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Parapet walls finished-we’re moving on

Monday, August 10th, 2009

Building the parapet walls has been fun and not too challenging. The biggest concern was getting them attached in such a way that they won’t blow away later. The winds here can be intense.

Framing

The only issue with the framing was on the slope walls. You need to keep it straight in your mind that the studs run perpendicular to the top, not the bottom; it’s on a slope. On a slope this small, it’s seems unimportant, but when you go to attach the OSB, you won’t end cleanly on a stud if you do it wrong.

Erecting and Attaching

Standing up the walls and positioning them was easy. (2×6 walls are night-and-day easier than 2×4 walls in this regard.) Screwing down the walls was a little harder. We used ten inch long screws that go clear through the SIPS panels and into the 2×6 header on top of the walls. Karen pre-drilled holes for me. We have what I thought was a pretty big drill to do the job and it barely did the job. We had more than enough screws and used them all. I also had a lot of extra eight inch screws that I set into the 2×6’s framed into the sides of the roof SIPs. It’s very sturdy.

Covering

The whole thing was covered in OSB*. This went fast. A large part of the reason it went fast is that we are the proud owners of a used Bostitch stapler. (Putting up our SIPs walls resulted in our having a box of 1/2 inch wide by two inches long staples seven-eights full–ebay to the rescue.) The stapler made short work of attaching the OSB to the walls. (Karen did most of the stapling.) Cutting the OSB to fit was the most work.

One special touch designed to prevent leaking is that we put a one-half inch in six inches slope on top of the parapet walls. Six inches is not a lot of room for standing water, but we’re just making sure.

* Oriented Strand Board: A decking made from wood chips and lamination glues.

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bob kittens

Thursday, August 6th, 2009


The big oak tree at our front gate has become the favorite playground for the local bobby twins. Mom was around, but I could not get her in a picture. The pictures of the bob kittens are the best to date. I hope you like them.

-brad

(look how long their legs are)

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White shirts, black gloves and knives

Monday, August 3rd, 2009

These are items I’ve grown to appreciate over the last six months or so.

It gets hots here. Little things matter more than they have in my past experiences. White shirts help a lot; much more than I expected. Recently I wore a black t-shirt as a test. Arg!

Black gloves… well gloves. It’s just that I bought a pair of black Mechanix’s brand gloves that I love. They are unbelievably ugly with writing all over them. However, they are the kind of gloves I can wear while doing tasks that require a certain sensitivity that gloves normally lack. I can pick between an 16d nail and an 8d nail from my tool belt without looking. Pretty cool. The main thing is that I wear these glove all the time and that’s what I wanted. A lot less splinters and cuts for me since I started wearing these.

I’ve never been one to carry a knife, though I always like the idea. I never needed one enough to go to the bother of locating (I lose stuff all the time) one and putting it in a pocket every morning. I had a feeling I might before we moved here and I bought a couple. One is a simple flip open and lock style. I use this all the time and feel quite lost without it now. The other is one of those multitool ones with pliers, wire cutters, and a pretty nasty locking blade. I use this one much less often, but when I do it always saves me a walk. I wear this one on my belt which is a bit of a bother to put on each morning, but I always regret it when it’s not there. My only unhappiness with the miltitool is that it has a little clip on its side that would only result in its loss if I used it, that causes it to get stuck in the sheath. I’d like to take it off, but I’m pretty sure it would spring into a million pieces if I ever took it apart enough to remove it.

The list is longer of course. Big leather gloves are on the list too. Oh yea, the big Toyota Tundra is probably the top of the list. We’ve hauled some pretty big loads and it gets us through all the nasty roads around here no problems.

Ice water… did I mention ice water? We’ve learned to keep a couple of plastic jugs three-quarters full in the freezer. When we head to the ranch (or even a long drive) we grab a bottle, add some water and go. It’s stays cold for hours.

-brad

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Wall are coming

Sunday, July 12th, 2009

KC Panels is going to deliver our SIP walls tomorrow. The roof panels will be delivered a day later.

We’ve spent the last week preparing for the walls.

  • We finished up the staining and sealing of the slab.
  • We drilled holes in the slab for anchor bolts to hold down the 2×6 sill.
  • We put down sill-seal and the 2×6 sill.
  • We put down plastic to protect the slab while we work on the house.
  • We ordered miscellaneous materials from the lumber company.

Drilling the holes for the anchor bolts was a much bigger deal that I thought. Years ago when I was doing this kind of work we bought a hammer drill that was amazing. When I saw a hammer drill for sale (cheap) at Lowes, I bought it. It was a lot smaller than the one I remembered, but technology moves forward while you’re not looking… err maybe not. It’s a fair hammer drill, but it would never have done the job. It took many minutes to drill one hole; sixty holes would have taken ages. It also started coughing up grease chunks within a few minutes. We had to go clear to Sierra Vista to rent a serious hammer drill. We got a big old Hilti hammer drill (about 15 seconds per hole). It was as just as a remembered.

Here Jonathon drills through the sill plate before drilling into the concrete.

Here Harrison mans the big old Hilti while Jonathon helps keeps it aimed straight.

Karen and I cut the bolts down to make it easier to put up the walls

Karen really took to the grinder!

Here is the slab prepped, covered and ready for walls!

The first order of business tomorrow will be to unload the truck, then we should start putting the walls up! How far we’ll get, I don’t know.

Once the walls are up, we will put hangers for the IJoists followed by the IJpoists and a row of blocking between the Ijoists to firm it up. As soon as this is done, we will schedule a crane/boom to come out and lift the roof panels onto the IJoists. At this point, we’ll have walls and a roof. After this comes details like parapet walls, stucco, metal roofing, etc.

brad

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The slab becomes a floor

Sunday, June 21st, 2009

As much as things went badly yesterday, today they went splendidly.

We got up 5 again to stain, and today the weather was clear. We set out to the property and began work. I’ll let the pictures and movies tell the story. (One minor sidenote: The rain seems to have brought up some of the Quikrete. We had to scrape and wash down the slab *again*. So Quikrete wasn’t the perfect crack patcher either. Maybe there isn’t one. Anyway, it’s good enough.)

[coolplayer width=”600″ height=”400″ autoplay=”0″ loop=”0″ charset=”utf-8″ download=”1″ mediatype=””]
Staining the Slab
[/coolplayer]

(The color on the movie is a bit dark and orange. This picture shows the actual color.)

More pictures are here.

We just love Soycrete. It was so easy to work with and gave beautiful results.

We also did the final stucco coat on the greenhouse columns. This came out really nice too. For me, a lot of this was a practice run for the house. The color turned out really nice, and I would definitely use something similar for the house. (We will be going with a slightly different stucco, one that is plasticized, which we discovered since we bought this first batch, helps prevent cracking).

I finished the stucco two different ways. The first was more of a rough finish. The second was smoother (achieved by misting and sponge troweling it pretty aggressively). While we liked both, I think we’ll probably go with the smoother look. We may do either a different texture or even color on the “architectural details.” (Those are the parts of the exterior walls that stick out a bit to look more interesting.)

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Where the wild things are

Wednesday, June 3rd, 2009

Apparently, they are at P.D.’s place. P.D. is our neighbor to the west and north. If you look at our place on GoogleEarth, you’ll find P.D.’s place by looking for a large (forty acre) square that is greener than the rest. This is what twenty-five or so years of fencing does out here.

So we ran into P.D. today and he asked if we’d like to see the bob-kittens. I didn’t even know he had bob-kittens-of course! After Karen and I finished the sawing portion of the concrete scoring, we drove over.

P.D. was waiting and helped us park so as not to disturb little guys. More little guys it turned out than just bob-kittens. There were also baby screech owls. Until recently, there were also baby roadrunners. (Best guess is that the momma bobcat got them. Their roost was less then ten feet from the litter of bob-kittens; doomed from the start I’d say.)

The first thing P.D. showed us was the screech owls, mom, dad and three babies. The mom and dad sat in different parts of the tree, but all the babies huddled together. P.D. said that in an hour or so flying lessons would begin. This is serious business with a bobcat living downstairs.

Next we went to the carport–about twenty feet away. The roadrunners are still roosting there despite their loss. P.D. called out to let the bobcat know we were there, but she was no where to be seen. We looked carefully over stacks of stuff to see the kittens. They were pretty well hidden. I took some pictures but none were very good.

All in all, super exciting. That P.D. is a good neighbor to have.

Last is Karen looking dirty and tired after hours of work on the slab, and very very happy.

-brad

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Our first inspection

Monday, May 25th, 2009

Before bought our land, we asked the building department about the existing slab. They went out of their way to assure us it was permitted and that there were no issues. Despite their assurances, I’ve worried about it.

After we bought the land, they stopped with the assurances, and they made us dig a couple of inspection holes. I expressed my concern to the building department and this time their assurance was that they’d never make us tear up the slab. At the worst, we’d have to dig all new footings around it. Ugh.

Since we have a building permit, we’re entitled to inspections now. I called them up to get the slab inspected. They told me that they’d also be inspecting the setbacks (how close you are to the property line) and the rough plumbing… you’d need x-ray glasses to do that, but that’s ok with me.

One concern was that I really wanted to be there, but I had to plan for the possibility of not being there. It’s been raining and there’s no protected place for the permit and plans. (They assured me that I would fail if either were missing.) I put together a holder of sorts from some 2″ PVC. They did say the inspector would call in the morning and give me a time estimate. He did and I was able to meet him.

I arrived at out property about thirty minutes before Dave (today’s inspector) arrived. I fussed and worried about how things would go. As soon as Dave got out of his truck, the rain started again and we ducked into his truck to look at the plans. No problem with the setback. Dave said he remembered inspecting our slab back when Dan was the owner. He looked the slab over and measured the foundation (where we dug it out) and said it was fine. He looked at the pipes sticking out of the concrete and gave them his blessing too. I breathed a sigh of relief and started asking questions about the future.

I just wanted to be sure, and it’s true, the next inspection isn’t until after the walls are up, the i-joists are in, and the SIPS are placed for the roof. Even the interior walls will be framed. Rough electrical will be done also. It seems like a lot of work without an inspection, but I think this is a benefit of the SIPS.

Karen and I have started filling the inspection holes back in. Karen’s taken on the task of compacting the earth. I just throw dirt in the hole and water it. I like the way Karen does it better.

We survived our first inspection!

-brad

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Search terms

Friday, April 3rd, 2009

WordPress (our blogging software) provides a web page of interesting stats. The one (and only one) that is frequently funny is Search Engine Terms. It lets you know when people come to your blog from a search engine and what exactly they searched for.

The thing that I find funny isn’t usually what they searched for, but that when presented with a list of possible web sites that match their search, they chose ours. Here’s the last 30 days of searches that ended up at kbranch:

  • ditch digger
  • brad gale park address
  • chiles
  • toyota ranch truck
  • locking mailbox
  • solar panels on water tower
  • green constructin
  • excavation process
  • kbranch
  • mailbox design coeurdalene
  • ranches with water towers
  • set up your own solar ranch
  • off grid water tower
  • solar pumps for ranch
  • hog fire douglas az
  • hog fire maps douglas arizona
  • house design in gale force winds
  • youtube soycrete
  • hog canyon,peloncillo,arizona,map

Ditch digger – I can hardly imagine anyone searching for this. Assuming someone really did, what did they think they would find at kbranch? Were they looking to hire someone? I’m not sure Karen is exactly the body type you expect when you’re looking to hire a ditch digger.

Solar panels on water tower – It’s true we have a water tower and that we will have solar panels. Not that I see them mixing.

House design in gale force winds – This at least I can imagine someone searching for; it seems interesting. Still, you have to wonder how many pages of results there were before we popped up. And then, what could they have been searching for, so tirelessly, that they used what must have been their last hope up clicking on our site. I feel I let them down.

Locking mailbox – I confess that I have spent a lot of time using this exact search. I know what kind of results are near the top-it’s places selling mailboxes. I would be shocked if we’re in the top 5000 results. It boggles my mind that anyone could dig deep enough to reach us this way.

Solar pumps for ranch – This is not so funny, as it reminds me of something funny. Someone (I’m guessing the same person that did this search) sent me an email requesting a quote for a bunch of solar equipment.

Hog fire maps douglas arizona – This is a search Karen and I both did when there was a fire near Douglas. It’s no wonder our site matched this. There was very little information on the fire anywhere.

-brad

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A Ranch Truck

Thursday, December 11th, 2008

We have a truck! This has been agonizing. Everything we do seems to require a ton of study, thought and debate; I’ve reversed my own well thought out ideas many times in this process. When I first envisioned a truck it was a Tacoma 4×4 or maybe the Tacoma 4×2 with the locking rear differential. Then we started talking to people-ugh. Everyone had ideas and all of them were different, often contradictory.

I was hesitant to move up to a larger truck, but the more we looked at our needs the more it made sense. I hope to get big stuff delivered, but clearly there are going to be many trips for building supplies and I don’t know what they will be. In the end we boiled it down to two trucks, the Dodge 2500 Diesel and the Toyota Tundra.

One thing I found amazing was that the trucks cost about the same amount. Our decision might have been easier if the Dodge had been cheaper. In the end though, the Dodge drove like a giant truck (I think the 4×4 model is really high and very rough) and the Tundra seemed pretty easy to drive. The reliability history from Consumer Reports heavily favored the Tundra too. Also, I hope not to be towing too much. I do believe the Dodge is an awesome truck for towing, but I don’t really want to be in the towing business. (This is something I might be wrong about, but I hope not.)

A surprise was that we ended up with a quad cab. Having driven a truck in the past, I knew I wanted some storage room in the cab and I thought the extended cab was enough. It just happened that the truck, with the lowest mileage and the lowest price and the newest model was a quad cab. For the most part, I’ve been looking at 2000-2002 trucks, just because of our target price. We ended up with a 2005. I think the newness matters almost as much as the miles. (Plus the Toyota added a power rear window in 2005 which I think it very cool. :)

The 4×4 decision: Someone I respect said that we don’t need it. However, a bunch of people said 4×4 is a must. Since we just don’t know what we are getting into, it seems much better to have four-wheel drive and never turn it on than to need it and be stuck. There is some personal experience here too. When Karen and I were looking for property in Portal, we once turned a corner to see a stream where only a road should be. That was an eye opener. We were driving a RAV4 with four-wheel drive, but just parked it and walked the rest of the way. (We had to build a rock bridge just to get where we were going.) I will say that getting a 4×4 complicated the purchase process. There are distinctly fewer 4×4 trucks to pick from.

Details:

2005 Toyota Tundra SR5 Crew Cab
V8 4.7 liter i-Force
5 Speed Automatic with Electronic Overdrive
four wheel drive
four wheel ABS
limited slip differential
towing package

Weights:
gross vehicle weight rating 6,600 lb
curb weight 4,965 lb
gross trailer weight braked 6,500 lb
max payload 1,635 lb

Cargo area dimensions:
length 74.3″
width 63.3″
height 20.7″

More specifications

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Off-grid solar power

Monday, October 20th, 2008

I’m working hard on the math for off-grid solar power right now. The system consists of several big pieces, solar panels, batteries, a generator, and a control piece that manages charging the batteries and converting battery power (DC) to AC. It also provides DC for the few things it makes sense to run on DC.

The first thing you need to do is figure out how much electricity you need in watt-hours per day. This is a lot of work. The refrigerator is the biggest consumer as well as the easiest to figurel it’s on all the time. Contrast that with a microwave. Let’s see, we have a 1200 watt microwave we use about five minutes a day or a garbage disposal.

For solar panels, it seems you figure on five six hours (I checked a chart for our area) of sunlight per day. You multiply that times the number of watts your solar panels can produce and that’s how much power you can generate.

For batteries, you multiply your daily watt-hour needs by three to give you a three day supply of power. You then multiply that number by two because you don’t want to discharge the batteries below fifty percent. (Routinely discharging the batteries below fifty percent shortens their life.)

We are going to have a generator which means that something odd like ten days of rain is not going to leave us in the dark. It also lessens the tendency to overbuild the solar power.

The big power draws:

  • Refrigerator
  • Washing machine
  • Clothes Dryer
  • Microwave
  • Pressure pump

You might wonder what a pressure pump is. Our water tower is not nearly tall enough to create the water pressure you need to shower or run things like tankless water heaters. When getting information on how much power the pressure pump needs, I was told to first to figure out how much water we will use a day.

One piece of solar power that is already done is the water supply. It’s a perfect little functioning system. It has its own solar panels (no batteries) that run the pump when there’s sun. It pumps the water about twenty-five feet up and into the water tank (1250 gallon). My rough estimate is that the tank holds about at least weeks worth of water and could be completely refilled with one good day of sun.

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