We will be building the house ourselves with only the help of friends and family that are willing to work for a good meal, cold beer, and our deepest thanks. We are also using some alternative build materials in the house. The foundation will be a rubble trench with a French drain, going to be post and beam frame work with some cordwood infill. The upper portion of the wall will be more of a pole barn style or a double plank wall. 2 inch think lumber on the outside and 1 inch on the inside of the wall. Both outer and inner walls will be tongue and grooved. This will be to help seal things up some and the will be chinking in the area where the lumber meets in order to seal even more and to give the look of a cabin or squared log home. I am not sure yet if we are going to use 6x6 post or 8x8 post either way the area between the inner and outer wall covering will be filled with a lime and sawdust insulation that is pack in some to help out in keeping the settling down as much as we can. The lower 40 inches of the wall will be cordwood masonry. 16 inch long pieces of poplar will be placed in a matrix of a mortar. Very strong good looking cheap and insulated. May take a little time with the cordwood to get a tight seal. When the log contract from the drying that will keep happening till they reach what ever the relative humidity is, even though they are seasoned some what now. We need them not to be 100% cured because they are a hard wood and it is better to have to seal up any little gaps then to have them expand and fracture the mortar matrix causing wall failure. With the pics that will be coming this will be discussed so more.
The roof is going to be steep so that we can use oak shakes. These shakes are going to be split out or sawn not yet sure which we will be doing from oaks on the farm. This does 2 things, 1 being that it keeps the cost of roofing down and 2 with proper care the roof should last at least 50 years but it is likely to last closer to 100. All of the lumber for the house is coming from the logs on our land is going to be sawn on our mill as well. Spend around 3500 on a mill that we will be able to use to cut out any other buildings that we may need or give use the ability to make a little money. Further more when the bottom falls out of this country we will have the means to help people out. Or spend twice that much on the lumber to build the house and still have to buy any other lumber we ever need to do anything else. It just makes more since to us to do it this way.
The house will be heated with a forced air outdoor wood furnace. I am currently looking to find out if I want to do a direct forced air system or use a boiler furnace and then a water to air heat exchanger and blower to actually put the heat in the house. Still a lot of research to do in this area. Either will work but I want the longest lasting and most efficient method that I can find.
Now that I have given the background and general idea of the house I will be posting pics as we build. Any comments are welcome and I will do my best to answer any questions that people have. I am not an expert in any field by no means when it comes to the types of building that I am using. I have done some building and have a good knowledge of what is required. But I have done lots of research on every thing that I am doing and have talked to those that are considered experts in there respective fields.
We picked up our mill Monday and here are some pics of set up and stuff. The mill is a Hud-Son Oscar 121. I was going to go with the 118 but after looking and doing a thinking decided to go with the 121 and the 10hp engine, since my dealer (Dave's Sawmill Sales) got me a good price at only 500 above the price for the 118. The mill will used to cut all the lumber for our house and all the other buildings that will be need here on our little homestead. More pics will becoming as we get going and stuff starts coming together more.
Monday, March 07 2011
Made my mind up that it will be a water boiler with heat exchanger for the forced air heating. Also I was originally going to use a gravel with tire bond beam on top of the rubble trench to get the earth bag stem wall off the ground but have since changed my mind and am going to use cut stone. Will be a little short 12 inch high 20 inch wide motored stone wall that the earth bags will rest of to keep them dry so I don't have to use Portland cement with our very expansive clay soil. Plus I can add a few stick of re- bar going from trench to the top of the cordwood it I wanted to but not really sure I want to. Old mortar from Roman time is still around and solid but since people start using steal in the mortar seems that it don't last as long. The mortar will be a lime mortar cheaper and better for environment and to me is strong since it last well we don't know how long since building in Europe are 100's of years old with lime mortar and the motor part is still standing strong. I think that is it for the time being.
Holly and I milled more today. We got to saw for about 3 hours pulled almost 90 bdft per hour with this little mill and I am pleased with that. The production rate was even with having to roll the cant every cut because of some bad tension in the logs. I had a 6x8 cant bow over 1/2 while I was pushing the saw through to split it, really pissed me off. But that is the down side to getting timber off of a hill side that is steep as a cows face.
This is the 3rd version of my log table and this one I like. Strong enough that I can fill it with 20 inch logs and no worries also right next to the mill there is a slight up slop as to keep the logs from being able to roll onto me as I am working.
Running the mill here and having a damn good time. Like I have said many times before I gots saw dust in my veins. HMM LOVE IT.
Not bad to have came out of 10 logs is it. Not measured it all yet but there is a whole lot of boardage here. Right now it is all under wraps to keep it from getting soaked as it is currently piss pouring the rain.
Thursday March 10 2011
Hauled about another 3 1/2 tons of stone from moms to the house. Man swinging that sledge hammer is starting to get rather tiring. Not much more to go should have them all by the end of next week if weather holds out for me.
Friday March 11 2011
Called this morning about the excavator and should be getting it in the morning. Will be digging the footer and the cellar over the weekend. looking forward to getting to it. This will be the first step that will actually resemble the house so it is very exciting. Plus while I have the thing I am going to clean up the spot where I feed the horses and the cows, plus do a little work to the road coming out of the holler. If time allows I will be getting some more rock today after I get hay, and then again after I take Holly to work since I have to have the truck this weekend. Shh so much to and for this so little time since I am having to rent the equipment but we will make it just fine I think.
Oh yeah I forgot to tell you all that we are no longer using earth bags for the stem wall. The cost of stabilizing the clay soil would be to high. I am going to be laying a 20 inch wide and around 20-24 inch high stone stem wall. This will be to keep the cordwood off of the ground and will also give it a strong bond to the foundation.
Wednesday March 16 2011
Holly and I hauled another 3 loads of stone yesterday. Most of them were good rock to use for laying the stem wall.. I dug them out while I had the excavator over the weekend at moms. I also layed a bunch of the larger rocks out so that I could get to them with saw here in a few days. We also went ahead and got the grade 57 gravel for the foundation. A little costly but not super bad. Kevin from D & P trucking brought 27 tons up in a single load and boy is that I a lot of gravel. To any one local he is a good guy and I high recommend him if you need any gravel hauled. The gravel are going to be the last rocks that go into the foundation trench.
FRIDAY MARCH 18, 2011
Well as you all know by now, the footer has been dug and everything is finally falling into place. I took the liberty of taking some pictures today of everyone pitching in and doing productive things. Hope you enjoy!!
MCKENZIE DIGGING/CLEANING LOOSE DIRT FROM THE FOOTER.
BOYS JACOB AND JAMES HAVING THEIR TURN WITH THE MADIK AND SHOVEL.
MOMMA SHOWING EM HOW ITS DONE....... :)
CHRIS SAWING AND SHOWING THE KIDS HOW TO OFF-BAR.......
CANT WAIT TIL THOSE WALLS START GOING UP!!!
March 27 2011
Damn it for some reason all my post just disappeared up till here so I am just going to give a quick view to get everyone up to date. We have 140 2x4's of the 950 that we need. That is what I am going to be working on the most. Once those are done I will move on to the 2x6s. The foundation trench has about 40 to 50 ft of it done. Right now it is full of water due to the clay holding it. I will most likely have to pump it out in order to get it to dry out. So even more work to do but that is ok. We are on target with the budget. We have spent just a little over 700 bucks so far on the house. I still hope that we can keep it under our goal of not more then 6000. Shh sucks that I lost all that info and trying to remember what all I had added is not easy. Well folks that is close as I can get and I hope that I dont loose this info again. And I am working on keeping the pics to a size that you can see but every time that I publish is shrinks them for some reason.
March 30 2011
Things have slowed down some on the house. The weather is bad, my blades for the saw mill are at the sharpeners, and I have been doing some clean up around the place. I can't wait till things take back off and the weather improves so that I can really get back at it.
April 03 2011
Well managed to get up to 173 2x4s having to deal with weather and cutting the boxing that is being traded for Holly's horse. Man sawing 8 ft long boxing really takes some time. Pulling some nice wide boards and still not adding the footage up that fast but it is coming along. Done about another 10 ft of the rubble trench foundation that was dry enough. I am going to have to install another drain on one wall because the way the ground slops and I really didn't want to since I will have to dig about 30 of ditch that crosses my driveway. But one of those things that you just gotta do it. I have gone through about 3/4 of the hug pile of stone that I had for the rubble and only got about a 1/3 of the trench done so gonna have to get a lot more. Can't wait to start laying the stem wall. That will actually make it look more like a house then just a trench filled with rock lol. That should be coming very soon hopefully within the next 2 weeks. I am currently trying to come up with a way of mixing mortar other then with a damn hoe. I been looking at mixers and they just cost way to much thinking of making one which dont seem like it will be to hard as long as I can get it to do a good job. If any one has any ideas please let me know.
April 05 2011
Big storm last night may have really slowed things down for today. I got a table full of logs skidded up yesterday. I was hoping to get them cut up today but I am not wanting to deal with the mud and all that stuff. The foundation ditch looks a whole lot more like a moat right then a foundation, at least half of it does anyway. The drain on the back side is working fine but still have not gotten one put in on the front side and boy is it really holding water I am gonna have to get the done fast but diggin across my driveway in something that I am so not looking forward to it is going to be hard and packed well. I just can't see renting a ditch which for 30 or less though so it will be done by hand, well as soon as I am not digging a ditch in the mud that is.
May 7 2011
Ditches are now done, with the will power of a good strong husband and a willing brother thats is. I was gonna rent a ditch witch but it was gonna cost like 150 dollars for 8 hours so I decided to hire my brother and pay him $10.00 an hour instead. He was happy, I am happy so it all worked out just fine. Now if I can get him to help with a few more things would be GREAT. lol.But at least we are one more step closer now.
A whole lot of work. This is only the first one that had to be done.
May 8th 2011
We got the other 2 drainage ditches in this weekend and I hope that in about 2 weeks time we will be laying stone up for the stem wall. Going to have to start getting a lot more rock. Got a 152 ft of foundation trench left to fill and the all the stones need to lay the 20 inch wide 12 inch high stem wall. I know that all this is a lot of work but it really is good work to be doing as it will result in me and my family having a house that will be our home for the rest of our lives and will be something that we can leave to the kids.
June 1st 2011
Well we have been able to get a little bit more done on the foundation. I am about 120 ft left to fill and that is it. Ran out of rock that I have piled up starting to have to haul more in so taking just a little bit more time and just means that I can't work on it in the evenings for a hour or so but it is still coming along thank goodness. We are about a month behind where we need to be but that is ok since it is due to the weather not much we can do about that type of stuff. Soon as I can get 2 full days of time to work on it I should have it finished. That would be a day and a half of getting the larger rubble in and then 1/2 day of putting gravel on it. I am using a little lawn mower trailer now to move the gravel instead of a wheel barrel. It holds more per load and is a lot easier to move around. Plus it dumbs with out me having to push those handles up, and that is nice. Everything else with it is rolling right along so just keep praying for us and we will get there before long.
June 23 2011
Well I figured that it was about time to actually update everyone on the progress of the house even though it is not really all that much. We got another 30-40ft of the foundation finished up yesterday. Getting that rubble is getting harder and harder. Well maybe not harder just taking more cause we are having to pick up small rocks and they are a lot more spread out now so yeah, just taking longer per load then what it was. I will be so glad when it gets filled so that I can start laying the stone on top of it for the stem wall. Will be nice to see something above ground for a change. Other then that not much else has been done. I had to stop logging and get corn in the ground and with all the rain we have been having it has been way to wet to do any logging and sawing. Part of that is due to everything around here being steep as a cows face. But we are still getting there slowly but surely.
June 28th 2011
We got a lot more of the foundation done. Only like 2 maybe three more loads of stone rubble to get it finished up. I am so glad. Due to the problem with getting loose rock I went back to breaking them out of the ground with a sledge and wedge. Worked well just hella hard work swing that 10lb hammer and then sliding the 1-2 ton size rocks off the top of the hill to the road then busting them up small enough to handle. All should be done with it by Monday morning then I am going to be putting up the form so I can start laying the stem wall. For the rest of the laying stone that I need I am going to score the sheets of rock with a diamond blade before busting them loose so that the come up nice a neat and ready to roll. Going to start pulling logs again next week to get the rest of the sawing done for the house but we are looking at get a varmint to get the cord wood out of the holler. The old road is in rather bad shape I hope that I can still get logs up it with the horses and there is not really much that I can do about the road since is has washed all most down to solid rock.
July 03 2011
Well the foundation is finished all the large stones plus he gravel are in place. Thank God. Now it is on to the stem wall. We may already have enough of the laying stone for the stem wall not sure. As we were getting the rubble fill anything that was nice enough to be laid we kept out and stacked up. Plus my Mom gave me three pallets of rock that were broke out last time that she rock stone out of the her back yard so that really helped out. It is only going to be about a foot tall and 20 inches wide. Just enough to get the cordwood up off the ground enough so that it will not wick up any water. Which it should not be able to do anyway since water will not be able to get within 10 foot of the foundation due to the covered porch but still better safe then sorry or at least that what I say. As soon as I can get a load of sand and some lime I will be going at the stone work. The motor is going to be lime motor instead of portland based. I am doing this because alot of really old lime motor buildings are still standing today that have not had any major repairs while a lot of portland based motored building I know that are just 10-12 years old are already showing some cracking and sign of stress. Plus lime motor has some self healing properties and that is always good too. So if anyone stops by and notices that I have like a crap load of 5 gallon buckets setting around dont worry it is just me slacking my lime for the mortor.
June28-30 pics
Our boys worked til they couldn't do no more....and finished up the foundation. Makes us SO PROUD when your kids look at you and say they ain't gonna quit til its done...and then they do what they say. I'm a PROUD woman right now,.and feel very lucky to have such a great family.
Getting the rock loose from the hill is hard. I took stone chisel's and a wedges and drove them into the natural fishers in the rock. This lifts them apart and they break off at some point then just slide the sheets of broke stone off the cliff. Swinging a 12lb hammer trying to drive a 2 inch thick wedge into a crack is hard and not for the faint of heart but it beats paying 300+ a ton for the stone.
July 17 2011
Got about a third of the stem wall done right now. The lime motor did not work out the way that I wanted it to. It was very hard to mix up and was very sensitive to the amount of sand and water that was in it. Some of it set great and some of it never stuck to the rock at all. So out with that idea and back to a portland cement mix. I found and old stone mason mix that is working very well. I also am buying materials from the oldest producers that I can find. The stone mix come from a farm text book from the late 1940's so I hope that it will hold up as long as some of the stuff that I have seen that was put up back then. There has been another change to the house plans. After looking at the new cordwood papers and talking more with Mr. Rob Roy I am going to use a hidden post and beam frame work with the cordwood. I am doing this because of the off chance that the major fault line in Western Kentucky ever goes to shacking again. If I was not worried about that I would just make the cordwood load bearing and go on with life. Holly should be putting pics of the stem wall up soon. Well I am heading out now to get back at it I didn't stop last night till almost 11 pm and got to get back at it.
this is how I have been working at night. 3rd shift is great.
Jul 19 2011
Well another day of laying rocks. Started raining so I had to stop been the story of the year for the most part it is either so wet that the ducks are looking for dry land or so hot that the devil himself is crying. Makes it hard to stick with but we have. Was able to lay about 6 batches of mortor before it went to rainin though so that was actually a good bit. At least my back thinks that it was a good bit anyway. Working alone on the weekends has really givin me some time to think things over and all that kinda stuff been kinda nice. But at times I wonder WHAT THE HELL WAS I THINKING when I said that I wanted to go back to the land kinda thing, but now I am to deep into it to ever think about trying to back out. Plus I do love it so.
July 25 2011
Laid s tone last night from around 9 till a little after 1 this morning. I had both of my light blow bulbs and only had one replacment so that kinda stoped the work. But I did manage to get a fair distance in that amount of time. The laying of the stone is going a little slower then what I would havew hoped. Since I am having to make my own mortor, lay the rock and carry the rock too I am not able to move all that fast. But it is still getting done. If I can keep moving at it I should be done with a couple of weeks I hope, that is if I dont have to start jumping through hoops for stone. I hauled that last of the laying rock from my Moms out here yesterday. Was around a ton and a half and that is not really going to get me that far. I hope that it at least gets the wall I am working on done plus the next one too but I am not sure that it will. I do have a couple of other places that I am going to be able to get some nice rock but not really sure how much is there at either site. I may have to go back and start breaking them out again which is really no fun at all.
We may have to have some more dozer work done befor we can get the rest of the timber out of the holler. The wet year we have had this year has played all Billy hell on my road we had pushed in about 3 years ago. I am going to give it a test run next week with the team and sled bring out some more cord wood. I hope and pray that it is useable. I may be able to go across the property that joins me if need be but that would make for one hell of a long skid. On the up side just getting any part of the house above ground level has been a really moral boost to me. I will just be glad when it is all done and I am able to get back to my farming. I dont mind to build and I do enjoy it some, but it is no where near as enjoyable as being behind my two big girls and them pulling up hell.
July 26 2011
Well I got to lay stone again for about 3 hours last night and another blub blowed in my light. I had just put a new one in it too. It is really stating to piss me off it doing that. But any way I am about to turn the another corner. I am going to work on it today if I can stand that heat. Been bad hot which is why I am working at night a lot of it. Now last not was not much cooler, but at least the sun was not beaming down on me. In away I wished that I had not gone so high with the rock. I would be a lot futher and it would take a lot less stone. But I like to have enough room to at least move around under the floor in case I ever need to do any repair work so it is worth it in the long run. I am going to pour a 4x6 grade beam on top of the stone wall just so that I know everything is good and level. Working with natural or rough rock is not very easy when trying to get thing dead level to sit a floor joist on so a little beam will make things a lot easier. So far I have gone through 5 bag of portland and 2 of type S. and around 1.5 tons of sand and am only about 1/4 done with the stem wall. I am using more mortor then what a professional mason would I know but I want the damn thing to be super strong. so any little crack is getting filled in. The larger rocks makes things go a lot faster and and easier, trying to fit the smaller ones and keep the joints broke up gets to be a real task at times. Still the hardest part of it is mixing the mortor. All the chopping with a hoe is just killer. I would rather lay three batches of mortor then to have to mix one. But it is part of it and it all must be done. I am going to go see the church about getting those trees from them in a couple of hours. If they allow me get them then I am going to be laying them down and getting them out very soon so that Miss Holly can start sawing out the shakes for the roof. Since I am going to be using post and beam from work with cordwood in fill I am going to have the roof on befor I start putting the infill in place so the need to sawed so I can get them dryed out. I have built or remodled many home built out of sawmill oak and know that trying to get a stainless steal nail in them shakes is going to be so much fun, just hope that I dont have to drill a piolit hole in each shake befor I can nail it into place. Thats about it on the house for now it feels really good to be able to give daily updates again since we had to go a good while with out being able to get any work done.
July 27 2011
Well turned another corner on the stem wall yesterday. So even though it is going slow it is still going. I laid down the three trees that I am going to be useing for shakes. I hope that they will be enough. Two of them are really big trees. Just have to start sawing and find out. I am going to limb them out and try to get most of it out of the woods today. There is a lot of firewood in the tops of these trees so that is just a plus. Doing all of this by our selves is a great thing for our sence of accomplishment but is hell on the body. If any of the family or any one else would be willing come over and give us a damn hand.
July 21 2011
We have had to take a break from the stone. Why you ask I dont have any right now. I have picked up a couple of loads from my friends but they are mostly small rocks. I want some a little larger. Dad was going to help me by cleaning the dirt off the top of the hill at Moms so that I could bust more out but it rained yesterday, so that didn't get to happen. I was hoping to be done by the end of this week but it dont look like that is going to happen. Hunting for the rock is just taking up a little more time then I would have hoped it would. I start cutting the trees for the shakes up. Lot of firewood in the tops of those thing. Not sure it is going to be enough or not just have to see still.
farming is always full of problems of some kind.you never know what you may run into. building is the same way.I am sorry you are having a small difficult time and have had more added to your list of things, but trust me young man, it will be worth it in the end. all the hard work, pain, tears, it will all be worth it. Took us dang near 5 years to do ours. we were so happy that it was done, but the truth be told after about a month we were restless because we didnt have so much to do anymore. me and the ol lady faught more that year than any other I laugh about ti now, but it wasnt funny then.but we figured it all out.all things take time. i have faith that it will all work out for yall. Your doing good things in the right manner or the right reasons, God will bless you for that.
ReplyDeletehowdy young man, been a while since ive been able to visit your page. havent been feeling too well latley. but it looks like yall have come along way. Good for you. I was hoping to see some progress. dur to the rain yall been having a was a bit afraid you couldnt get much done. well Im glad to see you were able to. hope yall have a safe holiday. God bless.
ReplyDeleteThanks. And I am sorry that you have not been feeling well. We have gotten a really good amount done in the past couple of weeks, now when you pull in the drive you can really tell that a house is going to be built and that I did not go crazy and digg a big funny looking ditch in my front yard. LOL. We had a great 4th spent it with family up on my dads farm. We hope that next year we will be able to have it here at the house. Like and annual farm event, the community needs something, other then drugs to have fun at. Take care.
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