At Home In The Woods

[EddieWalker]

I never thought about what happens when you get snow in a house that you are building. Just one of many things that I've never come across, and now I'm sure glad for my ignorance. That just doesn't seem like much fun at all. Especially if it 's going to just snow again !!!!!

I realize water is the enemy in homes and you want to keep them as dry as possible, but here, we get a fair amount of rain and it's pretty common to have storms come through while building a house. It gets wet, it dries out and you keep on building.

Could you just hose off the snow? Or will the water freeze and create more problems?

Eddie

 

[IH3444]

Be thankful it was snow that you could shovel out of there. From my understanding, moisture is the enemy of OSB, and chipboard. If that had been rain, might be trouble from absorbtion into the sheathing. It should be soon under roof.

 

[nhkabotab7800]

Up here in New England starting in late fall I always start to pay extra attention to the weather. I have been on jobs where I had to hire day laborers to get the snow off decks before there is a weather tite roof. Best way to remove it is with a snow blower....walk behind....absent that option usually we use a sheet of ply like you did to push it to the window.
My experience is that it is supprising how much water osb can withstand, that being said it certaintly is better to limit the amount as much as possible.
When we had small ponds in the upper floors we would simply drill holes in the puddles and let the water drain. Then be carefull to walk the floors before floor covering is put down. I have walked between every truss bouncing up and down checking for squeaks and marking them with upside down paint and then going back and replace pieces of the floor that squeaked or were soft....Gypecrete prep..... With the ply you are using I would expect a visual inspection to be more than enough....i would venture a guess that you will be walking the floors pretty much daily as the framing continues anyways.

As far as the floor trusses goes I have always seen them tied together with a couple of rows of 2X6 usually indicated right on the floor truss drawing that shows where each type of truss goes. Same as roof trusses.
Infact Gypecrete on your deck would pretty much eliminate any of the high spots that you were talking about earlier. I think it would be over kill for you unless you are thinking about raidient heat.

 

[radioman]

I never thought about what happens when you get snow in a house that you are building. Just one of many things that I've never come across, and now I'm sure glad for my ignorance. That just doesn't seem like much fun at all. Especially if it 's going to just snow again !!!!!

I realize water is the enemy in homes and you want to keep them as dry as possible, but here, we get a fair amount of rain and it's pretty common to have storms come through while building a house. It gets wet, it dries out and you keep on building.

Could you just hose off the snow? Or will the water freeze and create more problems?

Eddie

Oh no! don't even think about hosingg them down. With OSB, It tend to soak up the water and cause issues down the road. In colder weather, it doesn't even dry up. shoveling it off is just one of those things you have to do. the snow acts like a blanket for water underneath. You want to have a frozen
OSB, not wet. Same with lawns. Once the roof is overhead, things will tend to dry out and be easier to build with.

Going off topic a bit-If you don't get the snow off the lawn that you need to drive on, you will just sink into the mud. Getting the snow off and letting things freeze overnight gives you the IDEAL surface for doing any work. In some ways, this is the best way to handle wet areas. In one area at my fathers land, its wet year around, but there are prime maple trees there for firewood. When it snows and we expect temps below 20's, I just clear the snow off and let it freeze. You can now drive HEAVY equipment and loaded trailers on it.

 

[Coyote machine]

Obed,
The Advantech will not sustain much damage from snow or water for that matter. You could drill a few strategically located holes when the snow turns to water to allow it to drain at any low spots you might have.
I had weeks of on and off rain hitting my 1200sq' addition and aside from an immense amount of water leaking, from huge downpours, between the house and addition into the basement and underneath a click lock manufactured floor, all was well in the end. Even the click lock floor ended drying out with lots of help from mops and a dehumidifier. Now all we have to do is reset some of the planks to get the end grain joints to lock back together. Oh, we did sustain extensive basement ceiling tile damage and fortunately those are suspended ceiling tiles and are going to be replaced when I find time.
See if the local high school or possibly a Votech center near you has some kids looking for some extra cash and hire them to shovel off your decking.
By having chosen the Advantech product it is already earning its keep by deterring damage to your subfloor.

Now get your roof up and sheathed with the Advantech ZIP product, and you'll be more at ease if any further storms come through!

 

[TBDonnelly]

By the end of the day, the wet snow was sticking/freezing to the shovel and was making it hard to throw the snow through the window.

Spray some non-stick vegetable spray(Pam) on your shovel. Should help the snow to slide off easily.

Don

 

[buckeyefarmer]

Shoveling snow off the deck..... Been there, done that...

 

[2manyrocks]

The cloud covered lifted in Mid TN today (Sunday). Absolutely beautiful day. Good to be on top of things and get that snow out before it started melting.

 

[Bartcephus]

The suspense is killing me..... continue with the eviction story..... I hate that you had to go through that, but we can all learn from your experience.

 

[Obed]

Saturday I only got 2/3 off the snow of the flooring. Sunday I was lazy and took the day off. So we still have snow on the bedrooms and hall bath.

Based on a suggestion someone gave in this thread, I drilled some holes in our subflooring to let the water drain this evening. I wanted to use no larger of a drill bit than absolutely necessary. I started with a 3/16" bit but the holes clogged up quickly. So I ended up drilling 1/4" holes. 1/4" was marginally large enough but seemed to help. I didn't drill holes in the areas still covered by snow. It would be impossible to find the low spots with the snow covering the floor.

The wife is going to make me fill in the holes once the roof is on. I figure that I'll turn on a light in the basement and from the main floor look for the light coming through the holes. Otherwise I'll never find them.