24x40 1.5 Story Michigan U.P.

[mgramann]

Some more views







I had a little fun with the lift today.  I have some video, but I can't link directly with Picasa.

One of my best employees


The roofing and siding will start on Monday.  They will do everything they can without the porch.

[ponygirl1]

I am looking to build on the UP in Paradise Mi. Where are you located? We will need someone to frame our cabin, put in the windows, doors and roofing for us so, we wanted to know who you got to do it? The work looks really nice and I think it has come a long way from what you had in the begining. We live in Delaware but his family is in MI on the LP and south. We would need to get some one to do just those things and then we can do the rest. It just comes down to time is all. He is retired AF but I am still working. I can only get two weeks off in the fall  every year. He and my dad are going to do alot of the finish stuff including building a wrought iron spiral stair case. Da was a millwright and master welder but he is in his seventies and his eye sight isnt good enough to do it all even with my spouse helping him. we will provide all the materials but we need good labour. As you know from your experience that is a must. If any one can help please let us know. Thanks.

[mgramann]

Hi Ponygirl!  I am south of Kenton.  I'll shoot you a P.M. with the other information.

[ponygirl1]

Cool. How far is that from Paradise? We are looking at ten acres of land there from North coast Realty. I can't touch land like that for the cost in Delaware. We wanted to know about inspections, permits and the like on The UP. We are happy to be secluded. The end result with be a reverse bird situation for retirement. Here in the hardest part of winter and there in the spring through the early fall. We like do it yourself but time restrains me. He is free  being retired and all but Im not, plus I am full time school. This would be our retirement home. Thank you for getting back.

[mgramann]

We are about 200 miles west of you.  The land prices in the U.P. are great.  Inspections and permits are a pain in themselves, but most of the people we have worked with have been very friendly and helpful.

I don't know that I could ever be a snowbird.  I love the northwoods in winter too much.

[ponygirl1]

I grew up in the snow in PA but I have arthrytis in my back and hip so I can't do really bad cold for too long. Bradley has suffered from combat related injuries so we are looking for quiet and piece of mind in the north woods. I love snow too. Delaware is so wet though, mostly rain along the shore. Permits a pain? How so? we are looking to do an enclosed Pier foundation with rebar and a skirting along the piers to enclose the underside of the house. We will do r30in the floor and a belly wrap to enclose the insulation. We are going to build the little house modification and add two wings one on each side. 

[mgramann]

A big thank you to Bradley for his service, and to you for the sacrifice you made as a spouse. 

The permits were a pain in that I considered them tedious and expensive-though I admit I have a natural aversion to any procedure or cost associated with getting permission to build on something I own.  I suppose deep down I do understand it isn't entirely without value or merit.  The key is to be really organized, and have spare copies of everything.

After speaking with several local contractors, I don't know that I would do a pier foundation in that region.  Frost has nasty habit of lifting them if the conditions are even a little less than ideal.  This is why for my porch, I will be using a continuous footing below the frost line to tie the piers together and to help combat lifting.  Another option is what is called a "big foot" footing form, where the sonotube is placed on a form that flares below grade.  For me, since the trench is going to be there, I may as well link all of the tubes together with the footing.  Even doing things this way, the porch relies on being attached to the house for lateral strength, since it has a full foundation.

I would really consider a perimeter wall foundation.  I don't know that the cost will be that much greater.

I created a thread discussing the footing/sonotube combination.  I'll try to find it and link it up.

Edit: Here is that link http://countryplans.com/smf/index.php?topic=12830.0

[mgramann]

While the builders have been hard at work, so have I, albeit to a lesser extent.  Here is a picture of the hydronic system I designed and assembled to  serve as the primary furnace in my soon to be home.

It is a 6 zone system heated with a propane-on demand water heater.  I still have to wire up the heater control and install the gauges.  In-floor heat is truly a wonderful thing.



Please ignore the galvanized piping, it was used for "mock up" purposes only, and will be replaced with regular gas piping.

[ponygirl1]

I researched this at length. My neigbor is a retired seabee and contractor out of Pittsburg, PA. He said the piers should be reinforced with rebar and they should have a footer at the bottom of the peirs. The footer shoud be below the frost line. The rebar has the same expansion rate as the concrete so it helps with the lifting issue. The peirs are not connected in a trench but are done one at a time. Most likely they will be total length of 48 inches including what is under ground plus the footer should be another four inches. The object being  to give a crawl space of 36 inches. Add floor joists of 2x12 and the floor is well above the ground. We should get that 36 inch space. The taller joists will allow for better insulation of the floor. The foundation you are talking about will push our costs up too high. Peirs should cost about 1200.00 instead of about 3-4k. We are on a budget and paying cash. Brad will be told you thank him. I was not with him when he served I just got to clean up the mess after his ex took everything kids included and left him alone and starving in his house. She is still trying to take the house...and his retirement. This cabin is so he can feel like he has something we own ourselves to celebrate his life and service. Our cabin when the shell is built should cost about 30k. If I only get the roof and sheeting done so be it. We can take it from there. We need to be frugal in our plan. habitat restores are excellent places to buy building amterials. I would purchase as much as I can in Delaware because there is no sales tax.

[mgramann]

A good weekend at the building site.  Some of the roofing has started, along with the siding.  My wife and I were able to assemble the woodstove and most of the chimney.  We decided to move it from the original location so it would be more centered in the house.  We feel that the original location would have taken away from the clean look of the house, as it required a very large stack with supports.  We were also able to move many of the building materials out of the elements and organize them inside.

[ponygirl1]

Nice work. Its wonderful.

[bayview]

Wow !!! . . .    Now that's really somethin' . . .



/.

[mgramann]

Pictures from the weekend.

They made good progress with siding, and some soffits and fascia.  High winds and snow prevented further progress.









My wife and I started work on the plumbing.  The upstairs tub and shower stall pan is in and connected.  The corner tub was especially tricky, as the drain was on one side of a floor truss, and the overflow on the other.  It's difficult to see, but there was just enough room to straddle the truss and run the overflow through the webbing  to rejoin before the trap.









My helper.



On the way home, we passed a very large snowman.

[LundGuy]

The story had a sad start but OMG - your build  looks superb at this point. And what a wonderful lot!
My wife and I fell in love with this last night when I showed here the pics. I'm leaning towards a full  basement and 1 1/2 story but things very fluid yet- really would love to attempt a Victorian but sense it beyond my ability. And my hopes are to do a fair amount of the build myself. I have plenty of time as we are both in the process of retiring this spring.

I am new here and pretty much a hands on guy but a rooky too at building an actual house.
If you don't mind I may be asked many questions of you and others here. I am looking for a land parcel either in northern MN
or in MI/WI border area. And the UP remains on our radar too as when one gets away to a point another 60 -80 miles is nuttin' !! 

[mgramann]

Thanks for the kind words.  Feel free to ask away.  I'll defer many of the construction questions myself, as we hired out the "shell" work, but we are doing most of the other work.  It really is a wonderful area, and the lot prices can't be beat.

On another note, my work computer needs some maintenance, so I will be taking advantage of this time and using some vacation days this week.  I'm heading North tomorrow and plan to stay onsite until Sunday.  The plan is to setup "camp" in one of the upper rooms-tent and all!  I'll be sure to take lots of pictures.

[mgramann]

Time to post some progress pictures!  The time spent there was shorter than expected, but much was accomplished.

The roofing on the existing structure is nearly complete.




Good progress was also made on the plumbing.

Kitchen Sink


Bathroom Sink Stack


Bath Sink Stack Vent Merge


Upstairs Toilet-this was tricky.  The location of the drain was a bit to close to the wall to clear the tank, but immediately in front of the drain location is a double floor truss.  To solve this problem, the tank is going to project into the wall a bit, which is why the studs have been removed.  T&G is going to be installed behind this toilet to cover and provide support for the stairwell drywall.


Upstairs Shower Trap, Shower and Bath Vent, along with the Kitchen Sink Vent.


Kitchen Sink Vent merges with Bath/Shower Vent


Sanitary Tee for 2nd Floor Toilet


Thursday Morning View

[Redoverfarm]

Probably a little late to mention but they do make an "offset" toilet flange that will give you a couple inches. 

[mgramann]

I had never heard of those, very interesting.  Thanks for the suggestion!  Now that I did the work, I think I'll stick with my other plan, as it has an added benefit of having the toilet project into the room less.

[Redoverfarm]

http://www.grainger.com/Grainger/OATEY-Toilet-Flange-4KMN5?gclid=CPT0m-vK9LUCFaZQOgodHlUAYA&cm_mmc=PPC:GooglePLA-_-Plumbing-_-Toilets/Urinals-_-4KMN5&ci_src=17588969&ci_sku=4KMN5&ef_id=UM3ybgAARHKm6h47:20130311114311:s

[mgramann]

I have some fantastic news!  My initial contractor gave me a full refund!  I had to play some serious hardball, but it was well worth it.  While I did get the basement footings and walls out of the deal, what it will cost to seal and properly grade exceeds any value it had, making it a wash.  It also means I won't be paying for the basement floor and porch footings twice!

The basement floor went in last week.  I hope to post pictures soon.

[mgramann]

While waiting for spring to arrive progress was slow.  I spent a great deal of time working on the pex installation for in-floor heat.  It's a very tedious process, but I suspect it will be worth it in the end.

 

The basement floor was also installed-though I just realized I didn't take a finished picture yet.

[mgramann]

On Monday, the septic installation started.





As you can see from some of the pictures, the soil has a very high clay content.  Sand was taken from this hill when the highway was built, and was replaced by this clay fill.  Because of this, we needed to install an "undercut" or "inverted mound" system.  The original plan was to truck in material, however, when I mentioned that I someday wanted to dig a pond in a low area, we decided that since the area originally was sand, it was worth moving a few buckets from the low area to see what was there.  Just below the surface, we hit sand, which will work perfectly in the drain field.  I'm really excited about this, because with the cost of the septic, I get the start of a pond.

Here is the excavator stripping the topsoil off of the pond area.



Here is how the building site looked as of Monday night.  My job calls, so I won't be there for the rest of the install.

[ponygirl1]

Looking great! I cant wait to see the rest. we are doing pexx too. We decidie that we were going to do a mix of cedar panneling and dry wall so we can hang art work. we are going to spend more on our bathroomand our matsersuite because it is our private spot. I hope to see your palce finished.

[mgramann]

These forms will be of interest to those using pier foundations-they are sometimes called "big foots"  They add a little more stability and make the pier less susceptible to frost heave.  I will be building my covered porch on these, after they are filled with concrete of course.

[poppy]

Not to be cranky, but Bigfoot is a brand name and what you are using appears to be a Sonotube product and square vs. round. http://www.bigfootsystems.com/