small house in moab

speedfunk · June 02, 2010, 09:31:39 AM

Cool. I had to look up blown in blankets . Never heard of it before.

John Raabe · June 02, 2010, 10:27:12 AM

The BIBS system is very good at filling all the voids that reduce the performance of batt insulation. I have been using BIBS in custom homes (and the addition to my own) since the mid 1980's. It is a specialty contractor install and its higher performance comes at little additional cost.

I did a study in the Superinsulated Design and Construction book on the importance of insulation voids. In short, the higher the cavity insulation the larger the percentage of heat that is getting out through the voids. For superinsulation levels you have to deal effectively with this issue.

http://www.bibs.com/

When BIBS is used with spray foam as a air sealing/high-R insulation barrier at the framing stage it is an unbeatable combination. In Jan's double wall configuration this should result in an astoundingly low heat transfer rate.

June 03, 2010, 12:56:39 AM

Thanks for the encouragement, John. Your comments tipped the scale in favor of a foam/BIBS envelope.

But all that will have to wait a few more weeks - maybe months! Today a very skilled forklift operator stacked three sets of trusses on our building, here show positioning the first set of the shop roof:

John Raabe · June 03, 2010, 01:20:33 AM

Sure beats pulling those things up there yourself!

jan nikolajsen · September 15, 2010, 09:38:09 AM

Been absent here for a while. Last post was June 2. Well, to make a long story short; on June 3 I fell off a ladder and broke my calcaenus (heel bone). While relatively minor, it is painful and slow to heel. After having 10 screws and some Ti inserted, I pretty much sat on the couch (and our sailboat) until a few weeks ago. Still unable to put in an honest day of work, so progress is slow.

After the injury we had to hire a contractor to put the remaining trusses up then sheath and paper the roof (ouch: $2000 labor!!) to weather proof things until I could get back.

As is evident from the pic I have yet to brave the tall ladder work!

September 15, 2010, 09:42:12 AM

Oh no, very sorry to hear of your accident. I thought you were simply taking the summer off and had gone someplace less hot. Best of luck with the healing and welcome to the titanium club.

Jeff922 · September 16, 2010, 09:39:08 AM

Sorry to hear about the ladder incident. That's a real bummer. I fell in my workshop about 2 months ago landing on my knee (concrete floor). It's slow to heal but I was lucky. Your place is looking great!

By the way. . .is that a Byer of Maine Acadian Cot in that one picture? If it is a Byer cot, and was purchased within the last 10 years, I made the wood parts for it. Also, the drawing on the instruction tag was done by me.

Bobmarlon · September 17, 2010, 12:13:22 AM

I fell off my roof as well! hurt my knee. I think we all need to put together a safety sticky with tips on how to build scaffolding and different safety tips.

rick91351 · September 17, 2010, 02:49:37 AM

Jan I love your area down there. Good choice - no great choice of location. I have plates in my right ankle and screws from a horse accident. Great news! It healed up just great with a little rehab and time. Don't rush it. It never gives me a minutes trouble. The surgeon told me it might be cold sensitive, however I never have found that at all.

September 17, 2010, 03:05:29 AM

Jan:

Best wishes for a full recovery. Nasty thing those tall ladders. Have taken a ride or two myself.

jan nikolajsen · September 17, 2010, 10:04:43 AM

Thanks, everybody. However, the show must go on, as Pink said. So I waddle around the site with my big boot velcro'ed on, avoiding the tall ladders for now.

Here's a few more pics:

Wrapping the lower wall sections in galv metal.

I got the cheap stuff off the shelf at the yard, and cut it to size myself.

The skirt is capped by cedar boards. I first envisioned using Hardi-Trim for the cap, to keep it durable and fire proof as high up as possible, but at almost $2 per foot that idea was scrapped.

The skirting is bumped out 2 1/2 inches, to make room for a band of insulation running around the building just above foundation level. Why this in a house with R-35 walls? Well, the foundation is wrapped in 2" blue board right up to the sill. But since I couldn't frame the walls on top of the foam, I had to move them in 2" and thereby creating a little step, ready to collect water and other mischief. Also now there was a thermal break, which is one of my phobias. So when a friend gave me a ton of left over ICF foam I could solve both issues.

I sleep in the house every night to keep unwanted visitors at bay until lock sets and all windows are in. The cot is indeed a Maine Acadian which Jeff922 skillfully produced!!

Shavings..

Also spent three days building a little insignificant overhang to meet the Architectural Design Committee's strict requirements for unbroken wall height (serious!!) and shade the downstairs windows from summer sun.

John Raabe · September 17, 2010, 10:41:31 AM

That eyebrow overhang does look good and may keep the place cooler in the summer. You may grow to love it even if it didn't come about in the best way possible.

Bishopknight · September 17, 2010, 11:07:47 AM

Wow amazing job guys!

Ya Hardi-trim is a rip off. I would've done the same thing.

jan nikolajsen · October 01, 2010, 09:42:26 AM

Finally done with the framing, including the hundreds of little details that all take a ton time. Cleaned up the entire house, vacuumed and swept, hauled out scraps and nails and tools, then set up for the next chore: Electrical.

A pile of stuff, including a small fortune of copper.

Having lived in a 12V off-the-grid home for the last 8 years, all this high voltage stuff is a bit overwhelming...

October 03, 2010, 09:34:12 AM

Well, you are cleaned up and ready to go... you have the right books, and you're a careful and thorough guy so I'm sure you will do a fine job.

One memory I have is of working with an owner-builder design client of mine almost 30 years ago. He was a very meticulous dentist and did a great job on his wiring only to be informed by the inspector that the wire specification had changed 3 weeks before and he would have to replace all the cable.

Electrical codes change often and it could be valuable to check your materials and layout with a local journeyman.

UK4X4 · October 03, 2010, 12:03:30 PM

Nice build ! I have a few Q's

I did'nt see a damp course membrane between the ground and the concrete, or are you taking the nicely done foam as the barrier ?

Plumbing -nothing worse than a cemented in line that springs a leak, and you spend 2 weeks chasing it across the house to locate the leak and not just where the water flows up.

Is there any US reason why you can't put in a duct,ie a 4" duct for a 2" pipe, and if and when it fails can be replaced without hammering through anything ? this is a question to all ?

You mention ducting yours but can't see from clearly from the photo's

jan nikolajsen · October 04, 2010, 11:21:24 PM

UK4X4:

All the supply lines are PEX (http://www.pexinfo.com/), which is stiff but still flexible. They are sleeved with oversized black poly irrigation pipes and slides freely therein.

The drains are not sleeved, just buried below the slab. Being large rigid PVC with many bends and joints I can't really see how that could be done otherwise.

No 'damp course membrane' installed. Concrete contractor and inspector said not necessary. It is desert here.

jan nikolajsen · October 10, 2010, 11:00:39 AM

Busy doing the wiring. Initially bought 40 of those blue boxes, thinking that this is a modest sized house and I could always take the extras back for a refund. Think again. I have since had to get at least 25 more! Outlets, receptacles, switches, fire alarms, junction boxes, etc. I have run more than 1200' of wire, and I'm not done yet. The wire is fastened with almost 300 of those big insulated staples:

Hopefully this panel will clean up and look neat when I'm done..:

These are nice fall days here in Moab, so in between all the wiring I snug outside and did the metal on the smaller half of the house. The product is called SL-16, and snap together like Lego, with no exposed fasteners. Regular metal roof with a screw hole every 16 inches just seem silly to me, rubber washers or not. The color is 'bone' for maximum heat reflection:

SL-16 is about the most expensive of the regular metal roofing options. But compared to a neighbor who chose the ever popular rusted look, I got out downright cheap. Pre-rusted and aged metal may be the latest fad in the West, and admittedly looks right at home above hand plastered bale walls, but the cost is high and it still got all those holes!!:

In another thread on this forum I whined about the Tri-Flex roofing paper leaking like a sieve here before putting the metal on. My roof is only 3/12, the Tri-Flex is specified with a rather modest overlap and fastened with nails and washers. Not having the 'greasy' attributes of tar paper I can easily imagine those nails admitting moisture (yes, more holes-in-the-roof phobia!). Whatever the reason for the leaks I wasn't about to rely only on one barrier (the metal) against wind driven rain. No matter how bomber it is you wouldn't hang from just one anchor ten pitches up a granite wall, right? So we went and got a few more rolls and laid them down perpendicular, running up and down, to the first layer. It got a tight row of staples right at the overlap and nowhere else, and then I covered the staples and overlap with strips of that tenacious self stick tar product called Ice Guard. The result is a tight roof even during recent very ferocious thunderstorms.

jan nikolajsen · October 15, 2010, 10:18:25 AM

OMG, this house building takes so long time... mid October already, and we really want to get out of the little 12' trailer before winter comes, even though the winter here is not so threatening as in other places featured on this forum. Waiting for the tankless water heater to come in so the plumber can do his thing (one thing I decided not to learn about) before the officials do their framing-plumbing-electrical-mechanical inspection, which around here is called the '4-way'.

After that, if all's okay, we won't see them until the final.

Sheet rocking is around the corner.

The roof is 99.9% done. As we all know that remaining 0.1 percent will be left undone for years, together with the last piece of door trim and that little corner of missing paint, forever bugging us and always making us think, 'next weekend, for sure'.

Anyway, almost $3K in material to cover a 26x22 roof, and a 34x30 roof.

Speaking of roofs, don't leave tar paper up exposed for several weeks, while busily turning your back:

That 30 spot breaker panel sure filled up quick! A couple of 240V base board circuits, 2 dedicated kitchen runs, plus a separate fridge outlet, smoke alarms on their own circuit, more 240V for shop and stove, bathroom GFCI's, etc.

All that's left of the electrical is figuring out what to do with this 200' bundle of Cat5 data cable:

Shawn B · October 15, 2010, 11:53:19 AM

Jan,

About the hard-wired smoke alarms. I've noticed that the last few years the electricians I know have started wiring the smoke alarms on a lighting circuit that is used daily. Usually kitchen, family room, or master bedroom. That way if the breaker trips or is turned off you know right away.

I like the roof metal and color choice. Too bad your on the grid there, I bet a P.V. system would rock in that climate!

October 20, 2010, 10:31:58 AM

Good suggestion, Shawn, on the wiring of smoke alarms. Will talk to the inspector about it.

Started siding a bit, while simultaneously getting water heater and electrical wrapped up. A while ago the nearby Big Box had a good deal on cedar fence boards. My thrifty mind wondered if this sixty cents per square material could be used as siding? They are only six feet long, but that happened to be very close to the vertical run from the top of my galvanized skirting the the next horizontal break.

The reason why these are cheap is two fold: the grade is mixed from poor to more than okay, and they are sopping wet. Well, at said Big Box you load your own lumber, so grading can be redone right there at the tailgate, with an eye to the whereabouts of department managers... and, if one plans sufficiently ahead, the boards should be stacked and stickered for several weeks before use.

To further ensure even drying and for a nice golden color I applied a coat of Tung oil mixed 50/50 with solvent on both sides.

They went on with very little effort. As a vertical siding the ladder work on the second story was easy, as opposed to hanging 12' Hardi planks without a helper and scaffolding. I don't plan to put on battens so there's no spacing between the boards. But they will shrink a bit, and looking at pure white house-wrap in the cracks would be less than desirable, so I backed each board with a 3" strip of tar paper standing proud of the leading edge. With that and all the flashing and house-wrap I'm not too worried about water infiltration. Plus it's the desert here. The biggest enemies of these boards are going to be relentless sun and heat. 8 screws in each, with a pre-drilled pattern and screws inserted halfway on the ground.

I haven't decided yet if this is a whole house scenario or just on the hard to do second story. That will probably end up being it, with aforementioned Hardi plank ship lap siding on the much larger first story run. On the south side of the house where there's lots of windows and other embellishments it will be a lot easier to do cedar that the cement planks, so it will likely end being a confusing mix of siding choices, mostly based on convenience and cost.

But those have been the guiding principles here at Coyote Cottage #2 since the start!!

Aidzee · October 20, 2010, 10:53:48 AM

"About the hard-wired smoke alarms. I've noticed that the last few years the electricians I know have started wiring the smoke alarms on a lighting circuit that is used daily. Usually kitchen, family room, or master bedroom. That way if the breaker trips or is turned off you know right away."

I wanted to comment on this. I am not sure about american code, but canadian electrical amendments forbid placing smoke detectors on dedicated breakers. They must be connected to a daily use circuit as Shawn B stated above.

About using up breaker spaces in your panel. Looks like a cutler hammer or commander style panel to me. If you run out of spaces you can purchase twins for a single pole space, or quads for a two pole space. A twin is just two mini breakers built on one case, and a quad is a two pole case with four minis built in. You can get different amperages on a quad such as 30 amp two pole in the middle and 2- single 15 amp breakers on the outside.

Your building looks great. Very inspiring.

jan nikolajsen · October 31, 2010, 10:37:06 AM

Putting up Hardi-Plank siding the last few days, as the fall colors intensify and cooler temps lurk longer in the mornings.

Why not forget about that and get the inside done so we can move in and get comfy for winter? Plumbers, is the answer. Waiting for subs is aggravating, but it is partially because of my poor foresight and planning, partly because of hunting season and the maybe less than ideal work ethics of the chosen company. Anyway, they got fired and the better guy is coming (fingers crossed) on Monday morning. After that I can finally get inspected and move on to drywall and insulation. We'll see...

The Hardi stuff is actually really fun to work with. Goes up quick, looks good, feels very solid. The process is vastly improved with a few essential aids: A dedicated Hardi blade for the Skilsaw, and the SoloSiders that I got recommended form someone here on this forum. Working alone is no problem with those nifty little gadgets.

A couple of questions for the experts: I like the factory primed color. But Hardi tells me to topcoat with house paint within 180 days. Has anyone left their primed boards up for a long time?

Does this material shrink and swell with changes in moisture? Some of my joints are tighter than Hardi recommends and the planks are really dry right now. Don't want to have it buckle out and distort.

The tools. A hundred dollar investment made the process much easier.

With a near perfect starter course the rest will look decent enough to pass most casual inspections...

The west side of the shop is lots of wall, less windows. The 'crack' under the window is an extension cord.

The awkwardly tall and narrow east side. The original plan was to have a second story porch here, but the allocated funds disappeared. Hence the wooden belly band over the Hardi Plank, so if we get rich we can revert to porch idea.

nathan.principe · October 31, 2010, 12:18:50 PM

I really like your mix of diff siding choices, gives alot of character to your project

MountainDon · October 31, 2010, 10:48:57 PM

Those SoloSiders are slick aren't they? Almost makes me want to build something else so I can use them again.

I never let our Hardi Plank sit in the manufacturers primer for too long once on our cabins walls, but I've had a couple pieces of scrap sitting around for about two years now. They've been rained on, snowed on, beat by the sun. Only the lower end that has been sitting on the ground shows any deterioration. Two to four inches or so are pretty bad with delamination happening at the ground contact end. The rest of the board looks fine with the rotten part cut off. It seems to be a fairly stable product. The primer even looks okay.

I was a bit tight in places with end gap clearances too. No problems have shown up and it's been 2 years. One thing I have wondered about is why are high altitude applications given wider recommended clearances?

When I painted it was late in the year (2 years ago November) with the temps dipping lower than most paints recommended application limits. I used Home Depot Ultra-something or other. It's fairly new with primer "built-in". The paint has one of the lower temperature ratings available. Sherwin Williams has one too. No issues.