20x32 Two story in upstate South Carolina

Jimbo Ricketts · September 09, 2013, 09:42:43 PM

looking mighty fine , mighty fine . hope yall will give a expence report up to this point when u get time . for future referance if anyone cares , one can cut the fire out of a tji as much as u want so long as u stay 2in away from the upper and lower bands . didnt know if yall knew that b4 using the trusses.

mwhutch · September 20, 2013, 08:35:29 PM

Things have slowed down a little since we got our first draw. We had a little crunch time right there before the appraiser came out and it really took a lot out of us! After a relaxing weekend with no kids and some whitewater kayaking with good friends we are ready to press on. Who knows maybe we will have a certificate of occupancy by Christmas

This past week we had to work on all the loose ends: finishing interior framing, changing out the sashes on the windows(they came with the wrong grids) and cleaned up for finish grading. We've decided to put on the porch and side the house before we start our plumbing and elctric rough in. Being first timers at both we decided that it would be best that we don't accidentally drive a nail into a pipe or wire! Today we started the porch that will wrap around the front of the house, and had the siding materials delivered. Photos to come soon, photo bucket isn't working tonight.

Jimbo : Thanks for the compliment! Here's a breakdown of what the build has cost so far, we have done all the labor ourselves except for the grading, septic, and HVAC(these things would have cost more and taken longer for us to do.)

Grading/Gravel(250' drive) $2850
Foundation $1900 (block crawlspace 40" 4 piers and center girder)
Framing lumber $6700
Trusses(floor and roof) $2800
Roofing (29ga galvalume) $800
Windows $2300
Doors $800
Misc fasteners adhesives $1500 +++ (porch hardware is INSANE!)
Porch lumber $ 1000
Finish grading and more gravel $750
Septic system $2450
Nichiha (fiber cement) and Miratec trim $2600

One other large cost for us has been tools and equipment. There are many things you don't really "need" but they will make the job way easier(ex. framing gun, wall jacks, scaffolding etc.). Just another expense to consider that we didn't put much thought into before we started, but you can buy some good tools on craigslist to save money.

I think that is most everything so far. Hope this helps anyone looking to build in the southeast. I know reading some other peoples costs it gave us the courage to build ourselves. One other thing we wanted to mention was that there is a wealth of free information on the internet (including this site) that has really made this all possible for us. We planned and studied everything we could for four years before we started this build. One of the most helpful things for us has been youtube instructional videos. (Some really great ones are from a carpenter Larry Haun) Just thought we should share because they may help someone else.

September 21, 2013, 05:29:05 AM

I hope you're not buying fasteners and hardware at the big box stores. You can get nail gun nails for less than half the price, delivered right to your door. The most extreme case was buying 500 galvanized lag bolts I needed for my window bucks. They were $1.40 each locally, but I ordered them from McMaster-Carr for $.27! Added to the higher prices, a trip to the local store is an hour of time and two gallons of gas.

I LOVE tools, and don't consider them in the price of my build. If you get them at a decent price, you can sell them after you're done. There's very little that I'll ever part with, though!

mwhutch · October 06, 2013, 08:31:21 PM

Jay,
We have been buying all of our fasteners and hardware at box stores

. We will be doing online shopping in advance for the rest of fasteners! The problem we most often run into is that we aren't sure exactly what we need in advance, so we end up stopping by big orange on the way home (and pay the price).

The porch started moving along a little faster once we finished setting the footing and posts. The posts ended up with some slight error, that in hind sight could have been prvented by temporarily framing the porch with 2x4's and coming back to put the posts in last. Hindsight is 20/20 I guess, and it seems that there are as many ways to frame a porch as there are carpenters

. All that we lack to finish the front porch is the roof and rails, but we've decided to start working on the siding and trim for now.

Here the finish grading has been done, footings have been poured, and posts are being put in.

spray painting our over priced fasteners, we'll make them look worth $1.50 a piece

I think this is where we left off last weekend. We really liked the way rich2vermont ran his deck boards, so we ran ours in a similar fashion. I think it will give the porch a little something extra. This is one of the wonderful things about this community, all of the creativity, and sharing. I hope one day we can give someone else valuable ideas and insight from our build.

This weekend we worked on running the beams for the porch rafters to rest on, siding and trim. We are using a 8-1/4 fiber cement lap with 7"show and miratec for the trim. The brand of fiber cement is called nichiha made in Georgia, and it seems to be a good quality product that is fairly easy to work with. To attach it we are using the framing nailer with galvanized plastic collated ring shank nails.

Don_P · October 07, 2013, 08:20:00 AM

A couple of things that I do that make things work a little easier sometimes. On a porch where the decking goes around a corner I typically frame the corner "hip" girder as 3 ply and use the next wider size for the center ply. This is slipped up above the other 2 plies by the thickness of the decking. Then instead of the decking boards meeting eath other in a miter, they butt into that raised strip. By doing that if the boards vary a bit they don't show that the tips are meeting where you began and begin to not meet at some point across the "hip".

Before i put on the decking we run a vinyl or colored metal counterflashing that has a leg turned out over the ledger and then runs up the wall the tyvek is cut and laps over this wall flashing with a few inches removed just above the deck surface. The siding is then held up 1-1/2" or so above the decking and the counterflashing is exposed. This keeps the siding off the horizontal surface as per manufacturers instructions. Same thing with the roof ledger, holding the siding above the shingles amd exposing that flashing.

October 08, 2013, 08:09:37 PM

Thanks Don! I'm going to go ahead and order some flashing for that ledger board when I order the metal for the porch roof. I thought we may need some flashing there but wasn't sure since it will have a roof. Luckily we made a frame around all of the deck boards so we will only have to take up a few to put in the flashing. We still have another porch to frame on the back and I think it will go a lot easier than this one.

mwhutch · November 02, 2013, 10:39:49 PM

Starting to see light at the end of the tunnel. This siding has proved to be a long process, but we are about 2/3's done with it now. For the top above the belly band we will use board and batten. Hopefully we can finish the exterior before the days get so short and cold. During the week in the evenings we have been working on plumbing, it really doesn't seem too bad, just taking our time.

Finally got all of the deck boards screwed down.

Last of the doors installed, it really feels good to be able to lock the house!

Upstairs bathroom pex lines run.

Lap siding on the back and side halfway painted.

Front view of siding.

mwhutch · November 23, 2013, 08:14:38 PM

The siding has been really slow going but were finally done!! Hooray

All that is left now on the exterior is two small entry porches, some porch roofing, and painting!

This past week I built two small awnings for the front south facing windows. They will work to shade those rooms from midday sun in summer and add some curb appeal to the house. I precut and asembled the pieces on the ground, and then Will was able to hang them with the lift.

Here is the lift we rented, sunbelt rented it to us for the weekend(fri- monday at 9am) for only one days rent as long as we didn't actually run it more than 8 hours. Worked out nicely since it only needed to be running to move, unfortunately it rained half the weekend.

This weekend we were able to finish the remainder of the board and batten. The shorter days this time of year really slowed us down on the siding, but we're really happy with how it turned out!

A few side notes about working with the fiber cement siding:

Make sure you have an extra blade or two our house could have used three but we only got two. The cuts are much easier and smoother with a sharp blade, and the hitachi blade we ordered on amazon lasted a lot longer than the irwin we got at the box store.

Some handy little square ended pinchers worked great for squaring up the corners after the circular saw.

We used a worm drive Ridgid circular saw for all of our cuts, and felt like it did a great job.

A box cutter works great for scoring and breaking hard to cut pieces of fiber cement. That in combination with some cheap square nippers work great to make pretty clean lines.

Make sure you have some actual goggles the dust gets around safety glasses pretty easily. And make sure you have a good face mask to wear, it smells like stale cigarettes when you cut it, and is surely as bad on the lungs.

John Raabe · December 05, 2013, 05:51:35 PM

This is a very nice project and an interesting floor plan layout. Great family photos as well!

It has inspired others who have the Universal Cottage plans. Here is an example: http://countryplans.com/smf/index.php?topic=13389.msg175040#msg175040

December 05, 2013, 08:54:38 PM

Thanks, that really made our day! We've been out here working on plumbing feeling a little discouraged, and that really brightens things up!

dablack · December 06, 2013, 01:35:56 PM

Can't believe I'm just now seeing this thread. Yall have done a great job on this build.

I saw where you said you are glad that you didn't go any steeper than 8:12 pitch. How was it up on that pitch putting on the metal roof. I've worked on a 12:12 pitch roof and it was TERRIBLE! I was thinking 7:12 but 8:12 looks just a little better.

thanks
Austin

mwhutch · December 06, 2013, 05:17:12 PM

Thanks Austin! It wasn't too bad up there, just make sure you rope yourself off, and wear sticky shoes. Another thing that would have really helped is later on we rented a 35' lift and it could have really made things faster. Seems like half of the battle was getting everything up there with scaffolding. I don't know what rental companies you have around but some only charge for one day over the weekend as long as you don't actually run the machine more than 8 hours.

dablack · January 08, 2014, 10:47:08 AM

This is one of my favorite builds! Any update?

mwhutch · January 12, 2014, 10:12:03 PM

Hi Austin sorry for the delay, we were busy preparing for our rough-in inspection this week. We passed the first try! As Mushcreek stated they do not turn the truck off around here. I don't know if I have ever been so nervous in my life, but it was a breeze. The only faults he found were a non tempered window within two feet of a door, and we had not framed up an attic access. At any rate he was a really nice guy and I hope he comes back for the final.

One of our friends was kind enough to help us with the electrical rough in.

Day of the inspection. We don't have anywhere to store all of this stuff, but luckily the inspector didn't mind.

This week the insulation will be installed, and drywall on friday! We should be able to keep it warmer in the house to get more done on these cold nights. We have a stove pipe installed for a woodstove, but haven't been able to find just the right stove yet.

January 13, 2014, 12:56:55 PM

Where did you get your floor trusses and attic trusses? I'm 26' wide and 52' long but I'm still getting HUGE bids for my floor trusses!

By the way, everything looks great! Thanks for the update and congrats on the inspection. In my opinion, yours is the best looking house I have seen on this forum. I just love it.

thanks
Austin

MushCreek · January 13, 2014, 06:48:22 PM

Looking good! Nice neat plumbing and electrical work. I'm at about the same point inside- about ready for drywall. I gave up on the outside between wet and cold weather. Everything around here is red mud. I'll get back to it as the weather improves.

mwhutch · January 13, 2014, 09:36:18 PM

Jay we are right there with you! This house isn't going to get painted till the spring at this pace. Our plan was to finish the exterior in time for the cold but with all the rain we've had we didn't make it. Were you able to find someone to do your drywall, or are you doing it yourself? we look forward to seeing some updates on your thread soon too!

Austin, I hope you can find some reasonable floor trusses, they will make all of your utilities way easier to run. The only thing I can figure as to the price jump may be the span increase requires much more engineering? One other place you may check is if you have a menards close by, they actually sell trim-able floor trusses on their website. Here's a link:
http://www.menards.com/main/building-materials/engineered-products/floor-trusses/c-5659.htm?criteria3_facet=26+foot

MushCreek · January 14, 2014, 07:29:09 AM

I finally got someone to quote my drywall, and I can live with the price. He comes well-recommended, so I am starting to get excited. Getting ready for the drywall is slow and tedious, strapping the ceiling and leveling it out. My trusses are pretty wavy, so it's a slow process getting a decent ceiling plane. I keep finding other things that need to be done, such as support blocking in the walls for future hardware, etc. I find it hard to do this kind of detail work in the cold, too. We were down to +3 F. the other day! Once I pull the trigger on the drywall, there should be plenty to take pictures of.

mwhutch · January 19, 2014, 07:03:53 PM

Well a lot has changed this week in our little house, it's amazing how fast people who know what they're doing can get things done! We are so excited to finally see what the rooms will look like after all this time. Wednesday we had some dense pack cellulose insulation put in the walls. It was a very messy process and would have taken us a while to figure out. After it was all installed the low was 23 degrees and we were able to heat the house up quite well with a small propane heater. Friday we had the drywall crew come out and hang the drywall. They were only here a little more than half a day and the three of them hung about 3/4's of the dry wall. We were really suprised to see the only tools they used were a rotozip, a drywall screw gun, and a small fold up scaffolding bench! While they were installing drywall we used the time to dig out and level the crawlspace for the vapor barrier... I would strongly recommend doing this before you install any floor joists, even in our 40" tall crawlspace it took two of us a full day to level it.

Cellulose in the stairway

Heat shield going up

Stairway after half the sheetrock is put up

Living room and load bearing post

Kitchen and dining room

Frank W · January 20, 2014, 07:04:41 PM

Looks Great. Mine is very similar. Great minds think alike

January 22, 2014, 01:29:59 AM

What are you going to use as far as HVAC? I see you'll have a wood stove.
I'll install a wood stove too but I'm thinking of a mini split or multi split.

mwhutch · January 22, 2014, 09:50:30 AM

We are having a 2.5 ton package unit with a heat pump put in. I looked into mini splits and multi splits, but we would need so many it wasn't economical. That was one of the few things we have hired out, but really check around, prices varied wildly $5250-10,500! Most companies insisted we needed two units, fortunately my brother is an HVAC technician in Florida and could tell us what we really needed. We only have insulation in the walls currently and the drywall crew has it up to like 95 degrees in there with just a kerosene heater. Hopefully with a little woodstove we won't have to use the central heat much, but it is nice to have a back up when the fire goes out.

Frank W · January 24, 2014, 09:42:09 AM

I got several estimates and was quoted $7600 for 2 systems and 3 exchangers. My oldest son works for a HVAC company in the parts department. He got me a Mitsubishi Mr Slim multi split for almost $3000 less than my best quote. The down side is I've got to install it. I just hope it works as good as they say. I've got to get a wood stove too.

mwhutch · January 26, 2014, 09:57:23 PM

Lots of progress in the last week and a half. The drywall crew was able to finish up by Thursday, and I asked the question "How soon can we paint?". The owner told me you can go ahead as soon as we're done

. Hah talk about a huge mess to clean. Our shop vac would either clog up very quickly or dust would blow everywhere. We found a little water in the shop vac would catch most of it, and then we used a dust mop on all of the walls. So a day and a half later we started with the primer. A few weeks ago we bought a paint sprayer from one of the box stores and were eager to try it out... Needless to say it has some kind of learning curve we weren't quite able to figure out, and it was more mess than it was worth so we have reverted to brushes and rollers. After all the time to set up, tape everything, and then clean the machine it was almost as time consuming to use the sprayer as to paint by hand. We ended up using way more paint than we thought, 15 gallons of primer, 8+ gallons of ceiling paint, and 8+ gallons of wall paint so far! We also found that the roller had better coverage on the walls with less paint than the sprayer. Anyhow it still feels like we have tons to do before we can move in, but it is nice to have paint on the walls!

Finished Drywall

Primed walls

Corner wood stove heatshield

Ceramic fence insulators as spacers

Paint SW "misty"

Hopefully we can finish painting this week and the flooring should come this week.

rick91351 · January 27, 2014, 06:51:54 AM

WOW that is coming along. Sort'a nice to walk in and not having drywall mud boxes and stilts and knives and buckets and what have you everywhere I bet. The outfit we had was the neatest drywall crew I was ever around. But WOW they had so much stuff. Where ours turned into the house from hell getting the texture blown in I sort of went through withdrawals with just Ellen and I being there. The dogs would keep looking to see if they were coming back in the morning....

You guys are - LOOK'IN GOOD!!!