New House Build in WV

[buckeyefarmer]

I’ve had no problems with adding pics in iPhone. However they won’t load during an edit.

 

[TnWV]

 

[TnWV]

I’ve had no problems with adding pics in iPhone. However they won’t load during an edit.

Putting them in a new post seems to have worked.

 

[EddieWalker]

Good to see you figured out how to post pictures. The sheetrock looks nice, just be sure that they finish screwing it all in before you pay them. I've had to do this myself when I didn't check every room and accepted their word that it was done.

 

[Buppies]

Very nice work

 

[Jtaylor 76usmcusar]

Hello All,

I have been planning a house build for a number of years and it is finally underway. We got a late start due to COVID-19, but the poured wall foundation was poured in late June. I am building the house myself, subbing out the pieces that I cannot/don't want to do. So far it has been mostly myself, my wife, my father in law, and one good friend who helps out when he is not traveling for work, so progress can be slow at times. I have been trying to get this thread started for a while, but work has been continuous until well after dark most days.

So far we have managed to get the basement water proofed, drain lines in, most of the gravel backfill done, concrete floor poured in the basement and we are now working on framing walls. Still have a few interior walls and a couple of garage walls to frame. Not all interior doors are completely framed in yet either. We have found it much easier to lift walls by ourselves if the headers are not put in until after the wall is in place. Trusses are do onsite in about 1.5-2 weeks, so hope to be ready for them as soon as they arrive. I will have some hired help to set the trusses and will also hire a crane to lift them in place. Currently talking to a contractor about getting them to sheath and shingle the roof, as those two tasks would take me forever to complete, so hoping that works out.

The house is one story over a full basement with attached garage. Front and rear porches will span the full length of the house, with the front being concrete and the back being treated frame with composite decking. We put PEX in the basement concrete floor for radiant heat.

Main floor is about 2200 square feet. Looked small on paper, but it definitely is not small now that it is going up! At this point, the only portions hired out have been the excavation, the poured walls, and the basement concrete floor.

House build threads are my favorite and I have followed everyone posted on this site for the last 10 years or more. I have to say I have learned a ton from those that have been willing to share their experiences and following those threads is not doubt helping along the way on this build.

I purchased a set of forks for my tractor prior to starting and they have been a life saver to move material around, especially the 34" I-joists and 3/4 subfloor sheathing. Its has been nice to be able to scoop up a load of studs and place them on the sub floor, keeps us from wearing out just getting lumber to where we need it.

A bad storm moved through on Tuesday evening causing a lot of damage around my property, including putting a 6" tree limb through the roof, and bedroom wall of the mobile home we are currently living in, on site. Dropped lots of trees, tore roofing panels off my big building and took down a large portion of my goat fence with another huge tree. Repairs and cleanup have caused no build progress for the last couple of days, but will be back to building walls tomorrow evening and over the weekend. Once walls are done, the next major step is getting the back porch framed. I hope to get the posts marked and dug this weekend, but looks like Saturday may be a washout, weather wise. If so, we will take that time to go get our windows and doors ordered.

I will add some progress pictures and try to put the blueprints up so you all can see what we will end up with. For some reason, the TBN website is not allowing me to add pictures through the manage attachments function, so I will have to work on that later. Below are the only two pictures that I can get to upload at the moment, maybe I will have better luck from the tapatalk app then my computer.

View attachment 667653

View attachment 667654

Is that ICF? If so, how much is it running you?

 

[Code54]

Looks great - glad to see everything is moving forward!

 

[s219]

Looks great! Warms my heart to see drywall work being done by someone who's not me!

 

[TnWV]

Is that ICF? If so, how much is it running you?

Walls are poured concrete, not ICF. I like the idea of ICF, but it isn’t common around here, so it’s would have been very expensive.

 

[TnWV]

Looks great! Warms my heart to see drywall work being done by someone who's not me!

Yeah, no way I’d want to be hanging 5/8 on that ceiling. After doing all the other work, I’m not sure I’d be up to even if I wanted to do it.

My crew is 2 guys, the main one being probably in his mid 60’s. They are not the fastest hangers, but came highly recommended and at a very reasonable cost.

They finished hanging today and will start taping tomorrow. They should be complete first of next week.

 

[TnWV]

Tried to post pictures of today’s progress but now it’s telling me my pictures are too large and the forum limit is 8mb. Not sure how to make them smaller using my iPhone, or if that’s even possible. Sure hope I don’t have to download them all to a computer to resize.

 

[TnWV]

Whole house has now been taped and first coat of mud. Really changed the look and feel, we are really liking it. They hope to be finished middle of next week, just depends on how fast the mud dries, I’ll be setting some fans up to help it along.

Siding is also looking good. Only issue is that, after having most of the front done to the top of the windows, o found I had somehow ran up hill about 3/4 inch on one side. Not sure how it happened, but took a big section back down and fixed it. Got most back up but will start tomorrow by finishing that.

With good weather hanging around, I’ll probably move to finishing getting the garage ready for concrete and hope to get it poured in the next week or two.

Hopefully I’ll get picture posting figured out over the weekend and post some progress pics.

 

[civilian]

So are the drywallers using premixed mud or are they mixing the powdered stuff? I was under the impression that pros use the stuff needing to be mixed because it would set faster and hence be able to put another layer on in one day. Just wondering. Jon

 

[EddieWalker]

I've never seen them used powder mix. On every job that I've been on where there is a crew, they have one guy mixing it to make it smooth in a barrel, and the guys spreading it will scoop it out of the barrel when needed. They always use a lot of boxes of premix.

Painters use the premix all the time. The fast drying stuff.

 

[TnWV]

So are the drywallers using premixed mud or are they mixing the powdered stuff? I was under the impression that pros use the stuff needing to be mixed because it would set faster and hence be able to put another layer on in one day. Just wondering. Jon

They are using the premixed buckets, except one bag of dura bond 45 for around the bathtub surround. I haven’t seen the powder mix stuff on a house site in a long time. Of course I have only been around 4-5 new construction house’s in the last 5 or more years, so that doesn’t mean it’s not used around here, I just haven’t seen it.

 

[s219]

Painters like to carry the powder mix because they can keep it around forever and make up small batches whenever needed for repairs. But for large scale jobs I've only ever seen buckets of pre-mix. Heck, around here many new houses still don't have running water when the drywall goes up, so you'd have to transport in water just to mix up compound, and that sort of kills one of the benefits.

 

[EddieWalker]

I've never seen a crew using buckets. It's always boxes. When comparing the price, buckets are a lot more money, and there is no advantage to having a bucket of joint compound over a box.

Besides costing less, it's a lot easier to open a box of mud, pull it out and dump it from the plastic then it is to scoop it out of a bucket. Since I do smaller jobs, I mix the mud in the box. The plastic holds up just fine as long as I keep the ends of it folded over the box. When I'm done, I wrap the plastic together to keep the air out and it will last weeks like this.

 

[TnWV]

Drywall is one trade over really never been involved in, so I don’t know the advantages/disadvantages of types of mud. I’ve never seen anything on new construction, or other large drywall jobs except buckets. The box stores around here only seem to have the powder mix in small containers/bags, so I always assumed most people only used it when they only need small amounts instead of opening a bucket and letting a large amount go to waste.

I ended up putting a few outlets in around the house to give the drywall guys multiple places to plug fans in. Also got the front outside outlets in so I have power outside if needed.

Got all but the last row of siding up on the front. Have to bend metal around the porch beam before finishing. I’ll start on the side or back this week, and maybe get the metal bent next weekend.

I’ll eventually get some pictures loaded when I get time to put them on the computer, since the forum says the originals are too large.

 

[TnWV]

Downloaded a photo compression app, let’s see if it works.

Picture shows progress on the front of the house. Ignore my mess, had not cleaned everything up for the day.

 

[civilian]

Downloaded a photo compression app, let’s see if it works.

Picture shows progress on the front of the house. Ignore my mess, had not cleaned everything up for the day.

View attachment 690294

Front siding looks great. Question, how wide is your porch? Any posts needed to support roof overhang? Jon