At Home In The Woods

[dave1949]

Dave, I'm impressed with your house. My wife researched passive solar building techniques when she was designing our house plans. While our house can't be categorized as passive solar, we did make use of some of the passive solar features. We made sure that our house faces south. The wife also sized the overhang of the roof eaves so that the eaves would shade the south facing wall in the summer but would allow shade the wall in the winter. For our latitude and house design, the overhang needed to be 2 feet.

Obed

You know, just doing items like the overhang and window placement can make a huge difference. I try not to preach passive solar, I don't think it is for everyone, or works well in every setting. But, it does put a huge dent in heating costs in the right location.

Our goal was to make the cost of heating in Maine reasonable and affordable. It's easier to do than most people know. We visited three homes similar to ours before deciding. The owner's were all helpful and straight forward about pros and cons. We didn't feel like we were jumping into the unknown. Now, if I could just figure out how to get streak free windows

Sorry to have wandered off your thread, hope you can take a little break over the Holidays.
Dave.

 

[Obed]

The red clay is a constant challenge. For those of you who have never experienced it, this stuff sticks to your feet and won't come off, that is until you step inside your house. Trust me, you don't want this stuff to get on your carpet or rugs. You'll never get it out. The first picture shows a clump of red clay in the gravel. Step there with clean shoes and you'll regret it. After the concrete trucks left, I ended up with a mudhole right below the driver's door where I park my truck.

So yesterday I did some work to drain water away from the parking area. It was somewhat frustrating because digging into the red clay below the gravel just brought the messy stuff to the surface and mixed it into the clean gravel. Rain doesn't quickly, if ever, wash the clay out of the gravel. I used the backhoe to dig a shallow trench and filled a low spot with the dirt from the trench.

I then replaced the backhoe with the boxblade. It took me an hour to take off the backhoe and put on the boxblade. Taking the backhoe off or on is a real pain, especially if you don't have a perfectly level spot. I often will use whichever implement, backhoe or boxblade, is currently attached to the tractor rather take the time to swap implements. I know I have a lot of driveway grading I need to do so the boxblade will be on the tractor for awhile.

I used the boxblade around the parking area to shave off some spots that were too high. After finishing moving red clay and gravel/red clay mix, I got some clean gravel (no red clay) from a gravel pile and spread it on top. Our construction contractor showed me a few weeks ago how to put the front end loader on float. I had read the tractor manual but was never able to figure out how to get float mode to work. I've had the tractor for 3 years. Float mode makes a world of difference when grading loose gravel. Until I learned how to float the FEL, I was really bad at grading with the FEL.

The building supply company unloaded their supplies right in front of our gravel pile making it inaccessable to the tractor. I have another small gravel pile available but will eventually need to get to the other pile. Also, I had planned on uncovering over the holidays the roots of the red oak to keep it from dying. It's the tree behind the gravel pile with some boards nailed to it. It looks like that that job will have to wait. I have to say, keeping the contractors from damaging and killing our trees has been an uphill battle.

 

[ruralruss]

The red clay is a constant challenge. For those of you who have never experienced it, this stuff sticks to your feet and won't come off, that is until you step inside your house. Trust me, you don't want this stuff to get on your carpet or rugs. You'll never get it out. The first picture shows a clump of red clay in the gravel. Step there with clean shoes and you'll regret it. After the concrete trucks left, I ended up with a mudhole right below the driver's door where I park my truck.

So yesterday I did some work to drain water away from the parking area. It was somewhat frustrating because digging into the red clay below the gravel just brought the messy stuff to the surface and mixed it into the clean gravel. Rain doesn't quickly, if ever, wash the clay out of the gravel. I used the backhoe to dig a shallow trench and filled a low spot with the dirt from the trench.

I then replaced the backhoe with the boxblade. It took me an hour to take off the backhoe and put on the boxblade. Taking the backhoe off or on is a real pain, especially if you don't have a perfectly level spot. I often will use whichever implement, backhoe or boxblade, is currently attached to the tractor rather take the time to swap implements. I know I have a lot of driveway grading I need to do so the boxblade will be on the tractor for awhile.

I used the boxblade around the parking area to shave off some spots that were too high. After finishing moving red clay and gravel/red clay mix, I got some clean gravel (no red clay) from a gravel pile and spread it on top. Our construction contractor showed me a few weeks ago how to put the front end loader on float. I had read the tractor manual but was never able to figure out how to get float mode to work. I've had the tractor for 3 years. Float mode makes a world of difference when grading loose gravel. Until I learned how to float the FEL, I was really bad at grading with the FEL.

The building supply company unloaded their supplies right in front of our gravel pile making it inaccessable to the tractor. I have another small gravel pile available but will eventually need to get to the other pile. Also, I had planned on uncovering over the holidays the roots of the red oak to keep it from dying. It's the tree behind the gravel pile with some boards nailed to it. It looks like that that job will have to wait. I have to say, keeping the contractors from damaging and killing our trees has been an uphill battle.

Northwest Georgia for me, same clay. When you get it on something (shoes, boots, clothes, carpet, etc.) best to let it dry, then it can be cleaned up.

Russ

 

[CurlyDave]

When we put carpet in, we chose a color which was very close to the color of the local mud. We knew the dogs would track it in and it would be less conspicuous.

With a baby on the way, you might want to think about what color of mud kids will track in and plan accordingly.

I wish we had had the opportunity for a deep rust color instead of the coffee with lots of cream color we have...

 

[Obed]

When we put carpet in, we chose a color which was very close to the color of the local mud. We knew the dogs would track it in and it would be less conspicuous. With a baby on the way, you might want to think about what color of mud kids will track in and plan accordingly.

I'm thinking it might be easier to train the dogs to keep the carpet clean than to train Junior.

Obed

 

[EddieWalker]

At first, I hated my red clay, but over time, I've really come to like it. While it does build up on you when walking or driving through it when wet, if crowned, it dries out extremly quickly. All my roads with a crown on them are driveable the day after it rains. Low areas that hold water may take a week to dry out enough to drive over. It compacts really good and it holds water for ponds. Grass loves it, and if you dig down into it, it holds moisture forever. I never water my grass or pastures, but they remain green and continue to grow even if it hasn't rained in well over a month. You can build on it, and it digs real easy. Sometimes it has a hard crust that you have to break through in summer, but just six inches down, it gets easy to dig in the worse conditions.

Since we don't have a choice in what soil we have, I'm happy with red clay and thankful that I'm not stuck with sand or black clay. Both exist around here, and both have allot more drawbacks then red clay!!!

Eddie

 

[CurlyDave]

I'm thinking it might be easier to train the dogs to keep the carpet clean than to train Junior.

Obed

Your are missing the point. I trained myself to like mud-colored carpet.

 

[Obed]

At first, I hated my red clay, but over time, I've really come to like it.

Yes, the red clay does have its good points. Our road was cut in the fall of 2008 and didn't get any gravel until August of this year. We had one of the rainiest seasons we've seen in a while and the road did not wear much at all. The red clay makes a great base for a road.

We did made sure the road had a crown with a swale on both sides for draining water. One contractor who gave us a bid would not put a swale on the uphill side of the road and wanted to build the road without a crown. Instead he wanted to slant the whole road so water would run over it from the uphill side to the downhill side. Yes, it would be easier to build the road that way but I wanted a crown. That contractor did not get the job.

I've found it interesting that very often, subs have one way of doing things and have no desire to entertain any other options, even if the owner is willing to pay a little extra to do a job a little different from the way the sub is used to doing it. However, I don't find this attitude unusual or limited to the construction business; I run into it in the computer software development business all the time. There are often several ways to get a job done. But people get their own preference and can be unbelievably inflexible toward other ideas. Personally, I do the job the way the boss wants it done, even if I think there's a better way. I might suggest other options but I never resist the boss; if he's paying me, he gets the right to tell me how he wants something done. That's a lesson my dad taught me. I believe that attitude helped him to stay employed during tough times when others were being laid off.

I have to say that it's hard to find subs who have this same attitude, even in today's slow building economy. I hate to think what troubles we would be having if we had started building 3 or 4 years ago during the building boon. It must have been tough to get quality work then. I've talked to people who felt fortunate if the subs would just show up; if you made an issue about quality, they'd just quit and go to the next person standing in line. However, a lot those guys may be going hungry in today's market.

Obed

 

[dave1949]

Obed,
That's some funky mud you have there on your shoes.

Ditto on contractor's (except Eddie ) and a general lack of a sense of order. I dug an easily accessible pit with my backhoe for a place to put concrete waste, tile scraps, and other masonry type scrap before beginning to build. I told every concrete truck driver when they run out their mixers and clean the chutes, just please back up to the pit and put it in there. Sounds logical, but most of those guys aren't house trained or something. I cleaned up a lot of concrete waste with my FEL bucket and put it in the pit. When I finished tiling (thought I would never get to use that phrase), I back-filled the pit with dirt. It's a reasonable way to dispose of masonry-type waste I think.

The framing wood scraps all get hauled away around here by people on the job that use it for kindling in their wood stoves.

Watch out for dropped nails and screws in your tractor tires and feet around your house site. Some use those wide magnet bars to gather them.
Dave.

 

[Obed]

Watch out for dropped nails and screws in your tractor tires and feet around your house site. Some use those wide magnet bars to gather them.
Dave.

Dave, I've been wondering about how to deal with the nails and screws. Great idea. Where do you get one of those wide magnet bars? I've never heard of them.

Obed