High end cedar porch construction: making the ledger.

After a year and half of planning and doing physical construction work, I was making good progress on the new two car garage (which had been expanded from a one car garage), the cedar covered porch and the boat house with a boat lift. I was now at the stage to focus on the cedar covered porch.

The planning of the cedar porch was difficult.  Originally I had asked the designer for a screened in porch.  He came up with a cookie cutter design which was the same as every other generic screened in porch in the town.  Dad saw this design and said, "this is a special house you should build something high end like a cedar covered porch."  He showed me some pictures on the internet he found of some beautiful cedar porch additions.  I was enticed but I hesitated because it meant changing my plans and I was not that construction savvy anyway so I didn't know what would be involved to make it work in Florida with hurricane codes. I wasn't even sure if it was possible.  However the more I thought about it and the more dad alleviated my concerns with his engineer/construction experienced based answers the more I fell for the idea.

Another deciding factor was I had previously made a beautiful cedar BBQ bench.  Because of this, a cedar covered porch was ideal to protect it and to complement it.  See the picture below of the western red cedar BBQ bench.

The next step was to get the designer to draw it up.  So I drew some sketches up in Microsoft Visio, Dad and I ran some engineering calculations and we submitted the drawing to the designer.  Since the designer had little experience with cedar and ignored our request to hide all the fasteners for the joints the result was unacceptable.  It had a bunch of exposed galvanized hurricane ties all over the place and weird half lap joints that were not very strong.   After seeing this I realized that we could not rely on the designer to provide us with a solution to any problems that we encountered on the porch. This was just not his field of expertise.

Dad and I continued refining the design.  We designed in mortise and tenon joints with oak pegs that were stronger than the Simpson hurricane ties that designer suggested.  We also came up with an embedded lag bolt joint which made use of a birds mouth that tied the rafters to the ledger and the main beam.  The bolt was completely hidden from view making the design more pleasing to the eye.  We did leave the exposed ABU66 Simpson brackets that tie the posts to the foundation that the designer came up with.  The alternatives were just too crazy and the brackets look kind of neat anyway.  If I wanted to I could cover them with cedar trim.  We resubmitted the changes to the designer and then to the professional engineer.

When the professional engineer analyzed it, he put his stamp of approval on it as well as a disturbing note.  The note essentially made it impossible for us to build the cedar porch and covered the engineer if a failure should happen. Basically it required the cedar to posses high bending strength which meant that a select structural grade cedar had to be used.  I called around and all I could find was no. 2 cedar.

Due to the large amount of time that had been spent designing the porch,  the cost of the materials, the frustration encountered with designer's defensiveness when we asked questions he did not know the answer to and the building departments crazy code requirements, dad was of the opinion that he was sorry he came up with the cedar porch idea.

However one of my strengths is I know when I have a good idea to pursue.  I can visualize the idea and then latch on to it which then makes me ignore all the reasons people find for me not to do what I'm trying to do and I become unstoppable.   To over come this obstacle I decided to use bigger lumber.  I knew I could get the engineer to remove the note if I did this.  When I told my dad this he said those magical words that I love to hear him say, "the design is over built"  I countered with, "the bigger dimensions make the cedar porch more architecturally pleasing"  With the new dimensions I attempted to contact the designer but he was off on vacation for three weeks.  Luckily he had given me a PDF and I went to editing that drawing in Microsoft paint.  I then was able to convert it back to a PDF and I submitted the 5th iteration of the design to the engineer.  We got his stamp of approval and the building departments approval soon followed.

After jumping through all those hoops, the foundation was constructed (which was discussed in a previous blog) and then I ordered the cedar.  I obtained the cedar from Lowes for about $4000.  They actually got it form a lumber yard in Tampa FL.  It was really beautiful western red cedar.  I had obtained some planed  2" thick planks and some rough cut beams the largest of which was 6" x 12" x 20'.  The cedar was appearance grade no. 2 cedar with a few splits in the wood here and there.

Why did we use western red cedar?  Cedar is excellent for its durability in the outdoor environment.  It is rot and bug resistant.  It is also one of the less pricey varieties of specialty lumber and large dimensions are obtainable.  We considered cypress and red wood which are two other woods that can be obtained in large dimensions but it was very difficult to locate anything in the quantity we needed and with a reasonable price.  Besides these woods would not match the BBQ bench.

Western red cedar is aromatic but not as aromatic as eastern red cedar which is typically what cedar chests are made of.  Most likely the cedar I purchased came from the pacific north west.  Check out this link for some more information about north west cedar trees and what they look like.  The western red cedar tree is a large to very large tree, ranging up to 230 ft tall and 13 ft in trunk diameter.  One draw back of the wood is it is about half as strong in bending strength as oak so that larger dimensions of wood are required.  See this link for strength characteristics of common woods.

With the cedar in house the first step was to put the ledger on the house.  The ledger is a beam that holds the rafters up on the house side of the porch.  It has to be secured to the wall very well so strong winds can not rip the roof out from the wall.  I chose L anchor bolts to secure it to the house.  Since I have a cinder block house and the cells are hollow I had to cut holes in the blocks and fill the cells with cement where the anchor bolts are located.

The first step I took was to drill 5/8" holes in the cinder blocks with my harbor freight hammer drill.  Next I cut a passage for the cement to be put in the  hollow cell.  I then stuffed the cell with balled up aluminum foil where the cement was to stop at the bottom.  For the cement I mixed my own by using two parts sand, 1 part cement and water.  I found that the more sand I added the less strength it had so I kept the amount of sand content low.  Since the 5/8" hole is sloppy for the 1/2" anchor bolt I made some wood guides to hold the bolts perfectly perpendicular to the house and I fastened the guides to the house temporarily with tapcons.

Below is a picture of the anchor bolt securing operation I did and if you study the picture you can see that I changed strategies as I proceeded along the wall.  Instead of making two openings per bolt I ended up only using one in the end.  In the picture some of the wood guides are still in place on the left.

After all the bolts were secured in place, the ledger was prepared.  The ledger is made of 4" x 10" cedar and is 22' long.  However I could not obtain a 22' long piece of lumber.  So I used two beams to make it up.  This necessitated the use of a lap joint.  At this point I was faced with the question: how do I make  a lap joint?  I had never made one before.  I immediately checked youtube and found this video.

Before making the lap joint I planed the rough beam with my porter cable thickness planer.  Really for the beams I was dealing with the planer was just to small but we forced it an made work.  Once planed, I invested in a new Dewalt circular saw and a finish blade and started on the half lap joint.  I put a wood plywood guide on the beam so I would not make the half lap joint too long or accidentally cut beyond the final joint line.  Like the video I made several passes about a quarter inch apart at the same depth as shown below.

The next step was to take a hammer and knock out the cut pieces.  They came off so easy and well it was amazing.  As shown below.

To make the half lap joint surface smooth I used my electric finishing sander.  This is not just any ordinary sander.  I knew I was going to have to do a lot of sanding on this project so I invested in a half sheet finishing sander made by Makita shown in this link.  Boy did the sander save a lot of time and it did a beautiful job.  Shown below is the result.

 

I sanded the rest of the beam and ran a router bit down the two prominent corners to make the wood more appealing to the eye.  I prepared the second beam the same way.

The next part was to drill the holes in the ledger so that it could go on the anchor bolts in the house.  To do this I made a plywood guide by placing a strip of the plywood on the bolts on the house, marking the bolt locations on the plywood and then drilling the holes in the plywood.  I then secured this guide on the beams and used my drill press from Harbor Freight to make perfectly straight holes in the wood.  I oversized the holes slightly to help the installation of the ledger onto the bolts.  This procedure is tricky and must be accurate but my attention to detail and patience paid off as the ledger went right on without trouble.

The lap joint ended up being architecturally pleasing too.  It is not perfectly tight but its pretty good for my first lap joint.

 

Because I had read that galvanized metal leaves black marks on cedar, I used stainless washers and nuts to fasten the ledger to the wall.  After the ledger was installed I put the finish on.  For the finish I chose Olympic Elite Woodland Oil natural variety which is illustrated in this link.  This is basically modern day linseed oil with UV protection, mildew/algae resistance and water proofing.  It is also self leveling so that means no runs and is supper easy and quick to apply.  I used a foam brush to apply it.

With the ledger installed, I was well on my way to constructing my high end cedar porch.  There was only one problem.  Dad was leaving.  He had stayed for about 4 months and his help was invaluable but it was time to go.  I would be doing this project on my own now.   As dad packed up and left I wondered how would I do the next step all by myself which was to put the 300 lb 20' beam up so that the rafters could be supported?

Find out how I did this on my own in my next blog..

Happy Building

The Dr.

Auto repairs: why the car dealer loves you and why you should not reciprocate

Disclaimer:  This is not a instructional blog nor does it give advice.  Repairing cars can be dangerous.  Make repairs at your own risk.

For this blog I will deviate from the topic of home construction and talk about something that often happens during a renovation project.  The vehicle that you depend on to transport your building supplies breaks down.  This happened to me recently and its not like I have a ton of time on my hands to deal with this nonsense.  I have a full time job and almost all the rest of my time is spent working on renovating my house.  It was not surprising that when I was jacking up my car out in the street because my driveway was torn up due to the construction that my neighbor said, "you know its not like you don't already have enough to do"  And I said to him, "ya that's why I'm taking it to the dealer"

The car I have is a 2005 4WD Tahoe and I love it so much.  It can haul a lot, pull my boat and provides comfortable ride.  The car does get only about 15 miles per gallon but it is a big vehicle and which makes it more likely to be the winner in a crash thus being safer to drive on the road.  That's what I call real insurance.

What was ailing the car?  Two things: 1) the airbags were out and 2) a strange unidentified noise was coming from the drive train.

Once the car was jacked up I shook the wheel from top to bottom.  It was very loose.  It was then that I realized that I probably shouldn't drive the vehicle to the dealer to get repaired because the wheel might fall off. Yes wheels fall off!  My sister will attest to that fact which happened to here twice.   She had been in a car accident but the car seemed ok after the accident.  Unknowingly to us the axle was bent.   After a week of driving a part broke in the differential allowing the wheel to walk its way out luckily hitting the fender which stopped it from completely dislodging itself form the vehicle.  I replaced the parts in the axle and it happened again and then we got the mechanic to replace the axle.  See this Video for a car driving with wheel about to fall off.

I considered calling a tow truck to take the Tahoe to the dealer but after talking to dad who does all his auto repairs him self and after watching youtube videos, I became more interested in fixing it myself.  It looked pretty simple.  But since my driveway was torn up where would I work on my vehicle?

For my home renovation I had expanded my single car garage into an oversized two car garage.  It was not obvious to me that I should put my car in there and work on it.  I have always worked on my car in the driveway and not only that there is quite a big step between the dirt driveway and the concrete pad so getting the car in and out was not practical on a daily basis.  But the issue with the vehicle necessitated that I test my garage out for the very first time.

I stacked a bunch of cutoff two by fours next to the lip of the garage pad and drove the vehicle into the garage.  The vehicle fit!  Wohoo!  I was very happy.  I even got a comment from my neighbor who has been watching the agonizingly slow paced construction going on at my house.  He said, "wow that was amazing, you almost got your whole car in the garage".  When he said almost he was referring to the bumper hanging out the entrance.  There was table blocking me from pulling the car fully into the garage.

With the car in the garage I proceed to repair the car.  To repair it, I assumed it was the cv axle that was bad.  What is a CV axle?  CV axle stands for constant velocity axle and it is needed to transfer the torque from the transmission to the drive wheels at a constant speed, while accommodating the up-and-down motion of the suspension.  See this Link for more information on CV joints and how to tell if they are bad.  I was able to purchase one from the autozone.

Once I got into the repair I realized that the wheel bearing was bad.  Why did I not think it was that in the first place?  A loose wheel is a typical symptom of a bad wheel bearing.  The reason was because on all the videos I had watched I had not seen one where I could see that the car had one.  The explanation for this is that it is hidden in an assembly. The wheel bearing itself was not replaceable but the assembly is and I was able to get one at autozone.  When I was buying it the guy at autozone said, "you might was well as replace the cv axle too while your at it."   I said, "I've already got one"

Below is a picture of the old CV axle.  Notice that I have got it out without having to take the caliper, rotor and wheel bearing assembly off.



 


Below is photo of the old and new wheel bearing assembly






Probably the hardest part of the repair is getting the bolts off that hold the calipers on.  I see videos of people using long cheater  bars to get these bolts off.  And after breaking bolts off with this method I try to avoid it and use the pneumatic impact wrench.  These bolts will still give you trouble with the impact wrench and in this case they did.  So I cranked the compressor up and that did the trick. (You run the risk of blowing out your air tool if you exceed the max pressure for the tool)  If that doesn't work then heat from a torch is often used which if your not careful you ruin some parts.

Here is video of a wheel bearing assembly repair that is similar to what I did.  For the CV axle this video shows how the CV axle is replaced.

Once I had finished the repair I could now take the car to the dealer to get the air bags fixed.  I thought about repairing the air bags myself but I felt that this was one area of repair that I would be better off to get the dealer to do since they are so dangerous.  One typical accident that occurs is the mechanic is using tools like a screw driver near the air bags and the airbag accidentally deploys sending the tool into the mechanic and killing him

Once the dealer had looked at the car, he told me that the sensor in the front of the vehicle was bad.  Replacement cost $450.   He also said the rear main seal and oil pan is leaking and that he could give me estimate on that repair.   I was incredulous.  I usually go 5000 miles without adding oil to the car and I hadn't seen any oil on the pavement or driveway.   I couldn't help to think that this was a pretty nice scam they are running at this dealership taking advantage of peoples lack of knowledgeable about car repair to relieve them of their pocket book.  I decided not to go with the seal and pan repair but I did let them do the air bags.

When I picked the car up I asked the dealer to show me the leak on the seal which he had offered to do when I had talked to him on the phone.  But now there was no lift available.  He did say that as long as there is oil in the vehicle it would continue to run.

So the question is after having taken my car to the dealer for the air bag repair and almost having lost a hefty chunk of hard earned savings for an unnecessary rear main seal repair, how much did I save by doing the cv axle/wheel bearing repair myself?  Here is the break down.

Dealer Cost
CV Axle                                                         $578
Wheel Bearing Assembly                            $426
Labor                                                              $350
Total                                                               $1354


My cost
CV axle                                                               $70
Wheel bearing assembly                                    $110
Labor 6 hours  (2 hours with experience)      No charge
Total                                                                     $180


A whopping $1174 or 87% was saved.  And now you know why the dealer loves you when you bring your car to the dealership. Why not do the repair yourself and then spend the money you saved on a cruise?  If you don't the dealer will.  Cue the cash register sound.


Happy Building!

The Dr

How to install drywall without any helpers and save a ton of money.

Having spent a year planning a renovation for my house built in 1962 and another year doing physical construction work, I was ready to install the drywall on the ceiling in my newly built spacious two car garage.  Why would I do this on my own?  The potential for great savings and the pride of having accomplished something worthwhile.

Drywall has been around since the 1800s and unfortunately was made at one time with asbestos.  According to this website if your house was built from the 50s to the 80s there is a strong likelihood that the drywall was made with asbestos.  The reason why asbestos was added to drywall was to make it stronger and more fire resistant.  Naturally I discovered that drywall could have asbestos in it, after I had ripped all the old drywall down coating myself from head to toe with dust and having neglected to wear a dust mask.  Luckily I didn't have to rip down much.

I do not actually know if my drywall has asbestos in it.  Professionals can tell if the drywall has asbestos by removing one sheet and look at the markings on the back to determine who made it.  From this information they know if contains asbestos.  With markings missing then a lab test can be done.  One of these days I will crawl up in the attic and see if I can find out this information.

Drywall again had issues from 2006 to 2007 and was found to have high sulfur content if it came from China which resulted in complaints of corrosion of pipes and wiring , odors and health problems. See this link for more info.
 
To get the rafters ready for the drywall, I put up the 16" spaced wood lath which helps provide a more distributed support for the drywall then the 2' spaced rafters. For the lath I used 1" x 3" wood available from Lowes and used 1.25" drywall screws to fasten it to the rafters.   Since the lath is actually 3/4": the holding power of the screw comes from about 1/2" of penetration into the rafter.    To provide extra holding power I used two screws per rafter intersection.  Perhaps longer screws or nails should have been used.  In my case the rafters changed directions so my lath did as well.
 

   

One tip that is very helpful for putting screws in lath and drywall without sinking them to far thus splitting the wood or making its holding ability in drywall worthless is to use a drywall screw setter available at Lowes.  Basically its a Philips head screw bit with a metal cylinder tube around it that stops the bit from sinking the screw once the cylinder runs into the material that is being screwed.

After the lath was put up I was ready to install the drywall.  In a previous inspection I told the inspector I wasn't going to install drywall on the ceiling in the garage because it was just a garage.  But the inspector said I had to install it to meet code requirements to provide a fire proof barrier.  I don't know if he was correct in this but after consulting the Florida Building Code online and not really coming up with any clear answers to the validity of his request I chose to use 5/8" classification X (fire resistant) drywall which I obtained from Home Depot.

Once I obtained the drywall, I was now faced with a problem.  How do I put this stuff up all by myself?  Some of the youtube videos show some clever and ingenious methods of installing drywall yourself like this low cost method, but I chose the method that looked the easiest.  It was using a drywall lift which I obtained from harbor freight for $180.  It is also possible to rent them from Homedepot as well. If you have a lot of drywall to do this ends up being a pretty cheap helper.




The drywall went up so easily.  But during the last sheet of drywall the lift wheel slipped out of my hand and the drywall lift came down fast which broke the leather brake.  There was a safety stop on the lift which prevented the drywall from hitting my head.  Although, I have a hard head and my brain wouldn't have been any worse off then it already is, the drywall would have suffered.  So Lucky for the drywall!  I manged to finish the job off making use of a rope to hold the lift in its extended position.   Even though the lift broke, I was actually happy because now I was on ethical ground to return the lift to harbor freight and get my money back but on the other hand I was sad because it would of made a really good coat rack.  boohoo.....not!.

In the code there are spacing requirements for the screws in the drywall which I followed and then proceeded to put the mud and tape on the joints.  I didn't have to do a good job with the mud since eventually a skip trowel finish would go over it and hide everything.  This also meant there was no sanding needed.  Sanding sucks and the dust is hazardous as reported by the CDC.

This was really my first attempt at this kind of work and I'm satisfied at the results.  But the professional who display there work on youtube are artists.  Its amazing to watch them work and make very large seams to hide the bump that the mud makes.



Now that the drywall was done I called the inspector.  When he looked at my work he told me I wasn't supposed to put the mud on and he wasn't able to inspect the screw spacing.   Luckily I had not put mud on the screws that were not on edges so at least he could see the spacing there.  He deemed my work acceptable with an expression on his face that he had seen better and passed the work.  Wohoo!

The 220 sq ft  job took me 21 hours total and actually it is probably preferable that my mud  job was not at the level of the legendary Pablo Picasso as it is all covered up in the end with the final skip trowel finish.

So the question is, how much did I save?

My cost was:
drywall                                                $100
tape and mud                                       $20
screws                                                  $21
lath 1"x3"                                             $51
Total                                                     $192

A contractors cost according to homewyse would have been:
Drywall installation                             $400  
Lath  2 hours                                        $100
Demolition     1 hour                            $50
Total                                                     $550

This means a whopping $358 or  65% was saved.  Cue cash register sound.

Happy Building!

The Dr.



  

Green Builder makes Green Concrete Finale

In the first 4 parts of this a blog all the steps and missteps of getting to the point for ordering the concrete were discussed.  It took five months to get to this point not including the year for planning and permitting.

The preparation for the slabs was extensive and included ripping the entire front wall out from the house and supporting the roof with a temporary wall.  Other construction work was done as well on another permit and of course I had to attend to my full time job as an electrical engineer.

But now we were ready for the pour.  For the concrete, we choose fiber mesh 4000 psi type I/II concrete.  The fibers that were put in the concrete meant that there was no need for the wire mesh that I had encountered in the demolition of the patio.

To deliver the concrete we found a company that mixes the concrete on site and then pumps it into the forms.  The great thing about this method is that the charge is only for the concrete that you use.  This is in contrast to the companies that bring the concrete premixed to your site.  If there is any extra concrete and there always is if you want to be on the safe side you are charged for it.

It does cost extra to get the concrete pumped, but we felt we needed the extra time to finish off the concrete because my experience with finishing concrete was watching youtube videos, dad hadn't finished a slab in about 30 years and we had both read that finishing concrete with fibers  was more challenging.

Luckily dad had kept his concrete tools and we had at our disposal a magnesium bull float, fresno and smaller hand trowels.  We made some small plywood boards to use for standing and kneeling on the cement for finishing as well.  With everything ready we ordered the concrete.

On Saturday the truck arrived and it was go time.  It took about 30 minutes for the pump guy to fill the garage forms with about 10 yards.  Not only did he pump the cement in, he smoked a cigarette and screeded the cement at the same time.  As I dabbled with the hand trowels, Dad worked his magic and finished off the cement.  Finally, I put caution tape around the slab to prevent anyone from walking on it.

The cement guys mentioned they knew some block guys that could give us an estimate for doing the walls.   We were interested in speeding up the project so we asked that they stop by.

It had only been an hour since dad had put the finishing touches on the concrete, when the block guys showed up. As we were talking and the block guys were coming up with an estimate, one of the block guys decided he had to get a closer look at something and ducked under the caution tape and stepped onto the slab.  I immediately panicked and yelled,  "Get off the slab!  Its fresh!"  The guy stepped off and I looked down at the green concrete where he had stepped to asses the damage.

I was completely amazed.  Not believing my eyes I looked again where he had stepped.  The concrete surface looked as if he had never stepped on it.  The block guy said "oh it was poured today.  I see why you were concerned"

The block guy jumped back on the concrete and walked over to what he wanted to look at.  With each step he took I looked to see if there was an imprint.  Absolutely nothing!

After they left, dad and I sat in a couple of lawn chairs and watched Green concrete bake in the Florida heat.





The next weekend the cedar porch slab was poured and finished which is shown below.  Note the small lizard basking in the sun.



After the pour we kept the pads wet because it turns out that the finished concrete will be stronger if it is kept wet for 30 days. (Search on GRAPH: STRENGTH OF CONCRETE AFTER DAYS OF MOIST-CURING in this Link)

If a contractor had done this it would have obviously been faster.  But would it have been cheaper?  Based on contractor estimates for doing demolition and building two concrete slabs using http://homewyse.com/   I get the following results.

Service                                                             Contractor     Owner Builder
Demolition / Excavation  153 hours                    $6885           $1830
Build 735 Sq Ft Slab (20 Yards Concrete )         $5100           $5966
Grand Total                                                         $11985          $7796

From the above results it is apparent the I saved a bundle from doing the demolition work.  However, the contractor appears to be cheaper for the actual concrete work.  Based on the contents of this blog you probably have guessed why this is.  Does piano ring a bell?  haha  Also, perhaps the contractor knows how to get his materials cheaper and use them more efficiently.  For demolition it is mostly labor cost and their is little material cost involved so that is where I saved.
 
Despite being a green builder dad and I ended up having successfully built two concrete slabs without having caused the house to fall down after pulling the front wall out or having to break out the jack hammer and to fix a serious mistake. 

A whopping $4189 or 35% was saved.  Cue the cash register sound.

Happy Building!

The Dr

Green Builder makes Green Concrete Part 4

In part 3, we discussed the base material I used for the concrete slabs.  Now its time to focus on concrete reinforcement steel or rebar.

Where exactly does rebar come from?  It comes from a truck.  That's a common construction joke but actually there is more truth to that than I first realized.  Rebar comes almost entirely from recycled old cars, appliances, and other scrap steel.

Why is it used in concrete?  Concrete is very good in compression but not in tension, rebar helps compensate for this to carry loads tending to elongate the structure such as tensile loads and if the concrete cracks rebar holds it together.

And one final fact, Rebar is Chuck Norris’ preferred iron supplement.

From the plans, I was required to use the #5 or 5/8" rebar.  The rebar is placed in the footers and wired to metal chairs.  Having never done rebar before I decided to try my tubing bender which I had purchased for bending electrical conduit.  It worked great.  Since rebar comes in 10 foot lengths it is necessary to overlap the rebar and then tie them together with wire.  Code requires a minimum overlap length of two pieces of rebar.

In addition the plans called for 1 foot rebar dowels spaced 4 feet apart that tie the new foundation to the old.  This allows them to expand and contract together.  To install the dowels I used a hammer drill from harbor freight with a 5/8" cement bit to drill a 6" hole in the existing foundation.  Then I used my heavy duty caulking gun and put some QUIKRETE anchoring epoxy in the holes.  The dowels were placed in the holes and the epoxy was allowed to set.
















In addition to the footers and dowels, vertical rebar was installed so that the foundation could be tied to the wall.  The vertical rebar is placed in the cinder block cells that will be filled with cement. Not every cinder block cell is filled with cement, just the corners, ends and other exceptions.  When the block is in place on the foundation to make a wall, the top two rows are filled with cement and rebar as well to form a bond beam.  This provides a very strong structure that is all tied together through cement and rebar that will hold up to hurricane force winds.

However reinforced concrete will meet its match when category 5 hurricane is involved.  Living in Florida I have evacuated for a couple of hurricane strikes.  A few category twos have come though here but the house is still standing.  In Homestead Florida hurricane Andrew, a category 5,  hit leveling every thing in sight. Interestingly enough one of my colleagues at work actually claims to have played football with his family when the eye of the hurricane passed over his house.  I don't know how they survived but his story of what they endured is pretty scary.   See this link Block Home Hit by Andrew for a picture of a cinder block home that was hit by hurricane Andrew. 

Having completed the rebar it was now time for the inspection.  This was my first inspection ever and I was looking forward to talking about construction with the inspector and getting the inspector's approval.

When the inspector came,  I was in the house.  I opened the door and I saw him looking at the forms and rebar with a very irritated and almost pissed off look.    I greeted him in a cheery voice and said, "hello how are you?"  He ignored the question and said, "I'm canceling the pour when is it scheduled?"  I said in a respectful tone of voice, "It will be scheduled when you pass the work."   Then he said, "where are the site plans?"  Since I didn't know to bring them with me, I scrambled back into the house and rummaged frantically through the mounds of paper work and old plans to find them.

After he looked at the plans he said, "your missing a rebar dowel, you neglected to tie the footer rebar into the house foundation and you need to put rebar around the sewer pipe."  His face seemed to betray his thoughts of his lack of confidence in my abilities.  He then said, "who made these forms?"  I replied, " I did."  He seemed to be skeptical since the form job was much better than the rebar job.  Then he said, "I know your not going to do all this yourself who's helping you?"  I answered, "my dad".  I'm not certain why he was after who was helping me.  But my answer was satisfactory.

The inspector decided to reschedule the inspection instead of failing it and parted.  I guess that's equivalent to getting off with a warning from a police officer.  Glad I kept my cool.

A few notable cases involving celebrities and building regulation and the permitting process are worth mentioning.  I'm referring to Clint Eastwood and Chuck Norris's cases.  Both are legendary tough men in iconic movies and in real life.  The tripping point for Clint Eastwood and his decision to run for mayor of Carmel was the town council's rejection of his plans to build a small building to improve the city of Carmel.  He of course won the election and made it easier to build and renovate buildings.  See this link Clint Eastwood's Fight for more on Clint's saga.

As for Chuck Norris it has been reported that he gave the building department a permit to do construction on his house.

I later fixed the problems and then passed the inspection.  Honestly, I am glad I had that inspector because he caught another pretty big mistake later on when inspecting the framing.  In any case the good news was it was time to call the cement truck driver to deliver the cement for the pour.  I had no idea how fast the cement sets up in Florida but I was soon to find out.  Read what happens in the next blog.

Happy Building

The Dr

Green Builder makes Green Concrete Part 3

In part 2 the making of the forms for the two concrete slabs was discussed.  The forms accurately outlined the perimeters of the garage slab expansion and the cedar covered porch.  So what was this amazing tool that I used to level the forms that cost about $40 but was more accurate then an $800 transit?  It is known as a water level.  The one I used was a 40' long 1" diameter clear flexible tube filled with water.  For a water level, the wider the tube and the less air bubbles in the tube the more accurate it is.  An example how the water level works is at this link.Water Level Video

Now that the forms were level it was time to select the base.  Unfortunately, I'm not talking about something as exciting as the bass guitar player in a rock band.   Although it does have something to do with rock.  haha.  But since we're on the subject of bass players, the question comes to mind who was best bass player of all time?  Any opinions?  Ranker says its Geddy Lee which can be seen at this link Ranker Top Bass players.  This video of Geddy Lee is pretty cool.

OK back to base material used for concrete.  I did a number of google searches and read about crushed concrete and limestone and found that they provided good  drainage and good strength and were used a lot up north in colder climates where freezing of the water in the subgrade is a problem.  If the subgrade is clay then this is problematic due to expansion when it becomes wet and contraction when it becomes dry resulting in the concrete cracking.  In my case the subgrade was sand which has terrific drainage and I'm in Florida where freezing is not an issue.  In fact it didn't get below 32 this winter.  Usually it will get below 32 once a winter in central Florida and then everyone that grows oranges down here is in a state of panic.  Believe it or not the orange growers spray their crops with water on freezing nights to save their crops.

For the base I was leaning towards lime stone when I called the fill dirt dump truck driver.  He said in Florida they just use sand as a base and stone was unnecessary.  But after talking with him for awhile I found in the past they used to use marl shell mix more often which is made of clay and shell fragments and is commonly use as a road base meeting DOT standards.  Clay? Now I was thoroughly confused but the driver convinced me that marl shell mix was good stuff and that's what I used for the cedar covered porch.  For the garage I used sand.

With the base placed we rented a vibratory compactor from home depot.  Dad had always used a jumping jack compactor and we tried to rent that but it was not working and could not rent it.  The marl shell mix compacted well,  held its form and seemed strong.  The sand did ok and wetting it down a little (the compactor had a water tank) helped but it seemed to be less stable and softer then the marl shell mix

Below is what the compacted marl shell mix looks like.



The next step was to install the rebar and then get the work inspected.  But as I would soon discover the road ahead was bumpy and filled with pot holes.  Read what happens in the next blog.


Happpy Building

The Dr

Green Builder makes Green Concrete Part 2

As mentioned in part 1, I was already a year into the project which involved planning and navigating the many requirements of the building department.  I had two permits in hand now and I chose to focus on the concrete slabs for the garage and cedar covered porch.

Because I had never held a construction job and have limited construction experience I am considered green when it comes to building.  Stories abound of homeowners with little experience attempting construction jobs and screwing up big time such as the guy who made a slab which required 10" footers for a 4" thick slab.  Thinking he needed the 4" on top of the footer for the slab and neglecting to put in subbase and base material in he ended up with a 14" thick slab.  The cement truck driver of course was happy with the extra money and laughing about it all the way to the bank.  Furthermore the owner forgot to put the plumbing pipes in the slab, so the slab had to be cut up with a concrete saw.  Often these stories have the key element that it would have been cheaper and faster had the contractor done it.

Continuing on where we left off in part 1 with my screw up, I took the sawzall and cut the screws holding the 2x2 stakes off the forms without damaging the forms and put in the proper kickers.  The kickers were now strong enough to handle the weight of the concrete and rigid enough to prevent the form from moving and instead of screws I used double headed nails.

Part of the process for putting the kickers in was making the forms vertical or as close to 90 degrees as possible and making sure the forms provide the proper grade and the dimensions for the slab.  This was actually quite challenging for me due to the length of the forms.  The straight level I was using was not very good and inadequate.  In fact I believe that professionals use a transit which is an expensive $800 dollar piece of equipment that can be used to make forms level.

We did not use a transit.  We resorted to ancient technology known to humans before Christ was born that in fact is more accurate then a transit and cost about $40.   It was my dads ingenious idea.  More about this amazing tool later in part 3 of this blog.

With it we got the cement pad  forms level over a 30' span to within an 1/8".  In my case I chose very little grade for my pad because it one day may become an enclosed addition for the house.   Totally not worried about water shedding off.  The resulting forms for the cedar covered porch are shown below:
 



The kicker we found was somewhat adjustable but a little difficult to change when we used it and these were the type of kickers my dad had used as a carpenter on the job.  We ended up trying another form of kicker for the garage pad shown below:



The kicker was a lot more adjuster friendly.  As you may have noticed the forms for the garage have an allowance for 8" by 4" curb for the cinder block wall to rest on.  The cedar covered porch does not have walls so there was no need for the curb.  It was during this state in the construction of the forms that my neighbor a retired architect in his 80s had come over and examined my work.  He said, "Those are some of the best looking forms I have ever seen."

In response I replied, "Well did you know they also play music?"  Read what happens in the next blog.


Happy Building

The Dr