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

[cholland]

After many years of thinking, plotting, and planning, I have finally started building.  Its taken me a couple of months to get something posted.  We have a nice piece of land with lots of oak trees and some open spaces.  My parents purchased the property in the early 70's and we lived there in a single wide with additions when I was younger.  It consists of two parcels, the front one is 1 1/2 acre and now belongs to me. The back parcel is about 17 acres, the only improvement being the gravel access road.  I do have neighbors but most lots around me are 5 acres or larger.

I tore down the old trailer and additions last year and eliminated the previous inadequate and failed septic system. Leaving the utility pole and water well.  The well is 500', had the pump replaced in 2000 and seems to be in good order except the water is a little hard.  I remember when the well was drilled in 1976 and they went through a lot of limestone.
There are better building sites on the property but this location already has the utilities in, so I figured I would start small and once on the property make plans for a future build...

I struggled with many floor plan ideas, and eventually settled on a slightly modified version of the 20x 1 1/2 story. I re-drew the plans using SketchUp and added my modifications.  Perimeter foundation, with a center beam. A load bearing wall for the loft in the back half. And a local truss company will be providing a really nice parallel chord truss so there is head room in the loft and a nice open living room. I only had to revise the plans once with the building department to get my permit. That process was not as bad as I expected.

Since there was a 'structure' on the property before, I got credit for the previous square footage, school taxes, road development fees, etc. In the end my permit for 640 sq. ft. only cost about $900.  Quite a deal, most permits around here are in the $15,000 range.  No stairs to the loft, so that floor space doesn't count.

I had a new septic designed. Unfortunately the way things lay out on the property it requires a pump to gravity system. At least I didn't need to have it engineered.

There is more to the process of getting to this point but I'll skip that for now. I got my permit in November and working with a local contractor, I dug the footings.  We built the forms in about two days and poured the foundation the day before Thanksgiving. Since then I have built an 8x12 shed, put in a french drain on the uphill side of the foundation and back filled most everything. I had 3 weeks off around Christmas but it rained a lot and I got the flu, so not much happened.  Last week I dug 200' of trench from the pump house, past the new utility pole and up to the foundation. Conduit and water line in and inspected. Should have most of that filled back in this weekend. With the infrastructure in, I'll actually start cutting boards!  I read on someones post once that half of building is digging, and so far that seems to be the case. I'm having someone else do the septic. That's going to depend on weather and I'm okay if that means late spring.

I put some photos on iCloud (Mac user!):
https://www.icloud.com/photostream/#A1JtdOXm32i7t

[duncanshannon]

Way to gets started!

[cholland]

Okay here are some photos

This is the basic floor plan. 8' walls, 12/12 roof, loft over the bedroom, bath, laundry area. The rest is open. Skylights over the kitchen area and a wood stove in the corner of the living room (top right). Covered porch off the front.



Site marked for digging.




Footings dug. Lots of rocks and hard clay in places.




Forms built and first significant fall rain.

[cholland]

This last weekend I finished filling in the trench.



So many rocks...



Finally hung the doors on the shed and my Dad put a coat of paint on it.




Also put the sill boards on.


Then it snowed 6 inches on Tuesday.

[MountainDon]

No images show. Either the links are incorrect or that host does not permit hotlinking, or something....

[cholland]

Now they should show up.  Was trying to use dropbox, but if you got an account after this last summer, it no longer allows public links.
Don't try to avoid it.... just put them on Photobucket, that's what is for. 

[cholland]

Didn't get much done in March. Thought it was going to rain more, but it only seemed to rain on the weekends.  I pulled wire to my well, and some to the foundation that will later be for the septic pump. I plan to temp wire it for a 20A outdoor outlet so I have power at the foundation instead of 100 feet away. I'll pull the main service after I have the walls up and panel installed.

I built the center beam. 3 - 2x8's, staggered splices on the piers, 1/2" plywood gussets.


That's plastic on the ground not snow. I'm covering the beam to keep off what rain we are getting.

Planning to frame in the floor joists this weekend and hopefully the rough plumbing drains. Then I need to have that inspected before putting on the floor.
Windows ordered this week. Once the floor is on, I will frame and sheet the two longer walls (32'). I figure that will take me a couple of weekends. I'm planning to take a week off work mid-May, borrow some wall jacks and with some help stand the walls. Frame the end walls, get them up and if all goes well trusses will be delivered and set.
Really hoping it doesn't decide to start raining now.  I'll be dried in by the end of May, just in time for summer and the end of the rainy season.

[MountainDon]

 

[C.Oden]

Looking good!

Curious - looks like you used maybe 1x8 for forms. (?) That something you then can salvage and reuse or??? Saw you working with a contractor so maybe me all confused and its his stuff. Just thinking of my upcoming build and ways to re-use mats when used for something other than final intent.

Looking forward to following your build and happy as hell you could avoid the crazy excess permit expense. 
They sure are spendy out that a way ... ouch

[cholland]

I used 2x4's & 2x6's for the forms. I already re-used most of them when I built the shed.
It was supposed to be all 2x6's but I had lumber delivered the day before I started and they brought 2x4's instead. I just kept them cause I knew I would use them and had them bring me the correct order the next day.  But, I wanted to get started on the forms, so the first day we worked with 2x4's. You can see in concrete that the top two boards were 2x4 and then 2x6 the rest of the way down.

[cholland]

Passed inspection on sub-floor framing and rough plumbing drains today!
I was kinda anxious about it, but no big deal. Our inspectors seem pretty cool. All the plumbing was good except one of the test caps was leaking. Other than checking the plans and taking a look a few things it went pretty quick.

This is most of the floor joists on. Before I started the plumbing.
The missing one is where I put in the crawl space access. It will be in the closet floor. Took as long to box in the access, as it did to put on all the rest of the joists.



Roughing in the plumbing took me a couple of days. This was my first time with anything more than plumbing repairs. Someone with experience probably could do it in a few hours. Well worth the time to do the plumbing myself. I learned a lot and feel like the rest of the plumbing, once the walls are up, will be much easier.

I'm having a local company insulate the floor tomorrow. They gave me a bid that was only a little more than I could buy the insulation for myself. Let them have that itchy stuff.
Then I will be putting down the floor this weekend.
I've got some more pics of the plumbing, etc. but I haven't sized them for posting yet.

[Huge29]

Coming along nicely, thanks for sharing!

[cholland]

A few pictures of the underfloor plumbing.

The first one is the end of the main stack. Top right is the tub/shower drain (2"). Into the main vent and laundry drain (3"). Clean out to the left. After the test, I cut these down to just under the floor and put couplings on so I can continue up once the walls are on. I reduced the 3" to 2" on the main vent. It will continue up through the wall separating the bathroom from the laundry room.




Next one, moving from left to right. On the left is the 3" toilet drain. To the right is a 2" wet vent to the bathroom sink.



Last is 1 1/2" from the kitchen sink and then out through 6" steel pipe I put in the foundation.
The kitchen is on the other side of the house. That's where I had the 10' of vertical pipe for the test. I strapped it to a vertical 2x4 screwed into the rim joist.


For the plumbing test I brought a barrel of water over and siphoned it into the pipes. Just an interesting tidbit, the whole system holds about 20 gallons of water. I filled it to just above the floor and then put on the test caps, etc. Next day I just filled up the 10'pipe from a ladder with a funnel and a jug.


Then this is the under floor insulation. They draped 1x poly netting between the joists, and working from one side to the other put in R-19 fiberglass batting. The netting is stapled to the tops of the joists.



I put on half of the floor today... well 40%. Had some errands to run in the AM so only spent the afternoon over there.
It was 95 degrees today. Going to start early tomorrow and maybe get to wiring the well pump so I will have water again.

[John Raabe]

Well thought out and well built project. And you are using subcontractor help when it makes the most sense. On my house drywall was another thing me and my helper could not compete with the pros on. I don't miss not having learned that one.

[snowho]

Due to this being new construction in the great state of California are they making you install a residential fire system? 

[cholland]

Yes I will be required to have an indoor residential fire sprinkler system.
In this area I should put a sprinkler on the roof outside in case of wildfire, haha.

As of 2012 all new residential construction and additions larger than 1000 sq. ft. require fire sprinklers.
Locally they have allowed me to defer the design of such system and granted my building permit, however, I will still need to have that system approved and installed before they will sign off my final inspection. As an owner/builder, I am allowed to design it myself as long as it meets code.

I have been researching what I need because I will soon be at the stage of indoor plumbing, etc. If anyone out there has some sage advice in this area I would welcome it. It can't be too hard my place is pretty small. I am on a well, so I know I will need at least a 500 gallon tank and probably a 3/4 hp pump to run the system. 8-10 sprinkler heads. I have a second 1" water line in the ground so it can be independent of the house plumbing. Planning to use PEX for all the water lines inside. I've got it roughed out in my head, but not settled on the details. Once I've got the shell up, I'll be able to focus on those other things.

Thanks for the positive comment John, this is one part I haven't quite figured out yet. And yes I will be subbing the insulation, drywall and roofing.

[dmanley]

Obviously I'm missing something here.  Do you  actually have more than 1000 sq ft?

[cholland]

No, the bottom floor is 640, and the loft add another 150 or so. But permit wise the loft doesn't count because it will only have ladder access. I may not have quoted the code word for word but it means ALL new construction and/or additions over 1000 sq. ft. There is no getting out of the fire sprinkler requirement.

I finished the floor up on Sunday.   It's been one of the driest years on record, so of course as soon as I finished it started raining. I've got it covered with tarps but its still getting a little wet. Should be okay, it's supposed to be back in the 80s this weekend. As soon as it looks like the sun is coming out, I'll pull the tarps so it doesn't get all sweaty under there.



I'm starting the walls this weekend. I'm off work (8-5 job) all next week. If all goes well, by the end of the week, the walls will be up and roof trusses on the way.

[snowho]

California is making it almost impossible to build off the grid with a permit I'm finding.   

[cholland]

Made some good progress last week. Not quite as far as I wanted but all forward progress is good.
Finally got the water back on. No leaks, new pvc = no more rusty water. My wife is already planting things.
I built a nice 8' table for the miter saw. I set it on the floor or a couple of saw horses. I screwed a long 2x4 fence on it and clamp blocks on it for stops. It makes cutting studs and multiples of anything else super easy. And the miter saw makes nice clean square cuts.

It took me two days to build the first 32' wall. Not sure why but it was pretty hot, there were a lot of water breaks. I built the second wall in one day. Chalked a line 5 1/2" from the edge and toe nailed the sole plate to the floor from the inside at about 4' spacing, those are hinges when the walls stands up and keeps everything strait when nailing the rest of the wall together.
One day to sheet the walls. 4x9, 1/2" exterior plywood. It hangs down just past the mud sills perfect. I squared up the walls first and put a few metal binding straps around/under the sole plate, also to prevent the wall from sliding off the floor when raising.
There was a day in there with a few sprinkles that I didn't work but after a week, with a little help and a couple of wall jacks, I made some significant vertical progress.



Back to work this week but I'll be able to cut everything for the other two walls over the next few evenings. Three day weekend starting Friday afternoon. Should get the next two walls up quick, and start into the interior walls.

[cholland]

Went for a walk to the back of the property today. Been so busy with the build I almost forgot why I want to be over here.

This is the road up the hill. The understory here is mostly poison oak. Goat country.


The first meadow


Up in the back. Locally this is known as Table Mountain. It's an old lava flow. Shallow soil and a lot of basalt.


It's already brown for the summer but its pretty in the spring, like this.


An old historic rock wall, runs along the east side for a few hundred feet.


This is an old vertical mine shaft from the gold rush days. There are a few mines one the property. Must have hit water in this one. It's 60+ feet deep. The water goes down a ways late in the summer, but its always pretty clean.


This is one cool tree. The picture doesn't do it justice. Each one of those stems is more than 24" diameter. We keep it cleaned up underneath and have had quite a few gatherings here, camp outs, etc.

[cholland]

It took an extra weekend but all the walls are up and windows/doors cut out.



Trusses coming later this week.

[redjhoo]

This build progressing nicely.
Looking in from the outside it seems in a calm and very focused manner.
Thanks for sharing.
Not sure if I missed it but what would you investment in the build be up to now?

[Adam Roby]

Very interesting build... I look forward to seeing more!

[cholland]

Thank you. It's been progressing well. I live about 10 minutes away, so it's easy to get little things done here and there. As for investment so far... The land was through family, so basically free. A few years ago I had it surveyed. There were issues with the property lines, that's a story in itself. The survey ended up costing about $4000., but I ended up gaining about a 1/4 acre. I'm not counting that in the cost to build. There was power and a well already there. A small barn and a trailer.

As for the building expenses so far, I'm at about $16-17,000. I haven't really kept track lately, I've just got a stack of receipts, etc. That includes a new power pole, water lines, some of the material I used to build the shed, some power tool purchases, tractor rental, etc. Almost half of that cost is in doors and windows that are waiting for me to be ready to install them and trusses. I've got a spreadsheet where I estimated the costs of all the different parts of the build, in another column I was tracking the actual costs. I just haven't kept up with it since the foundation. When I get it caught up I'll share.
I already have all the plywood for the roof and the loft floor, and the loft joists. The next few weeks I won't be spending much money. Just time putting everything together.

Trusses arrived this morning...



They were too tall to carry flat on a trailer.



Unloaded and rigged to set on the house.







All set up for me to stand them up. There is a bunch of blocking and a bag of metal brackets.
They don't weight too much. Plan is to get a couple of buddies to help lift and brace.
Supposed to be over 100 degrees this weekend!