Building a stick frame house in the woods in 90 days

[pclausen]

Mom sold he current house and needs to be out of there by May 1st (she's currently renting it from the new owners, which is kind of strange).

We have signed a contract with a builder that claims they will have the house ready to move into in 90 days from when the foundation is in place. This will be a custom stick frame with stick trusses. Fairly small at 1550 sq. ft., but with a full basement and attached garage. This is what it will (hopefully) resemble once completed:

And the back side. The ground has quite a bit of slope and there will be a walk out basement with a deck above it that those sliding glass doors will open up to:

The parcel of land is 6 acres and densely wooded with mature 80ft+ lob-lollies (Southern Yellow Pine). I have been doing what I could to begin clearing the land prior to the construction company coming in with their excavator and dozer.

I figured I might as well start a thread to document the whole thing and ask advice as needed. Mom is 78, dad passed away last year (which is why she sold her current place), and the land is within walking distance of my place, so I'll be able to keep a close eye on everything daily.

We started out getting the land perked and the well drilled before purchasing (the study period) the parcel. Here's a shot of the well drilling truck in the middle of the woods doing the well. It flowed 9+ gpm at 200'. Wohoo!

Once all that checked out and mom purchased the lot, I began clearing it. I started cutting down trees and pulling them out:

Cutting them up 16' 6" sections and loading them onto the trailer to take to the mill:

I then chipped the tops and branches and hauled them away to be used for mulch later:

Mulch pile is pretty decent already. (I'm dropping them on my lot for now)

So after working on this for many weekends, and hauling 10 loads of woods to mill, I had barely made a dent...

So on Tuesday of this week, they dropped of the Case CX130:

On Wednesday, the cousin showed up:

By that afternoon, they already had a serious log pile going:

Amazing progress in a single day!

By day 3 (day before yesterday), the entire site for the house was cleared!

And by this morning, they had most of the septic drain field cleared as well. You can make out the well head in the far left of this shot. Quite a change from the first picture!

The log piles are getting out of hand!

Wait, there's another one they started!

I loaded what I could carry for another trip to the mill Monday, but it's going to take me a while to catch up.

Wow, they just might get this house done in 90 days!

 

[Sebculb]

What a lot of beautiful wood! Good luck with everything.

 

[dave1949]

Nice! It's going to be close. Figuring Feb.-Mar.-Apr for the 90 days, doesn't leave much time for the foundation work.

You could pack your Mom up, leave her goods in storage, and send her on a vacation for a couple weeks in May.

 

[pclausen]

That's not a bad idea!

They are using Superior Walls for the basement/foundation, so that should speed things up somewhat compared to a cinder block/poured foundation. It's pretty neat stuff:

 

[texasjohn]

Wonderful photo journal...best of luck with it all!!!

 

[BuzzardA91]

Great pictures. Thanks for sharing.

 

[SPIKER]

Wondering are ya getting any of that great building lumber graded & back to build with??? With those trees ya could have had a BIG cabin well keep up the good work & 90 days is not out of reason. We used to be onsite for less than a week hanging, finishing & painting homes that size. basement & framing could be done in similar time frame with a crew of 5 men. it was not uncommon to have similar sized homes done in 2.5 ~ 3 months up here.

Mark

 

[Diamondpilot]

This thread is going to have a big following. Good luck

Chris

 

[pclausen]

Wondering are ya getting any of that great building lumber graded & back to build with??? With those trees ya could have had a BIG cabin

Well, talked to the builder about this at the beginning, and his opinion was that in order to meet the timetable, and not run into any unexpected delays with inspections, the safe path to 90 days was to stick with kiln dried graded lumber from their regular supplier.

Here are a couple more pics from today, showing some 70'+ trimmed trees down to 6".

The pics above might not make those stems look to be 70' but believe me, they are. Check out this early pic for a sense of the scale of the trees. The tractor is close to 10' tall...

I've been thinking long and hard about getting a portable mill and cut up and dry lumber for a guest house on my lot down, just down from this one. They are "only" clearing maybe 1 acres for this house. Mom pretty much want all the tall lob-lollies gone and will plant hardwoods in their place, as it fits into her garden arrangement. So... I will still have a *lot* of timber in "the bank" for later.

well keep up the good work & 90 days is not out of reason. We used to be onsite for less than a week hanging, finishing & painting homes that size. basement & framing could be done in similar time frame with a crew of 5 men. it was not uncommon to have similar sized homes done in 2.5 ~ 3 months up here.
Mark

Excellent! Glad to hear that this is within the realm of possibility!

 

[DT86]

I can't wait to see the progress. I couldn't build a 4'x4' dog house in 90 days. lol

 

[pclausen]

Btw, the mill that I haul the logs to is only 10 miles away. They pay $38/ton for lob-lollies. So for an average load like this:

I get $278. Not a super killing, but I can probably haul 4 maybe 5 loads in a day, including me loading them with my tractor, that's not bad. Assuming 10 miles/gal, fuel cost to haul is less than $50 on $1390 worth of lumber. Not bad....

 

[Kyle241]

Great pics and a great project! 90 days for a turn-key home, that should be a challenge but then against the Chinese are building the tallest building in the same amount of time, we should be able to get a house done! Keep us the pics, this should be good to follow.

 

[EddieWalker]

Congratulations on your progress so far. Working by myself, I built my 1,000 sq ft house and was living in it after four months with a total of three days off. 90 days is very doable for a crew that does everything, but it gets scary if you are relying on different subs to come in and working around their schedules.

Eddie

 

[Buppies]

Fantastic thread and beautiful site. This is not to far from wintergreen is it?

 

[pclausen]

I've been reading a number of your threads Eddie and I have no doubt you got your house done in 4 months! Yes, the crew building mom's house do everything themselves, from the excavation, construction, electrical (although I'll probably do this part), plumbing, cabinets, etc.

Yep, this site is about 10 miles from Wintergreen ski resort.

Made good progress today. Moved all the cut logs from down where the drain field will be:

Up to the existing pile by the road. I was able to grab as many as 5 logs at a time, but the rear was real wobbly during transport. I need to get around to adding rim guard one of these days.

The cut log pile is pretty impressive now!

Then it was time to skid all the whole trees up to the road. They had already been delimbed for the most part.

Pulling one of the larger ones:

Arriving at the full tree pile:

Add it to the pile:

All done. A few different shots showing the site.

A shot of me leaving the lot. I got my trailer loaded for a haul to the mill tomorrow. I'm trying to see if I can borrow/rent a log trailer or a logging truck with a driver. I think I'll wear out my truck and trailer trying to haul all this myself.

Tomorrow the plan is that the Case operator will dig a hole in which to burn all the stumps and slash cleared so far, which is planned for Tuesday when they are calling for rain.

 

[Ken]

I've been reading a number of your threads Eddie and I have no doubt you got your house done in 4 months! Yes, the crew building mom's house do everything themselves, from the excavation, construction, electrical (although I'll probably do this part), plumbing, cabinets, etc.

Yep, this site is about 10 miles from Wintergreen ski resort.

Made good progress today. Moved all the cut logs from down where the drain field will be:

Up to the existing pile by the road. I was able to grab as many as 5 logs at a time, but the rear was real wobbly during transport. I need to get around to adding rim guard one of these days.

The cut log pile is pretty impressive now!

Then it was time to skid all the whole trees up to the road. They had already been delimbed for the most part.

Pulling one of the larger ones:

Arriving at the full tree pile:

Add it to the pile:

All done. A few different shots showing the site.

A shot of me leaving the lot. I got my trailer loaded for a haul to the mill tomorrow. I'm trying to see if I can borrow/rent a log trailer or a logging truck with a driver. I think I'll wear out my truck and trailer trying to haul all this myself.

Tomorrow the plan is that the Case operator will dig a hole in which to burn all the stumps and slash cleared so far, which is planned for Tuesday when they are calling for rain.

Just wondering if you have a large amount of 60/70 ft. straight logs Is there a power pole maker thay pay more for logs of this type.
ken

 

[HunterWare]

Hey neighbor

I cut down a section of woods to clear for a barn in Whitehall and used Jim Hart from Brookside Milling. If you wind up looking to keep some of the wood (I did for the siding) then I would recommend them. He was a pleasure to work with.

- Hunter

 

[RCman]

Great project!

I too bought a parcel of land and self-cleared it to build my house. We didn't have the nice timber you/your mother has but either way it is a lot of work. I think it took us a few months of weekends / weeknights to clear it. We also couldn't burn the stumps. They had to be hauled off site (with proof in case later questioned), town bylaw thing.

 

[deezler]

Great thread and pics so far. I like that you are starting from the very beginning. Good luck with your build!

 

[pclausen]

Thanks for the tip Hunter. Jim seems to be very reasonable. Will have to look into that down the road for sure when it comes time to build a house for my mother in law on my 2nd lot, where I can really take my time.

I took that one load to the mill this morning, despite the freezing rain overnight. Was quite an adventure. Came to just under 14,000 lbs. Being how muddy it was, I decided not to do any more loads. Instead, we ordered in a load of gravel and brought in a logging truck to haul out the full length cut trees.

Only allowed 10 ft overhang, to we had to trim them.

The leftovers, which are still 16-24' long.

The entrance as it look now.

Dug a deep hole and stuffed it with "kindling" for the fire tomorrow.

This is just some of the fuel for the fire. Should be a good one!

Also had the guy from the power company out today and we loosely decided where the transformer is going to be located (they like it to be no more than 150' from the meter base, but will go as much as 180'). He'll need to go back and see if he can splice into the underground power across the road from where the transformer will be located, or if he has to go up the road another couple hundred feed and tap into the transformer for the neighbor diagonally across the street.