Victoria Cottage NE TN

[ChuckinVa]

Do you own the mineral rights to your property?

[NavyDave]

Yep all mineral rights conveyed wuith the property.

[Brian_G]

that valve looks a lot like a feed line at a friends house from his gas well, looks like that might be a gas flow metering device (pressure reducing device) to feed a structure on the property.

[NavyDave]

Well I just got back from our land where i spent the last 4 days clearing a spot for our temporary home while we build. A friend of mine has an RV that's taking up space in his driveway and we worked out a deal to pull it to the land and "store" it there. Couldn't have worked out any better!








This is a rendering of my modified Victoria Cottage that i've been working on most of the winter. The room addition with the chimney attached will come in the future. It will be a sitting room/library with a small basement to be used as a storm shelter/root cellar.

We will be heading out of DC at the end of the month and will be in the thick of the build full time until it's completed. Very excited!

[NavyDave]

OK we are living on our property full time now and it's been a VERY busy week going back and forth to the storage facility and dealing with material deliveries. I've decided that I would be able to save quite a bit of time if I had a place to store and organize my tools so my first project before I start full time on the house is to build a 12 X 16 garden shed. I'm figuring on a full 10 days for this project depending on weather. I started a new thread for the shed. You can see it at:

http://countryplans.com/smf/index.php?topic=12047.0

[NavyDave]

We worked the last couple of days on the foundation footers. We have them all poured and have 2 piers completed also. So far the job has taken about 60 bags of concrete.....those things are heavy, I swear they must weigh about 80 pounds each!

[NavyDave]

Well my 10 day shed project turned into a full 6 week ordeal but we have it weather tight and almost completed. Just have to finish the siding on the gambrel ends and stain it. We just got back from a 10 day visit with my daughter and have about 10 days to ourselves before the next trip to make some progress on the house. I figured some foundation work was in order. Here are a couple pics of the completed quickrete tubes. I have all of the piers completed that will support the 6X12 beams (15 total) and have 7 more to pour for the 6x8 beams. Why didn't somebody warn me that concrete days weren't much fun! Honestly I'm very happy with what's been completed with 2 days work and am amazed at the accuracy of a 3 dollar water level!

[NavyDave]

Finished up the piers today. I only have the 3 on the ends of the house where the double floor joists will run to go but I'm waiting until I start framing the floor to pour those.


I plan on cutting shims out of pressure treated 6X6's to make sure the beams are level if the concrete settles a bit. The piers are suprisingly accurate though. I'd say the worst one is off by only 1/8 of an inch (By no means the water levels fault!)

[Jeff922]

Nice work!  Can't wait to see this project progress.

[NavyDave]

Thanks Jeff, I'm hoping for mine to look at least half as good as yours does!

I got the main 28 foot beam on the north side of the house hung today and the two 16 footers on the bedroom addition also. I used my ladder and a 1 ton block and tackle to raise the beams into position. It worked pretty well.

[NavyDave]

I'm all finished hanging the beams now. The 8 inch ones I did today on the South side of the house facing the pond were much easier than the beefier 12 inchers that are on the North side. We'll be leaving for another 10 day trip on Friday so progress will have to wait. My body needs a rest from lifting the 80 LB bags and lugging those beams though. Excited to start framing the floor when we return!

[archimedes]

Nice progress.   

Are you working by yourself?

[NavyDave]

For the most part it's just been me. My father helped a lot with the land clearing and laying out the footers back in November though. Things are getting done bit by bit and it's only costing me calories. I'm getting in really good shape with all of this lifting. All in all even though i'm a bit behind schedule I'm very pleased with my progress and the rewards I can see at the end of each day's work.

[NM_Shooter]

It is always great to get out of the dirt and done with concrete.  The framing is the most fun part!

[NavyDave]

It feels great to be done with the dirty work. All I need to do is make sure the foundation is perfectly level before moving onto the next phase. I look forward to framing the floor and deck though. The foundation took so long to get right and it was getting hard to move forward without seeing much progress after working so hard every day. At least with the framing I'll be able to see things happening alot quicker!

[CjAl]

concrete work sucks, i learned that lesson this weekend.

those are some tall piers. how are you going to run the bracing? i kept mine no more then 18" out of the ground. most are a foot out. i didnt want to have to do all the bracing and.couldnt really figure.out a great way to do it with concrete piers.

[NavyDave]

CJAJ

My piers are attached directly to the bedrock. After digging down an average of about 20 inches I hit bedrock. I rented a rock drill and drilled holes at an angle approximately 12 inches into the rock and used portland cement to anchor a piece of 1/2 inch rebar to the rock. Prior to pouring my piers I bent the rebar into an L shape at the top to increase uplift resistance. Then I used 18" threaded rod at the top that I bent like an L shaped anchor bolt which will be used to anchor my beams to the piers.

I'll be using hurricane ties to attach my floor joists and deck joists to the beams which will tie the entire structure together. I'll have a wrap around deck on my Victoria which will provide for a square footprint of 36X45 feet total. With the larger footprint coupled with each pier anchored to the bedrock and each layer of the structure firmly connected to the next layer racking will be reduced.

I was concerned with bracing the taller piers and researched the quickrete forms and found this quickrete form data sheet http://www.quikrete.com/PDFs/DATA_SHEET-QUIK-TUBE%206922.pdf There is a blurb in the data that states there should be "additional support" if the piers are more than 24" above the ground. I wanted to be clear how to reinforce/support my taller piers so I called and talked to a product engineer and was told that the additional support is meant to ensure the forms remain level and plumb during the pour. I was also told that when using the longer special order tubes (10 feet and longer) that there should be bracing at the bottom of the tubes to prevent the more fluid wet concrete from busting out the bottom of the tube. I didn't know they could be special ordered in specific sizes.

[NavyDave]

Well we are back from our last trip and have spent the last week trying to get the grass and poison ivy mowed/sprayed. I have a nice rash on my arms and legs to show for it but finally got the property where I needed it to feel comfortable to get back to the build. I managed to get my floor joist perimeter framed and the bedroom addition joists hung. I rented a rotary lazer level to make sure the perimeter was spot on before hanging the joists and my water level proved to be perfectly level except for one pier on the corner of the bedroom addition. It costs 65 bucks to rent the lazer level but the look of the lazer dancing on the top of my perimeter after the sun was down made it worth the money.

[NavyDave]

Most of today was eaten up by making sure the perimeter joists were perfectly square followed by attaching all of the metal attaching hardware required to hold the frame and joists in place. I also got most of the floor joists framed up to the point where my center concrete pier is situated that will stiffen a double floor joist.


I used simpson bracket LUS210Z for the 2X10 floor joist hangars. To attach the floor perimeter to the beams I used 30 angle brackets made by simpson also A23Z. I screwed 4 2 inch exterior screws to the beams as anchors and used 1 1/2 inch #10 galvanized nails into the perimeter joists. The beams are held down by home made anchor bolts mounted to each concrete pier.

[rdzone]

Looking great so far. except...


not to be nit picky but it appears your angle bracket screws to the beam are not simpson approved, additionally they are screwed into the edge of the plywood layer in your beam.  I would rethink the fasteners and their location.  I would be best to use simpson approved fasteners as normal screws will sheer off easily.  As far as the fasteners being in the plywood, I would reccomend trying to get them into the 2x's that have far more holding strength.

[NavyDave]

rdzone,

I agree that the screws in the plywood don't offer the best protection. On the particular beam that is in the picture the 6 brackets fell right over the plywood as shown. The remaining 24 brackets look like this:



My thought when using screws on the bottom portion of the angle brackets was to eliminate/reduce uplift. Simpson recommends using the 1 1/2" galvanized nails that I used on the sides of the angle brackets but I don't believe a nail that's 1 1/2 inches long can reduce uplift much at all. My thinking was that the threads on the exterior screws would provide much better resistance to upward force. I do have some 3 inch long nails that I could have used but felt the threads provided better protection still. With that said I'm probably going to add 6 additional larger angle brackets on the beam where the screws go into the plywood to ensure they are fastened to the solid part of the beam like the rest of the brackets. That will be 36 angle brackets and 144 screws total holding the joists to the beams to eliminate uplift and shearing.

[CjAl]

ring shank nails provide as much grip as a screw and wont snap off like a screw. screws are brittle and are not very good in sheer load. i like to mix them 50/50 but they should be used as directed if you have anyone inspecting.

[rdzone]

Glad to hear that all of the bracket screws are not in the plywood. I am still concerned about your screws. I live in earthquake country and the inspectors would not pass the screws. One good shaker and all of those screws would sheer right off.   If you must have screws Simpson makes screws that are rated to go with their bracket and I believe they make longer nails as well.

Just my two cents. I do think you are doing a great job and look forward to the rest of your build.

[NavyDave]

rdzone,
I was on Simpson's website last night and did see that they have several different types of screws to choose from. When you mention earthquakes it makes me go hmmmmm....I had high winds in mind (sustained force) when using those screws, I didn't even think about shaking (pulsating force). Are you (or is anyone else) aware of a fastener that would have the same rating in shear strength as the #10 galvanized 1 1/2 inch nails that Simpson reccomends for the A23Z bracket but with an increase in uplift resistance? Probably will give Simpson a call on monday but experience and knowledge of others is always appreciated. Thanks!

[rdzone]

This might help.
http://www.strongtie.com/products/connectors/nails.asp