20x32 1 1/2 story in Tuolumne Co, California

[cholland]

Roof trusses going slowly. Took quite a while to get the first gable up and braced. I got a few more up pretty quick. Then it became very challenging to get bracing on safely. It's almost 20' to the peak. There will be the loft to work from in the back half but the front half is all open.



Today I used an old 4x10 I had from an old carport and built a brace/wall I can move along the middle of the floor. Then I used 6 of the 2x8s I have for the loft floor and set them in temporarily with screws. Then I set 3 sheets of plywood up there and have a temp loft floor I can move along as I set up the rest of the trusses, through the open living room. Makes it super safe. I can set my shorter step ladder up and easily reach the peak. I'll be able to get most of the roof sheeted this way too.
I didn't take any pictures of the temp loft today, I'll get some Friday when I'm back at it.
Finished the day getting the rest of the outlookers in and proper temp lateral bracing on the first few trusses.
The rest should? move along a little quicker now.

It's hard work but this is the best thing I've done. I will be glad to have the roof on and be done with most of the framing. Lots of help from family and friends makes it possible. I've lost weight, toned up and ache in different places each day. It feels great.

[redjhoo]

This build is coming along real nice. Seems like you have done many times before.
Tx for sharing.

Sent from my GT-P7300 using Tapatalk 2

[cholland]

Thanks Red. I am happy to share. This is my first time building a house. I've done sheds, some one room additions, etc. but this is the biggest this yet. I have learned a lot from this site and other reading. I'm pretty good at figuring things out in general. I've never taken any automotive training, yet I have rebuilt 3-4 engines, and done almost all of my own automotive repairs. I have a B.S. in Natural Resources/Ecology.
Keeping things simple and within what I think my abilities are has made building go fairly smoothly. I drew up the plans, so I know what each phase should involve. Lots of planning, the right tools and a little cash is all it takes.
A big thanks to all the other people who have posted their builds on this site, and to those with experience happy to answer questions and give ideas/advice. I hope others gain something from my experience.

[cholland]

Finally finished getting all the trusses up and some plywood on.  This has been the toughest part of the build yet. Very time consuming.  I've only been able to spend weekends working on the house, with a couple of extra days here and there.




Here's another pic from the other (north) side. Shows the blocks between the trusses.  I haven't climbed up to put the last few 2xs at the top yet.




While lifting about the 5th truss. I managed to jab a large splinter into my hand.  About the size of a toothpick.  I had gloves on but it slipped under the cuff and stuck into the lower part of the palm on my right hand.  I tried to pull it out but it just broke off.  It wasn't just under the skin but more of a 45 degree angle into my palm.  This meant a trip to Prompt Care to have it removed.  They numbed it up and ended up cutting it open about a 1/4 inch to get a hold of it and pull it out.
The splinter was a full 1/2 inch long and the diameter of a toothpick!

They wanted to put a stitch in it but I convinced them to glue it.  Either way I wasn't going to be able to get much work done with my right hand injured. Had about a 1 inch bruise around it for a day or two.  After a week and a half it was still kinda healing, but I wold get little pains sometimes when using the hammer. Still kinda tender, but I figured that jab was deep and its looking better right?
A couple more days later and I had just climbed down the ladder when I noticed the wound kind of seeping. Under closer inspection, there was something there.  I squeezed and pulled another 1/2 inch long toothpick sized splinter out of the same spot in my hand.
Within an hour I could tell it felt much better and has since healed up to a little scar.

Between that and over a week of 105+ degree heat, it took a couple extra weeks.
Just need to get the rest of the plywood on.

[rick91351]

WOW cholland I feel your pain.  I did the same thing with a railroad tie I was planting making a corral when I was a wee teen or a young twenty something.  I waited a couple days to get in and have it removed.  Pretty gross when the doc cut in to my hand.  It was well infected to say the least.

We have been hit with heat as well coming up from Ca and Az.  but it is settling back down to normal.  Triple digits up here, we get a couple daysd of it but this was getting nutz.      

   

[flyingvan]

Great to see a good, solid foundation. 
   I installed my own required fire sprinkler system.  A company designed it for me and sold me all the parts----they really wanted to do it themselves but I told them I'd go to a competitor.  Once they drew the layout for me the rest was pretty easy.  All 1" CPVC.  The heads have to be at least 6' from walls and 6' from each other (or was it 8'? cant remember for sure) and none were required for bathroom or kitchen, but they were for closet under the stairs (I guess they don't want you trapped upstairs if there's a fire)  Insulate all of the pipes with the good neoprene pipe insulation, even in the interior walls.  I thought it would be tricky getting the drop legs for each head the correct length to match the finished ceiling but the flush heads thread up and down so you get 3/4" to play with. 
   Get a good set of cutters.  Every single joint, cement it in, give it a quarter turn, and hold it in place for a full minute---if you don't it'll back itself out.  Think about where the riser stack will be, and the exterior bell, and the test drain
   Judging by how clean your drains went in I don't think you'll have a problem with the fire sprinklers. 

[cholland]

Thanks flyingvan,
I haven't thought much about the fire sprinklers lately, but hope to soon be back on that path.  Am planning to use PEX for the fire sprinklers too. Don't see why that wouldn't be okay.
From what I have read so far I don't need them in the bathroom or laundry area, just the bedroom and main living area, which will include the kitchen.  The actual plumbing will be the easy part. Figuring out the design, required pump, etc. is the part I need to have approved first.
I checked with a local company and they quoted $2/sq. ft. to design. In keeping with the theme of doing as much of the build myself as possible, I'm not ready to pay someone else for the design yet.
Now that its too late, I kind of wish I had made the crawl space larger and planned for the storage tank to be under the house.  So much work for a system I hope to never use.

[cholland]

Finally finished getting all the plywood on the roof last Saturday. My wife has helped out a lot the last few weeks. Used roof jacks and some 2x4 stickers to get the last (4th) row up. Was able to pass the sheets through from the inside. I had a buddy who is not as afraid of heights as me on the outside nailing it down.
Still about 8" to the top but I'll wait and trim that for ridge venting when the roofing goes on.



So glad to be done with that. Took it easy Sunday and didn't really get much done.
Was hoping the finish the gable walls and get them sheeted this weekend, but will be working some 12 hour overtime days instead. The extra money will definitely be nice.

[cholland]

September was a busy month. The Rim Fire was about 30 miles away and it was pretty smokey for a couple of weeks. Managed to get some things done on the weekends.

This is the south side.  Wrapped and windows/door installed. Gutters hung.


The west side or the back door. I put a tarp over the roof because it rained the other week. I figure if I leave it on it won't rain again?
Yesterday I finished wrapping the upper part and put the upper windows in both sides.

Skylights installed. Not too bad. They are 21"x46". Unfortunately covered by the tarp for now.


I've run the plumbing vents up and framed in, cut out for the wood stove pipe.
I'm subbing out the roofing because they can do it so much faster and I don't want to get up on that 12/12 pitch any more than I have to. Hopefully that will get done in the next couple weeks while the weather is still good.

A blue front Dutch door.


Finally had the septic system installed. It's a standard system except the drain field is uphill from the tanks. So there is a second pump tank. When it fills, it pumps the liquids about 120' horizontal and 20' up to the drain field.


The same location after they were done. The pump controller and alarm, etc.


One of the drain lines. I had the system designed for a 3 bedroom even though I'm building a small 1 bedroom. Two 60' lines, for a total of 120'.


After they were done I spread 25 lbs of grass seed and 3 bales of rice straw. I've run the sprinkler on it a few times. Hoping to get some grass cover before winter really gets here.



Been limping my old 84 Toyota along for a few months.  Was hoping it would hold out until I finished the house. Unfortunately I think the rings are done. Gotta have a truck, so I bought a new 2013.

[cholland]

Roof finally on.  About two weeks ago.  Just in time for some rain last week.
Not in this picture but I have also finished putting Hardie Trim around the windows and doors.  And finally put in the door locks. Now I can actually lock the place up and don't have to pick up every little tool and put it away, just the expensive ones.

[cholland]

It's been a year since my last post. A lot has happened although the place looks about the same from the outside. Didn't get much done last winter and worked full time, not on the house, all summer.
The good news is stuff was happening slowly and it just might be livable in a month or so.

Last winter and early spring I roughed in the rest of the plumbing, using Upanor PEX. It went really easy.  No leaks. I had a fire sprinkler system designed and plumbed it using 1" PEX. The system has 8 heads. Required a 300-500 gallon storage tank, and a 2hp pump to generate 42psi @ 28gpm.

Bath tub is in and I purchased a Navien tankless water heater.

I constructed baffles from the eves to the ridge vent using 1" foam board. I cut a bunch of 2" strips, glued them on either side and down the middle of each truss bay.  Then cut pieces wide enough to squeeze in between the trusses, from the top of the wall to the ridge.  All glued and sealed up, it should vent the roof deck nicely.  I covered the bottoms of the eaves with fire blocker board and used continuous 2" vulcan vent (fire code) on the outside, where the air draws in.

I got fed up with my existing landlord.  So in May I bought a decent 24' RV, packed up our existing 2 bedroom and set up camp at the property.  Moving and setting up took about 6-8 weeks.  In July I used a backhoe and moved some more dirt from behind the house to get the grade away from the foundation a little better.  And dug twelve pier footings for the deck and back door step.  Bought a cement mixer at Lowes and poured all the piers in about 4 days, when it was around 100 degrees.

August and September was roughing in appliance vents and finally getting into electric. Making final decisions on outlet locations, number of switches and light placement probably takes longer than actually doing it.    I pulled all the wire and have twice as many circuits as I probably need, but nothing will be overloaded.  Put in some cat6 and coax, to a few locations.

In October, it seems I was still finishing up odd and ends of several projects that just needed one more thing to be done.  I had a local HVAC guy rough in a Fujitsu mini split system.  By the end of the month I was having 200amp service pulled from my utility pole to the sub panel in the house.

The last few weeks have been busy and a lot has happened but I haven't really done much myself. Frame/rough in inspection went okay.  A local company installed batt insulation in about 1/2 day, can't beat their price.  Insulation inspection.  I also hired out the drywall, it's just not something I want to do and they work pretty fast.  Drywall up and a third inspection before taping and texture.

I put up primer in the laundry/utility room today. Going to wire up a few outlets and paint away the evenings the rest of the week.  Hopefully next weekend won't be raiming, I really want to get the siding started and on before winter really gets here.  After next week I'm taking several weeks off work, for the holidays, etc., but the plan is to finish the siding, frame the deck, and paint and tile the bathroom.

I'm sure I've left something out and I haven't uploaded any pictures, but work is progressing and with walls up inside, it feels like I'm nearing the last stretch.  I'll check back in with some photos in a week or so.

[Rys]

Pictures please!