.

If we decide to have kids I feel like a tiny house will get too small very quickly. We'll see. We can't build more than one residential structure due to zoning but I guess we could do an addition.

If you design it from the start to be expanded, you could even manage to have your addition not eat into your life too much at a time where you're not going to want much in the way of inconvenience. (Bonus points if you keep the the blueprints in a box emblazoned with Break Glass In Case Of Paternity.)

kastein
Aug 31, 2011

Moderator at http://www.ridgelineownersclub.com/forums/and soon to be mod of AI. MAKE AI GREAT AGAIN. Motronic for VP.

tetrapyloctomy posted:

If you design it from the start to be expanded, you could even manage to have your addition not eat into your life too much at a time where you're not going to want much in the way of inconvenience. (Bonus points if you keep the the blueprints in a box emblazoned with Break Glass In Case Of Paternity.)

Holy poo poo your dad joke game is on point.

(Yes that was intentional)

Yeah, I've got some ideas but I haven't really put anything on paper yet.

H110Hawk
Dec 28, 2006

kastein posted:

House? Well, I was assuming I'd be building a regular 2-3 bedroom 2 floor house with a basement and stuff. However, my wife thinks that's silly and wants to build a tiny house.

If this is the house you hope to grow old in you might want to consider the accessibility of the place. A tiny house ( :suicide: ) is going to wind up pretty incompatible with aging, and in 20 years you guys might want some house space that isn't right next to each other. Not saying 2 story w/ basement is the only other option but like ~1400sqft single story is a decent amount of house for 2 people long term.

wooger
Apr 16, 2005

YOU RESENT?

kastein posted:

It's still very much up in the air.

We are definitely building a 40x60 pole barn or metal barn for all the cars, tools, and electronics shop.

House? Well, I was assuming I'd be building a regular 2-3 bedroom 2 floor house with a basement and stuff. However, my wife thinks that's silly and wants to build a tiny house. I don't particularly care as long as I've got somewhere to crap, shower, cook, and sleep, so I'm certainly not going to argue very hard if that's what she's set on. Tiny houses are cheaper and faster just because they take less materials. I'd vote for a bachelor style garagehouse but I think they look kinda silly unless you make substantial compromises security and storage wise by putting in some house style windows so I'm ok with the tiny house and big barn idea.

If we decide to have kids I feel like a tiny house will get too small very quickly. We'll see. We can't build more than one residential structure due to zoning but I guess we could do an addition.

Tiny house seems like the polar opposite of the impression I’ve gotten of you from reading this thread.

Just think of family visiting and needing to stay over.

kastein
Aug 31, 2011

Moderator at http://www.ridgelineownersclub.com/forums/and soon to be mod of AI. MAKE AI GREAT AGAIN. Motronic for VP.
Oh it definitely is. But then I spent some time thinking about it and:
The spare bedroom is a place to store car and electronics parts and tools as far as I'm concerned
The office is for electronics and whatever electrical car stuff I'm working on
I don't really use the living room, except currently it's where the house repair tools and materials live because the basement is dirt floor and not repointed yet so it wrecks stuff with humidity
Kitchen is for eating and cooking
Dining room is half demolished and no one uses it

Given that we both agree we are building a Garage Mahal barn for the electronics and cars and tools I'm not really sure why I need a house for anything but what I mentioned, crapping, showering, cooking, eating, and sleeping. If she's happy with it I'm fine with that. It also means it'll cost a fraction as much to build and probably take me a lot less time too.

If we have to make it bigger in the future so be it.

IOwnCalculus
Apr 2, 2003





kastein posted:

However, my wife thinks that's silly and wants to build a tiny house.

You want your house to appeal to :females:, right?

TooMuchAbstraction
Oct 14, 2012

I spent four years making
Waves of Steel
Hell yes I'm going to turn my avatar into an ad for it.
Fun Shoe
I seem to recall that a semi-common pattern for people who build their own homes is to start with a small structure that's basically just kitchen/bathroom/bedroom, i.e. enough to give you a usable shelter. You get that up quickly, then are able to add whatever expansions you feel are appropriate at a more leisurely pace. Eventually you can convert the bedroom into a dining room or office or other miscellaneous room.

I'll second the recommendation to keep accessibility in mind, not just for when you get old but also if you suffer an injury that prevents you from climbing stairs. You don't necessarily have to keep everything on a single floor, but the upstairs stuff should all be nonessential. That means having a full bathroom downstairs and at least one room that can serve as a bedroom.

beep-beep car is go
Apr 11, 2005

I can just eyeball this, right?



TooMuchAbstraction posted:

I'll second the recommendation to keep accessibility in mind, not just for when you get old but also if you suffer an injury that prevents you from climbing stairs. You don't necessarily have to keep everything on a single floor, but the upstairs stuff should all be nonessential. That means having a full bathroom downstairs and at least one room that can serve as a bedroom.

Thirding the accessibility angle but for resale. Yes, you're aiming for a forever home, but plans and families change. Keeping the next owners in mind is never a bad idea. The house we sold a few months ago had a full bath on the first floor and on the second. Because of the first floor full bath, the house got multiple offers and we got a very competitive offer in 3 days of being listed. People say kitchens sell houses but tubs and showers where people need them sell houses!

Seat Safety Switch
May 27, 2008

MY RELIGION IS THE SMALL BLOCK V8 AND COMMANDMENTS ONE THROUGH TEN ARE NEVER LIFT.

Pillbug
I say sink the house into the ground and go full-on concrete survivalist bunker. Solar panels, water purifiers, perimeter defence emplacements.

It goes with the vehicle aesthetic. Plus there’s more excuses to build more cranes and carpenter ants can’t eat concrete.

tetrapyloctomy
Feb 18, 2003

Okay -- you talk WAY too fast.
Nap Ghost

Seat Safety Switch posted:

I say sink the house into the ground and go full-on concrete survivalist bunker. Solar panels, water purifiers, perimeter defence emplacements.

It goes with the vehicle aesthetic. Plus there’s more excuses to build more cranes and carpenter ants can’t eat concrete.

If I were considering expandable new construction, this is one of the approaches I'd take anyway (other than "perimeter defence emplacements," anyway). If you start by basically building a walk-out basement, you can add floors above without any intrusion into your regular home life other than construction noise and the process of adding stairs from your now-basement to your new first floor. And man, is having a finished walk-out basement great. When my parents visit they basically have a little apartment, and when I'm old that's basically how I'll use the space as well.

TehRedWheelbarrow
Mar 16, 2011



Fan of Britches
what homeowner doesnt consider what perimeter defense emplacements you could get away with?

tetrapyloctomy
Feb 18, 2003

Okay -- you talk WAY too fast.
Nap Ghost

sneakyfrog posted:

what homeowner doesnt consider what perimeter defense emplacements you could get away with?

Perimeter defense consideration, sure. Once you start actually placing pillboxes, you're getting a bit weird.

Motronic
Nov 6, 2009

tetrapyloctomy posted:

Perimeter defense consideration, sure. Once you start actually placing pillboxes, you're getting a bit weird.

Not if you tastefully design them as part of your landscape.

tetrapyloctomy
Feb 18, 2003

Okay -- you talk WAY too fast.
Nap Ghost

Motronic posted:

Not if you tastefully design them as part of your landscape.

In its own way that's even weirder. "Gotta have some tastefully hidden perimeter defenses for my home which is unlikely ever to be under assault."

IOwnCalculus
Apr 2, 2003





Motronic posted:

Not if you tastefully design them as part of your landscape.

"Did someone build a replica of the Maginot line in Oregon?"

Coasterphreak
May 29, 2007
I like cookies.
I'm pretty sure I recall a thread on Garage Journal where some dude that owned a concrete company went for broke on a reinforced concrete house and garage/shop and ended up exactly that... broke.

BuckyDoneGun
Nov 30, 2004
fat drunk
Nah, dude got busy for a while and didn't post, but it's basically done now.

https://www.garagejournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=145073

Humbug Scoolbus
Apr 25, 2008

The scarlet letter was her passport into regions where other women dared not tread. Shame, Despair, Solitude! These had been her teachers, stern and wild ones, and they had made her strong, but taught her much amiss.
Clapping Larry

Motronic posted:

Not if you tastefully design them as part of your landscape.

Tom Sharpe's Riotous Assembly posted:

So, for want of anything better to do, Els had explored the area round the gateway and had closed and bolted the great wrought-iron gates. In the course of his explorations, he made the exciting discovery that what he had at first sight taken to be a well-clipped square privet hedge concealed in fact a concrete blockhouse. It was clearly very old and just as clearly very impregnable.

It dated in fact from the days of Sir Theophilus who had ordered its construction after the Battle of Bulundi. The Governor's victory on that occasion had done nothing to diminish his natural cowardice and the accusations of treachery leveled against him by the Zulus and by the next of kin of the officers killed by their own shells had turned what had been previously natural anxiety into an obsessive phobia that thousands of vengeful Zulus trained in the use of ten-inch naval guns by the surviving members of his old regiment, the Royal Marines Heavy Artillery Brigade, would storm Jacaranda Park one awful night.

Faced with this imaginary threat, Sir Theophilus had begun the collection of weapons that had so startled Kommandant van Heerden in the gallery of Jacaranda House, and also the construction of a series of formidable blockhouses around the perimeter of the Park, all of which had been designed to withstand a direct hit from a ten-inch naval shell fired at point-blank range.

kastein
Aug 31, 2011

Moderator at http://www.ridgelineownersclub.com/forums/and soon to be mod of AI. MAKE AI GREAT AGAIN. Motronic for VP.
Well. In house related news, my chinesium vacuum pump is perfectly capable of pulling a 200 micron vacuum but I can't get the system below 4220 microns no matter how many hours I pump for. Pretty sure that means I hosed up a flare somewhere, so I've got a higher pressure inert gas regulator coming from Amazon Tuesday (my welding one wouldn't go all that high) and I'll stuff a couple hundred psi of argon in the lines and listen for hissing.

Why argon? Because I've got a tank of it for backpurging Tig welds and don't have a tank of nitrogen.

I checked the vapor pressure tables for water at the temps we saw today and I don't think my 4220 micron reading indicates water in the lines. I was very careful to not get any water or dust in them and would be surprised if there was any water but I needed to check the numbers anyways for sanity sake.

Beach Bum
Jan 13, 2010
Are you going to get refrigerant certs so you can do this whole thing yourself?

My HVAC is on the fritz at the moment, and I suspect low refrigerant, which means a leak somewheres. I've wondered but not really investigated into how difficult it would be to refill my own system once I get the leak sorted.

kastein
Aug 31, 2011

Moderator at http://www.ridgelineownersclub.com/forums/and soon to be mod of AI. MAKE AI GREAT AGAIN. Motronic for VP.
Yeah, I pass the EPA 608 type 2 practice tests every time at this point, I'm just gonna get certified. I'll probably do type 1 as well and 609 since I work on my own auto AC systems and really should have the cert even though no one's ever bothered me about it.

I could likely get away without the cert since I don't technically need to add any refrigerant (it comes precharged for 25ft of lineset and I used 24'8") but I would like to tweak it to get optimal performance so I'm probably going to have to buy some.

I've had 300psi of argon in the system for the last hour and a half and it's holding fine now that I retightened the stupid flare that was leaking. I think I'm gonna leave it till morning and see where it's at since it's too late to be running a vacuum pump outside the bedroom window and neighbors house anyways.

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kastein
Aug 31, 2011

Moderator at http://www.ridgelineownersclub.com/forums/and soon to be mod of AI. MAKE AI GREAT AGAIN. Motronic for VP.
Sorry, been slacking on posting updates.

Finished the office AC return duct. I'm getting semi ok at this. Just in time to be done with it.






Finished the upstairs part of the thermostat wiring conduit runs. You can now replace any thermostat wiring without opening any walls.


Installed the attic ladder.


Worked on the plumbing for the upstairs high efficiency ventless washer dryer my wife really wants. I was on the fence originally but it does sound like it'll be nice and it'll free up a lot of basement space while making use of a useless hall alcove and reducing the distance laundry has to be carried so... I guess we'll give it a shot.


To finish the drain piping for it I need to replace a (pretty rotten) support post in the basement so I started digging for the footing. It didn't go that well. That's bedrock. I needed to dig at least 12 inches to get the basement floor height I wanted, and this is going to make burying the pipe... Difficult. Good thing I own a rotary hammer.


Finished the drain all the way to the basement. Doubles as a roller coaster for sewer rats.


Installed the vent stack. Nothing more nerve wracking than cutting a hole in a new roof 2 hours before a thunderstorm. Getting the roof stack boot up under the already installed shingles was a pain in the rear end, but apparently I did ok because it didn't leak even though we got a thunderstorm, hail, and nearby tornado warnings.






That's all for now. I hosed up my back Friday night so the plumbing was about all I could handle this weekend. Oh, no pics but I finished gutting the dining room and started tearing up the flooring. There's a plywood sized hole in the floor right now.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8d0q4zmsVcg
I can't recall if I said anything stupid in this video or if music was playing so you may or may not want to mute it, or YouTube copyright bots might do it for me :v:

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