20x32 Two story in upstate South Carolina

mwhutch · June 24, 2013, 07:55:47 AM

Hi everyone,

We have been long time lurkers on this forum, and are finally starting our house! Over the past few months we have bought a couple sets of plans, asked some questions, and finally decided on a full two story over a block crawlspace. The costs added up to almost the same for a 1-1/2 story as a 2 story, and since this will be our full time house we chose the slightly larger plan.

A little background on us: We have lived on this 4.28 acres for the past 6 years(its a fixer upper), grooming it and managing it to become exactly what we want. We hope that it will really be to our advantage that our current house is only 150' from the construction site! My husband is a land surveyor by trade and I am a stay at home mom. We raise all of our own meat, eggs, milk, and most of our vegetables here on the "farm". We actually were able to use pigs and goats to do a good amount of the clearing work. We are just very excited to start building here in the next few weeks, and would love to share our progress with all of these great people on Country Plans.

First Floor

Second Floor

Overview

Will laying out the site, with a curious pig supervising.

Woods before the pigs

House site at slightly different angle after running the pigs and reseeding

lavarock · June 24, 2013, 10:46:11 AM

Really like the layout! - efficient.

Thoughts- Given you are looking at a crawl space, you may want to check the two story that was done in Michigan with the usable walk up attic space. It did not add much to the project cost, but added a bunch of usable space. See the picture gallery.

Good luck!

June 28, 2013, 09:02:44 PM

We had a last minute change of graders and were able to get started sooner than expected! These guys were awesome, and we are very glad we chose them over renting some equipment. Worth every penny!

Here's some photos of the progress:

Spring before Grading

They came to "drop off equipment," and then went ahead and started at 6pm!

Some very generous friends loaned us this to make some mulch of tree tops.

The house site after they went home for the day.

Hopefully on Monday we will have some footings dug and some gravel laid.

mwhutch · June 30, 2013, 01:13:44 PM

What are some ways to connect a built up 3ply 2x10 girder to the block perimeter foundation? We can't find a clear answer, any suggestions would be of much help. We liked the way Squirl connected his with solid bearing on the block, but aren't sure if that's possible with the 2x10's height.

Here are some things we have thought of, but we aren't sure which would work the best.

some simpson brackets that may work

roadtripray · July 01, 2013, 08:45:05 PM

Looks like you guys are off to a great start! Are you by any chance anywhere near York or Cherokee counties? I'm wondering because I just received a job offer so as soon as I get my first couple of paychecks I'll probably be ready for some grading on my site and would love to hear referrals if you are anywhere in my area.

Peace,
Ray

July 01, 2013, 09:06:03 PM

Thanks Ray, we are located near Anderson. That's great about the job, I've read some of your posts and look forward to seeing what others are doing locally!We probably would be too far for referrals, but a good place to start might be local concrete suppliers, they may know of some good graders in your area.

mwhutch · July 03, 2013, 08:09:18 PM

Here's the latest progress on our build, working between the rain.

Paul our grader came out monday and finished the driveway and dug footings.

A view of the drive after putting up some erosion control.

A tail for drainage in case it rained.

Today we passed our first inspection, Randy the inspector was a really nice guy(I should have got his picture

)!

After passing the inspection Paul our grader called in our concrete and came out to help us with the pour!

Unfortunately we made a slight miscalculation and ran out about a quarter or so yard short, so we will have to fill the last pier footing with hand mixed concrete.

All in all it was a great exciting day! However I will recommend making sure you don't have any dogs around, as the concrete truck driver told us all dogs love concrete. We learned the hard way as one of our dogs escaped the fence and swam one of the footings (he's all washed and ok though).

MushCreek · July 04, 2013, 05:32:40 AM

My heart goes out to you with all of this rain! I'm just up the road a piece, north of Travelers Rest. Luckily, I'm finally in the dry so I can work inside.

I've never fit a beam into a block wall, so I'm not sure which method is best. Just be sure that you have solid concrete under the beam, and all the way to the ground (fill the holes). I believe the wood either has to be pressure treated, or insulated in some way from the concrete. Mine is a big LVL, and we wrapped it in self-adhesive waterproofing on the ends. My place is ICF all the way up, so I have no mud sill.

mwhutch · July 04, 2013, 07:06:20 AM

Thanks Mush Creek, that may be the best way to go, just build up block under the ends and fill them. We actually got really lucky until last night and haven't got much rain. The rain started last night here

we were hoping to use this long weekend to get a good start on the crawlspace. I've read through your build, it looks great! I can't wait till we have this one in the dry! Thanks again for the advice

July 04, 2013, 10:09:56 AM

I would just cut the block, you'll have to cut two blocks to get the correct depth then core fill below and on the sides,just use cheap bag mix to fill dont waste your money on the brackets.I would not cut the beam to fit . They have been using this method for years and nothing was set on treated lumber with no issues.Idealy if you lay the block out first you could set rebar in the cores that will be below and on the sides of the beam.

mwhutch · July 04, 2013, 01:22:07 PM

Thank you Patrick, we really appreciate it. It's so simple and we were trying to make it complicated

mwhutch · July 06, 2013, 09:30:29 PM

Well we have had about 4.5"+ of rain since Wednesday but we have still been able to dry off the footings to get a little block work started. Now that we're getting a little better at laying block and have gotten a little help from Will's parents it should start moving faster. Typically we don't get this much rain in a month let alone 3 days!

We aren't sure where this little guy came from, Hannah found him in the FEMA tarp, and he proved to be hours of entertainment until he hopped away!

Hopefully this rain will subside and we can finish this crawlspace. I just want to thank everyone that posted tips about laying block because they were all most helpful!

Patrick · July 07, 2013, 08:31:26 AM

looks like a good start!

mwhutch · July 13, 2013, 09:06:02 PM

We'll with 10 inches of rain in the past ten days we finally had a whole day to work on the foundation! Everything is a muddy mess, so Will set up a pallet walkway to help.

Here is where we started today:

Here's where we got to at the end of the day( thanks again to Tommy and Holly for all the help!)

We have had a time getting the block level. When we poured the concrete and set the corners with the surveying instrament, the corners were all very close to level(within a 1/16 of an inch) Unfortunately every place the concrete truck poured the cement and we raked ended up being slightly high(maybe 1/2 inch). In hindsight we would have spent more time checking the level of the entire surface rather than just corners. After the first course using line blocks and line levels we realized the error but it was too late. Finally Will remebered a gift given to him from Uncle Gary, a vintage craftsman transit, it worked perfect!

And here's a fun "manufacturer suggested" way to clean a fema tarp. This will also make great grand opening barbecue entertainment!

Only one more course of block to go on the top, close the end, build 4 piers and we'll be done with the block work!

July 14, 2013, 07:21:28 AM

I'm impressed at your progress despite all of the rain!

mwhutch · July 14, 2013, 01:45:46 PM

Thanks Jay, it is really discouraging to have to clean up all the mud and water just to get more rain!

mwhutch · July 28, 2013, 09:15:26 PM

We have been busy the last two weeks! Our house is really coming along, and best of all we are working with wood now!

Preparing to place the last closure block.

Finished foundation and center girder. This is where we got to last weekend

Almost through with floor joists.

Laying down the floor sheathing (it took about twenty tubes of liquid nails!)

Deck dancing time!!

End of the day saturday

We had a little trouble with one 16' section of the wall wanting to slide as we stood it up yesterday, so today we used the metal straps that bundle the wood and toe nailed the edge of this wall. Unfortunately the largest window on this wall fell where we had planed to split it in half to stand it up, so we just didnt put on the sheathing and stood up all 32'.

Here is the wall jack Will made with a boat winch and 2 -16 foot 2x6's. He cranked it up while we went back and forth lifting each end and putting bracing under the end. We roped off the top so it couldn't fall all the way over. When it got above my head he did both and I kept an eye on saftey, there was no panicking involved what so ever

Here's where we stand at the end of a long weekend!

The remaining sand being used for castles and such

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mwhutch · August 02, 2013, 09:30:25 PM

A little more progress, thanks to the help of some really great friends and family! Hopefully we will be done with the entire downstairs this weekend, and be ready for the floor trusses on Monday.

We snagged an awesome deal on scaffolding on craigslist.

some interior framing

Late night trip so the home improvement store with the "framing crew"

We are really learning a lot building this house, and the more we do the better it gets. One of our good friends works for a contractor and he was able to loan us a set of wall jacks, they make raising walls super easy! Little things like this give me more confidence for framing the upstairs, and I highly recommend getting some if you don't have a big crew for raising walls.

mwhutch · August 11, 2013, 02:07:51 PM

The floor trusses finally came, but a mistake had been made in the length of trusses at the stair opening. We were able to make due with what they sent and only exchange three for repairs. The decision to use floor trusses instead of engineered I joists was to make mechanical and plumbing installation easier. We are hoping that the increase in floor system price($600) can be recuperated in the HVAC savings(one unit instead of two). We have been able to get the exterior, and most of the upstairs sheathing finished. It is almost ready for framing the upstairs walls, and the scary part roof trusses.

Will moving floor trusses in.

Stairs

mwhutch · August 23, 2013, 07:24:03 PM

Pictures of the latest progress. With the rainiest season on record we will be very glad to get a roof on soon.

raising a wall with wall jacks

We are going to try to raise the trusses tomorrow, hopefully it will go as planned.

August 24, 2013, 09:00:25 PM

Roof trusses are on! We debated back and forth about hiring a crane to raise the trusses, but finally decided to put them up by hand with the help of a few strong men. At the end of one wall we left off a sheet of sheathing and one stud so we were able to slide the trusses up through the opening. After the truss was up on the deck we slid the ends up on the top plate upside down and then turned them upright. It is important to note that our roof pitch is 8/12, if it were any higher we could not have fit them through an 8 foot wall.

First we set up a system of cat walks to provide a good solid platform to work from. This took an hour or two, but proved to be extremely useful.

Based on advice from a builder friend we cut our sheathing on the ground for the gable ends so that once it was up we could prop it with legs and put it all together. For bracing we used some 12 to 16 foot 2 by's nailed and clamped on the back side of the gable wall to prevent them from going too far.

Once the gable ends were both stood up and the top plates were marked 24"o.c. the rest of the trusses were brought up and stood up one at a time fairly easily. We braced each one with 2x4's on the outside till permanent bracing and sheathing can be put on.

Triangular bracing to the gable ends

It is really starting to look like a house!

rick91351 · August 24, 2013, 10:51:49 PM

WOW Great work.....

mwhutch · September 08, 2013, 08:33:03 PM

With the labor day weekend, and deadlines for the bank, we haven't had time to update our progress. The last few weeks have really been a hard push to get the house dried in. With the rainiest season on record it is really a sigh of relief to get this far!

One of our good friends who has been helping us a ton with the build came up with these structural knee braces. These are lag bolted on to the gable end truss on the outside, and bolted with ledger lock screws from the inside. They placed these first and then attached the rafter to the top before placing blocking.

A little oil rubbed bronze spray paint to the lags for a little extra accent.

Finished end before sheathing

Will getting ready to trim excess sheathing.

On a side note, make sure you have a ladder long enough to reach the roof before nailing on the last piece of sheathing and tar paper. I had a heck of a time wrestling the extension ladder around trying to figure out how to get poor Will off the roof. Finally we settled on wedging the ladder in the back of a truck and Will rappelled down it with his climbing harness.

Starting the roofing. We used just 29 gauge galvalume from a local supplier, they roll it and cut it to exact length for $1.60 a linear foot (three feet wide)! We were sure glad to have gone with a 8:12 pitch roof over anything steeper.

After a couple of long weekends our house is mostly dried in, and has a fresh septic system! We left out one window upstairs so the drywall can be put in with a boom, and we are still waiting on some doors to come.

MushCreek · September 09, 2013, 04:18:50 PM

Great progress! I wish my project was going that fast.

Those brackets look a lot like mine. I made mine out of rough-cut cypress, then two coats of preservative before priming and painting. Although mine aren't technically 'structural', they certainly are strong. I through-bolted them with massive square-head bolts through the gable framing.

mwhutch · September 09, 2013, 08:01:43 PM

Looks like you have really good taste Jay! We are actually deciding on a blue grey paint color for our exterior too

I really like the cypress, we just used pressure treated pine for ours and now have to wait till they dry for painting. I'm very curious to see your big reveal now, your house is looking really good from those pictures!