At Home In The Woods

[2manyrocks]

Birds of a feather flock together.

"One who is slack in his work is brother to one who destroys." Proverbs 18:9

 

[Obed]

Do you still see yourself as the GC?

Yes.

Was the framer you hired trying to act as a CM?

Yes.

 

[Obed]

It seems like in the last pic the roof is mostly finished.

Is all the sheathing on?

IF you have the skills/tools/equipment to fix and finish the framing I'd suggest doing it your self. And then hiring a roofer ASAP. A siding contractor could handle the tyvek and windows.

Once that is done it is pretty straight forward scheduling the subs.
You'll feel a lot better about having a water tight house and if the subs are not wary of the situation (fired contractors/unhappy homeowners) you will get better prices.

Front porch sheathing is not finished. Back porch has not been started. Both of the front dormers are going to be fixed. Half of the garage roof will very likely get torn off in order to redo what the first framer/CM messed up. So unfortunately we're not ready for the roofing.

 

[Obed]

Yesterday we took back some lumber to Home Depot that the CM had purchased. Rather than plan ahead and purchase wood from our building supplier, he had been going to Home Depo and buying stuff. When my wife found out he was doing this, she told him that she wanted him to use our building supplier. One $620 bill from Home Depot for lumber would have cost $500 from our building supplier. Plus, we are not thrilled with the quality of materials we have seen from Home Depot and Lowes. Our experience is these places charge high prices for low quality products.

We returned the lumber in the picture plus 7 pieces of 8'x4' OSB for a $220 store credit. We couldn't get cash because the CM purchased the lumber using his American Express. Our options were to get a store credit or to credit the CM's American Express card.

So after the CM framed most of the front porch, I found a big pile of scrap lumber with 5' and 6' long 2x's. Rather than order the right length boards from our supplier which takes a couple days of planning, the CM had just cut extra long boards that we had on site and made a bunch of waste. So we paid for 16' boards when we only needed 10' boards.

 

[Obed]

Yesterday I dug out beside this retaining wall in preparation for putting in a French drain for this retaining wall, something the construction manager (CM) should have done. He put a drain tile beside the basement concrete walls. Unfortunately, instead of continuing the drain tile along the inside of this retaining wall, he put in a solid pipe to drain the water from the basement wall. He then filled in the escavated area beside the retaining wall the very same day without giving me a chance to stop it. It would have be easy to put the drain tile down instead of the solid pipe. I told him he should have put a drain tile down because of freezing issues but it was like arguing with a fence post.

Ideally, the French drain would be at the bottom of the wall. That would be my preference. We have gravel that is 4 feet wide and 2 feet deep at the bottom of the wall that can help drain water along the wall but there is no drain tile in it. Digging down to the bottom of this 10 foot wall would be a huge task, one which is too big a job for me to do. So I'm going to put in a drain tile approximately half way down the wall as a work-around. I understand this isn't ideal, but it's better than not doing anything. In addition, once the brick is laid, I plan to grade the dirt so that water will drain away from the wall to try to route as much water as possible away from the wall.

 

[Obed]

I had a tough time getting the tractor positioned to dig due to the steep slope. I put rocks behind the tires as chocks for a precaution before getting off the the tractor seat and sitting on the backhoe seat.

Although the pictures show me digging with the backhoe, I spent most of the day digging with a hand shovel and maddock. The red clay makes for very difficult digging. I spent 8 solid hours digging on Saturday.

Here's how it looked when I finished.

The wife made me a homemade cherry cobbler for my reward.

 

[Obed]

We have settled on a framer who will finish the framing, install the windows, exterior doors, and roof. He believes he can start work this Thursday. Tomorrow we will sign paperwork and work out what materials need to be ordered. He is the same guy whose work we looked at and liked last weekend.

 

[CurlyDave]

Obed:

You are braver than I to sit on that backhoe seat at that angle.

I think I would have re-graded the dirt so I could get the machine parallel to the wall (perpendicular to the house) and worked down hill from the house. (Hoe uphill, FEl downhill, travel downhill.)

I have a lot of clay at my house in CA -- good, hard adobe clay. If hand digging must be done, I have found that a small electric jackhammer like this one Makita HM1500B 42lb. Demolition Hammer | ToolBarn.com with a clay spade is at least 5 times, maybe ten times as effective as a mattock in loosening dry clay to a point where loose chunks can be shoveled.

New ones are expensive, but the productivity increase pays for it in about two weeks of digging.

Harbor Freight has something similar for much less money. I have never used it so I can't say how good it is.

 

[brandoro]

Obed:

You are braver than I to sit on that backhoe seat at that angle.

I think I would have re-graded the dirt so I could get the machine parallel to the wall (perpendicular to the house) and worked down hill from the house. (Hoe uphill, FEl downhill, travel downhill.)

Like CurlyDave said. I dug all the way around the foundation of my last house to put in weeping tiles. Once you get used to digging to the side progress is pretty good. In a choice between hand digging clay or using the BH I would really try to make the BH do the work.:thumbsup:

 

[EddieWalker]

If hand digging must be done, I have found that a small electric jackhammer like this one Makita HM1500B 42lb. Demolition Hammer | ToolBarn.com with a clay spade is at least 5 times, maybe ten times as effective as a mattock in loosening dry clay to a point where loose chunks can be shoveled. .

I have to Rotary hammers. A smaller SDS Makita that is very light and eas to drill small holes in concrete. And I have a bigger SDS Max Hitachi that is just a brute at going through concrete. Both have jack hammer modes and they work great at digging in hard clay. My Hitachi has the shovel bit that I just set it on the ground and squeeze the trigger. It just slides it's way into the hardest clay like it was nothing!!!! It goes through concrete almost as easily, but hard dirt is nothing for this tool

Hitachi DH40MRY Low-Vibration SDS-Max Rotary Hammer for sale at ToolKing.com!

Bosch Hammer Steel, 7/8 Shank, Clay Spade HS2269 | AceTool.com

Eddie