At Home In The Woods

[TWD]

This weekend, I removed some brick debris from the area where the back porch will go. The brickies were a bit wasteful with the mortar at times. Some days they would mix up a batch of mortar; reach the end of the day, and leave half a wheelbarrow full of fresh mortar to waste. You can see some large chunks of the wasted mortar in the picture. I dumped the brick waste below our culvert where it tends to wash.

The wife picked up with the nail magnet nails for the brick ties that were dropped on the ground during the work. The magnet has been well worth the cost for our construction project.

Putting them to use :thumbsup:

I really like the way the outside of your house is coming together, and I agree those nail magnets are worth it! We got one after our roof was redone and keep finding nails, bolts, screws, and more not just from the roofers!

After a hard rain, and after winter it's great to go use it again and fine pounds of nails :laughing:

 

[Obed]

Obed,

The house is looking great. Soon the outside will be finished and you'll be wrapping up the inside.:thumbsup:


Just remember...
...no more shoveling snow in the living room.
...and no snow angles in there either.:laughing:

Cyril,
Yes, I hope those days are behind us.

 

[Obed]

Vinyl work started today. I don't have any pictures yet. It started raining late this afternoon.

Getting an insulation company we liked was a struggle. We want to insulate the ceiling between the main floor and the attic. We have 18" high trusses between the main floor ceiling and the OSB that covers the attic floors. The trusses are at 19.2" O.C. Insulation companies were actually giving us quotes for laying 16" wide batting between the trusses. They were not going to put any insulation on top of the 2x4 bottom cord of the trusses. So for every 19.2" of ceiling we would only get 16" of insulation. Over 15% of our ceiling would not get insulated if we insulated it that way.

We found a company who was willing to work with us. The ceiling insulation will be blown from the attic. We will have to remove a bunch of the OSB off the floor in the attic so the insulation company can blow the insulation. In the middle/open sections of the attic, we can remove every other row of OSB. It gets trickier behind the knee walls. To remove the OSB flooring behind the knee walls, we will have to cut the OSB because the knee walls and roof braces are sitting on top of the OSB. We have a lot of space behind knee walls.

 

[Coyote machine]

I'd skip that particular process and instead spray foam the underside of the roof and its joist areas and the same with the inside of the exterior walls from the soffit area up to where the roof rafters meet. Then install fireproof rated sheetrock on the rafters underside, as well as the knee wall areas. Put enough solid (closed cell) spray foam in these areas and you won't need to do anything else to insulate/ keep the attic and rooms below heated or cooled.

 

[Danno1]

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The great thing about spray insulation is it seals air leaks. Which is crucial to getting the full rated R value from fiberglass batts.


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[Obed]

Flashing/Siding/Brick/Roofing Question

We are trying to figure out a good way to keep water from running behind the brick at the spot in the picture that is circled in yellow. Does anyone have any good suggestions?

Thanks in advance,
Obed

 

[Obed]

Siding Pictures So Far ...

The siding guys are Russian; their English is ok but not great. They put aluminum around the bottom of the front porch beam and slid the temporary roof support poles under the aluminum.

Not much work got done today. The siding guys got here mid-day, ate lunch, and left. The framers did not make it. The stone guy worked a half day today.

You can also see the new brick work around the porch. The brick cleaners finished cleaning the brick in one day. They used a muriatic acid solution with brushes and scrapers.

 

[dstig1]

Flashing/Siding/Brick/Roofing Question

We are trying to figure out a good way to keep water from running behind the brick at the spot in the picture that is circled in yellow. Does anyone have any good suggestions?

Kickout flashing, both on the wall and the roof at the joint. Given the short distance you are dealing with, taking the brick all the way to the top may have been easier, but obviously that isn't realistic at this stage.

 

[Obed]

Stone work started today.

 

[Obed]

Kickout flashing, both on the wall and the roof at the joint. Given the short distance you are dealing with, taking the brick all the way to the top may have been easier, but obviously that isn't realistic at this stage.

Dave,
We did consider bricking the dormer sidewalls but doing so would have required additional framing support to that section of the roof. In fact, the brickies accidentally laid brick on one side of the dormer and we had to make them tear it down.

What is kickout flashing?
Thanks,
Obed