This weekend I finally got around to a project that I had been putting off for some time.

That’s because there’s no work we really need to do on the new building.  The sand base has yet to be prepared by our concrete contractor in preparation for the vapor barrier, foam, and radiant heat tubing prior to the concrete floor being poured.

And right now there’s no point in spending any more time and or money on the new building when the real work we need to do before winter is predicated on having the concrete floor installed.

In the meantime I figured I might as well work on some other projects I’d been doing my best to avoid.

A little less than four years ago we paid someone to add a four season porch to the house.  They framed, sided and shingled the addition.  That left all the interior work, including electrical, insulation and drywalling to me.

I completed most of the other work that first winter after the four season was added except for some of the drywall (leaving the ceiling and the wall adjoining the house without).

But from that there the project languished for a couple of reasons.  One reason is because of the problem I am about to describe.

The four season ceiling was vaulted, and the interior wall that separated the room from the roof space where the new roof joined the existing roof created a little “attic” space.  This little space had no airflow at all, and on sunny days it turned into a oven, a fact I noticed soon after the addition was built.

On sunny days we noticed a “hot roof smell” coming from that area, and the four season area itself also got quite warm on sunny days, even in the winter.

Initially I had tried to seal the wall there to separate this space from the rest of the room.  I installed fiberglass insulation and a poly vapor barrier over the wall.

However I noticed in short order that this didn’t do the job, and noticed the hot roof/tar-paper smell on sunny days.  I tried to rectify this problem by gluing/sealing the vapor barrier at the bottom edge, which helped a bit but didn’t make the problem go away.

It was then that I realized that I was going to have to do something completely different to solve the heat and odor problem.

I pondered the problem for quite a while, in part because I really didn’t want to tear up the insulation that I’d already installed and start all over and because I had plenty of other projects to do as well.

Intuitively I also knew that if I just sealed the space better I would have another problem, as it would create a totally sealed little box that would heat up on sunny days with the heat having no where to escape.  Attics are normally vented to deal with that issue, allowing air to come in through the soffits and letting hot air escape out ridge or roof vents.

So I had to figure out some way to vent the space.

Years literally went by as I researched and otherwise ignored the problem.  After thinking about it again this year I finally got around to a fix.

Knowing that the space would be unbearably hot I had waited for some cooler days to start the project.  Even with the temps only in the 80′s this week, I knew the attic space would rise to over 100 degrees during the day and I would have to be working in it.

When we bought the house it had a ridge vent, but after our roof shingles were replaced after the hailstorm in 2006 they replaced the ridge vent with regular square roof vents.

However, when they added the four season, the contractor used a ridge vent on it.  (The ridge vent is the dark section at the ridge line of the roof.)

From an examination of the roof outside it was clear that the ridge vent they had installed on the four season ran past the wall that divided the room from the roof section in question.

I thus reasoned that if I could get simply get some airflow into that space that the hot air would move out through the ridge vent.

So I removed the existing vapor barrier and insulation on the wall so that I would have access to the little “attic” space.

Initially I was just going to cut some holes in the roof in that space,  exposing the new space to the rest of the attic space in the house.  Because the four season was an addition, the roof in that area was shingled.

After marking out where I would cut, I realized that I would later have to crawl around in the area for the next step, so I decided to remove the shingles in that area before cutting the holes so I wouldn’t later be crawling around on the abrasive shingles.

Even though the temperatures outside were only in the 80′s, it was a hot, sweaty and uncomfortable experience working in the attic space there.

Having removed the shingles, I cut two holes into the roof sheathing between the rafters, opening the space to the rest of the house’s attic.  The instant I opened the first hole the space felt cooler.

Since the main part of the house’s attic was already vented, with fresh air coming in through soffit vents, it would serve as an air source for the addition roof space that when heated would vent out the ridge vent.

Only the ridge vent in that area was mostly blocked by a section of the rafter ridge beam (itself a short section just running from the existing roof to the main ridge beam of the porch) so I cut it out after first supporting the part that was left with a vertical brace.

The main ridge beam (a microlam beam) of the four season porch rests on studs on the section of wall I was insulating, the end of which is visible on the left side of the following photo.

After that was done, I went about properly sealing off the space.  This time I used some two inch thick extruded polystyrene foam that we had left over from the building project.

The pieces were cut at angles to match the pitch of the roof, and had to be in small enough sections to fit between the spaces in the wall studs as they were to be nailed against the backs of the wall studs.

I tried to make sure they fit snugly and then nailed the foam to the backs of the studs with nails and washers.  I got most of the opening covered with foam sheets before evening, leaving a single gap between studs open so that I could still climb into the space.

My plan was to then use expanding foam to seal the edges and any other gaps in the foam from the back (inside of the attic space), but the two cans of foam I had were over a year old and the valves were stuck and I broke them trying to get them to dispense foam.

Since it was too late to get out to the hardware store that night the project went on hold until I could get out and buy some expanding foam.

The next day I had to run to the dog grooming shop to repair the home-made dog bathing pump I installed this last winter.  Kim told me that the pump would no longer turn on and off with the air switch/assembly.

I suspected a problem with the ground fault interrupter, and after checking out the assembly found that the problem was that the rubber “bulb” (the manufacturer calls it  the “foot pedal”) wasn’t “puffing” out any air when pressed, and thus not activating the air switch it was connected to via a section of tubing.

I had received a new rubber bulb with the air switch when I bought it but opted to use the existing one that controlled the old pump that was already mounted on the wall.  At the time I thought nothing could go wrong with a rubber bulb and tube.

Thus I neglected to bring the new bulb with me, not having suspected that part at all as being causal to the pump not working.

However, I discovered that the problem was in fact that the bulb was no longer blowing out any air when squeezed.

I inspected both the bulb and the tubing for damage, and finding none had to put on my thinking cap.

Since the sealed bulb connects to a tube that connects to the air switch, I deduced that there must be a valve on the bulb to return new air to the bulb after it was squeezed.  There’s a metal bulging part on the top of the bulb that the tube connects to that was obviously that valve.

Figuring the air intake on the valve might be clogged I tried soaking it in hot water to clean it off without success.  Eventually in the process of messing around with it I accidentally broke the valve apart.  When I did so it was obvious that it was badly corroded.

So I pulled the remains of the broken valve out of the bulb, and found after removing it that simply sticking the tube into opening of the bulb worked as a temporary fix since enough air leaked around the junction of the tube and bulb to allow new air to be drawn into the bulb, yet sealed tightly enough that air was blown through the tubing when the bulb was squeezed.

I’ll have to head back to switch the bulb out with the new one soon though.

(Edit 9-2-2010:  I found that the new switch bulb doesn’t have a valve at all.  After holding a finger over the hose connection on the new bulb and squeezing it I found the bulb does not refill with air.  It’s obviously just a nipple for the hose connection.  There must be enough air leaking at the air switch connection itself to return air to the bulb.)

When I got back home it was back to my insulation project.

I finished cutting the last pieces of rigid foam to fit the attic space.  I had to wait to put in the last pieces that would completely seal the space until I’d foamed the cracks on the foam that were already installed from the back.

Once I’d sprayed in the expanding foam I affixed the last pieces in the opening I’d left for access using construction adhesive and strings run through the foam tied to nails on the fronts of the studs which acted as temporary clamps until the glue set.

The next day after the foam had cured I replaced all the fiberglass insulation in between the wall studs.

When I pulled out the insulation at the start of this latest attempt at this project I had noticed that some mice had been tunneling through the attic insulation, so I decided to add strips of wall sheathing to the gaps below the roof sheathing and between the rafters that were created when they cut away the roof overhang to at least try and keep the mice in the attic.

Then I foamed all the gaps that hadn’t yet been covered.

Once that foam cures I need to trim off any that has expanded out beyond the plane of the studs since it will be drywalled.  Then I need to replace the vapor barrier.

Of course after I completed all this work I remembered why I put this project off until now…

Now I’ll monitor the area for a while to ensure the problem has indeed been fixed too.

Filed under: Building Construction 2009-10, Dog Grooming Business, Home, Home Projects on August 29th, 2010 | No Comments »

My two week working vacation at home came and went by quickly.

I got a lot of projects done, but not nearly as many as I would have liked, and little of the work I had hoped to do on the new building.

Due to the high heat indexes, the county fair and Basil getting sick I got little done of note the first week.

We recovered the animals from the fair on Sunday and made plans to show up next year again.  The Future Farmers of America (FFA) run the Children’s Barnyard at the fair and take care of the animals there.

Since Kim brings her miniature animals to several other FFA functions every year (excluding the fair) she had been invited to an FFA banquet this spring so they could recognize her contributions.

She was unable to attend the banquet then, so at the end of the fair they gave her a plaque designating her an honorary FFA member.

We’ve now got the cash to install the radiant in-floor heat system, siding and doors on the new building, but didn’t get around to actually starting any work, even though we did spend more money on the project.

Our first big purchase was to order the garage doors, both for the house and the new building.

The existing garage door on the house is in pretty bad shape, and we need a new garage door for the new garage addition, as well as two for the new building.

Since the garage doors are special order, it’s going to take three weeks to get them so we needed to get them ordered, and we had to pay 50% down on the doors to do that.

We chose fake wood grain steel doors after initially leaning towards green to match the steel roof and trim on the new building.  I had always been of the opinion that having green garage doors would have been too much green so I think the wood grain will look a lot better.

We also squared up with our carpenter, Frank, who had patiently waited to be paid for the work he’d done up until now.

In the meantime we need to take inventory of the materials we currently have and what we need to purchase so that we can get the new building ready for another appraisal.

We finally decided on the color of the vinyl shake siding that will be used as accents in the gable ends of the new building (and house when that gets re-sided).

Kim has also been pricing out some upgraded/premium PEX tubing for the radiant in-floor heat system as our bid used standard grade tubing.  We wanted to see how much more it would be for the premium grade tubing, although to be honest outside a longer warranty I’m not sure what advantage there would be to paying for the higher grade tubing.

The tubing we can buy and pick up the same day (once we decide what kind we’re buying) although we might have to drive some distance to get it.

I’m still waiting for the word from our concrete contractor that the sand base for the concrete floor is ready for the vapor barrier plastic and the extruded polystyrene sheets, so I haven’t done either of those things yet.

As I wrote last week I completed the trim around the new garage door on the house in preparation to the siding installation there.  The garage door frames are trimmed with maintenance-free sold vinyl brickmold and aluminum fascia sheets.

Once that was done I was ready to put siding on that section of the new garage.

Since we can’t afford to pay someone to re-side the house all at once, I’m planning on siding the house myself.  But since that’s going to take a while, I plan on doing it in sections bit by bit, and I’ll remove the existing siding (and fasica and soffits) and replace them as I go.

It took a while to transfer (and verify) the measurements from the existing siding elsewhere on the house so that the very bottom of the siding clapboards would line up as the siding was installed around the house.  I also had to figure out how to measure and install the vinyl siding and trim pieces.

I made a mock-up wall out of scrap vinyl to get some measurements, and used our carpenter, Frank’s, work on the new building as reference as well.

The first thing that is installed with vinyl siding are the vertical corner trim pieces.  For a start I just needed to install the outside corner piece at the southeast corner of the new garage.

Since it’s vinyl and flexible, care must be taken to make sure it’s installed straight, so I snapped a vertical chalk-line marking the edge of where the corner trim should have been installed, measured off my wall mock-up.

But after tentatively nailing up the corner trim and finding something amiss, I took a closer look and realized we had two different types of outside corner trim.

There was a box and a half of one type of outside corner trim, and none of the type Frank had used on the new building.  Since it was apparent he had run out I had to go back to Menards to exchange what we had for the other type, effectively ending that day’s work.

Since we were going to install rock wainscoting on the front of the garage, I couldn’t start siding from the very bottom but rather had to start some distance up the wall, while making sure the bottom of the siding there matched the bottom of one course of siding around the corner.

In order to ensure this alignment was correct, I installed the bottom starter strip on the east wall of the house addition and then added some temporary courses of siding there.

I also had to remove the existing soffit and install new soffit and fascia on the short section of roof overhang in front of the new garage.

I completed the siding on the front of the new garage just as my time off work was coming to an end.  Although it doesn’t look like much, there was a lot of cutting and measuring, especially around where the roofs join, and it was slow going as I learned how to work with and install the vinyl siding.

The existing garage door on the house needed preparation for new trim as well.  Since we’re replacing the existing wood trim with maintenance free trim, the framing on the door needed to be adjusted.

As I mentioned since we’re replacing the siding in stages, I opted to use a circular saw to just trim the existing siding off immediately around the garage door for now.

After doing that and removing the existing wood brickmold trim, I discovered water damage to the wall sheathing and top framing member above the door because there had not been any drip cap installed there.

First I replaced the top frame member with a new one.  Then I reframed the sides of the doorway to the correct opening size with new lumber as well.

After trimming the siding back further above the door I was then able to trim off the rotting sheathing.

Since there was now a gap in the sheathing to the edge of the new doorway opening, I needed to add sheathing to the edge of the new framing, as well as replacing the rotting sheathing I had cut off.  First I added strips of sheathing overlapping the framing, then trimmed it to size.

I also noticed that the vertical support framing for the garage door track was pulling away from the wall.  It will need to be replaced as well, but the existing garage door and track will need to be removed first, so its removal and replacement will have to be done when they install the new door.

Then I wrapped the opening with housewrap.

It’s now ready for the new trim and brickmold.

I also managed to find the time to cut apart my homemade tractor 3 point ball hitch, converting it into a receiver hitch instead that can use different sized ball hitches, instead of just the one fixed size it previously had.

It was a pretty nice to be off from work for two straight weeks and since it was a vacation too I admittedly didn’t push myself that hard.  But I did note as my time off ended that I have way too many things to do to have a job!

Filed under: Basil, Building Construction 2009-10, Home, Home Projects on August 21st, 2010 | 4 Comments »

It’s already nearing the end of the Dakota County Fair which started this last Monday.

As usual we brought three Nigerian Dwarf miniature goats and two of our miniature horses to the Children’s Barnyard.  This marks the 8th or 9th consecutive year that we’ve brought animals there.

Unfortunately while Kim was getting the animals ready to go the fair, our Standard Poodle, Basil, got sick in the house.  After that he began experiencing hematochezia (scary) and the next day Kim took a stool sample to the vet who ended up giving him some wormer and antibiotics.

After getting the wormer he was pretty zonked, sleeping more than normal that day.  He worried us for a couple of days after because he wasn’t interested in eating even though we offered him the vet prescribed diet of rice, chicken and/or yogurt.

Slowly he got his appetite back and by the end of the week he was pretty much back to normal and back on his regular food.

That notwithstanding, this year Kim and I haven’t really spent much time out at the fair at all.

Kim’s been busy working at the dog grooming shop this week, and I’ve been busy doing projects while on a working vacation at home.

I had hoped to finish a lot more projects, but the temperatures topped 90 several days this week (with heat indexes over 100) making it just too hot to work outside, much less do anything else.

The heat has dampened much of the enthusiasm we might have otherwise had for the fair, as well as spawning a few nasty fast-moving thunderstorms later in the day and at night.

It would seem we’re not the only ones not attending the fair this year either; the few times we’ve been there it’s been pretty quiet.

Over the years the fees keep climbing for parking, gate passes and food at the fair, making it prohibitively expensive for many, especially families without lots of disposable income.  Between the weather and the economy it looks like this will be a bad year for attendance there.

Since I’ve been off work, during one of the downpours I was able to check out the new garage roof, which had been leaking and we believed had been fixed, only to discover that its still leaking.

Additionally, the latest storm inexplicably snapped a six inch Box Elder tree north of the barn.

I was able to get the new garage door trimmed out and ready for a garage door in spite of the heat.

In addition, I had noticed our electrical transformer appeared to be leaking oil some time ago, but it seemed worse after this week, so I called the electric company Thursday evening to report the problem.

I was surprised when the line crew showed up later Thursday evening hours after a thunderstorm came through to take a look (they told me they were out repairing storm damage anyway), and subsequently another crew came back Friday morning and replaced the transformer.

After our appraisal on the new building came back so low as to not give us any significant equity in it, we finally ended up opting to draw a loan on my retirement account.

I hesitate to call it a “last ditch” idea, although it’s something I didn’t want to do, and we were out of quick and/or viable options other than refinancing and paying the associated closing costs twice.

Considering the financing delays we’ve had of late I was shocked to find the retirement loan money in my checking account via direct deposit less than two weeks after my application, and that was including a five day delay for them to send me a letter via snail mail to call them back to verify the application.

This time we’re going to have be careful to prioritize the work that we need done, because the new loan amount isn’t enough to cover all the costs of the work left.

Theoretically the money we have should get the new building to a state that will give us significant equity (albeit probably not as much as we’ve already spent on it), but the way things have been going I’m not holding my breath.  We’ll just have to wait and see what happens…

If nothing else though, the retirement loan will get the building ready for winter, even if we can’t afford any other work right away, and after burning through that money we’ll refinance regardless.

My best guess is that we’ll have spent the latest loan money within a month or so, which also means the building will have a floor and be completely sided and with doors on it by then as well.

Meanwhile summer rushes by, and we’re down to two and a half months of good weather left in the year before we’re into the rains of fall, and then winter.  We have so much to do before then…

Filed under: Building Construction 2009-10, Dog Grooming Business, Home, Home Projects on August 14th, 2010 | 1 Comment »

Any notions we had of a refinance to fund the rest of the construction of the new building fell apart this week.

Even though the appraiser had given us the impression that we would get a fair amount of equity out of the new building in its current state, after waiting for over a month for the appraisal when we finally got it this week we found that the new building was only appraised at less than 1/10th of the materials and labor that were already in it.

Because we were incredulous, Kim talked to a friend who is also an appraiser who verified that this is the way it works; banks just don’t place any value on incomplete construction.

It’s just too bad we didn’t know that before we waited for over a month for the appraisal to discover that, and the appraiser certainly wasn’t up front with us about the situation.

He initially told us that in order to have the building considered “finished” that we needed to get the building sided, with doors on it and a floor in.  When we realized we wouldn’t have the funds to get all that work done we advised him of the situation, he told us to do as much as we could and assured us that would increase the equity.

Although that wasn’t an out and out lie, it was definitely misleading, as we certainly didn’t anticipate equity less than 1/10th of what we already had spent on the building.  We were led to believe that the equity would be at least a reasonable portion of what we had already spent on the project and not a small fraction thereof.

Of course the refinance loan approval we just got from my bank was based on a speculative appraisal that then didn’t materialize and a refinance based on our latest appraisal won’t give us enough cash to make any significant progress towards completing the project, nor justify the loan closing costs.

Now the appraiser says again that if we get the building sided, with a floor and all the doors in, that it will all appraise much higher.  The only problem is that since he misled us the first time, him telling us that now means nothing.

For instance, if we get the building sealed up with a floor, will that result in a significant increase in the amount of equity, or only a small amount more than where we are being given now?

Additionally, once the new building has doors and a floor, it will still be appraised as a “storage” building and not a residence, so it would still remains to be seen how much value would be placed on it even if it’s close to complete; it’s likely that it still won’t be worth what we’ve spent on it.

Regardless, the siding, doors and floor still need to be installed/finished on the new building, so I’m borrowing some money from my retirement fund to get the funds to get that work done.

Once that work is complete we’ll have to go ahead with a refinance regardless, and although that will be unlikely to generate enough cash to complete the project, we’ll at least have the building sealed up and ready for winter.

It’s our fault for diving headfirst into this project without understanding the ins and outs of construction financing, but we’ve also been misled by bankers and now appraisers at every turn which isn’t making it any easier either.

The whole affair has convinced me to do as much of the work myself as I can again, since we’re not getting our money’s worth out of paying others, especially if the appraisal is going to undervalue the building anyway.

I just started an at-home vacation and hope to get some work done on the building during that time.

Of course it all also means that any aspirations we had to do some home improvements, including putting in the load bearing beam that’s sitting in the new garage, are also on indefinite hold.

One of my first projects on my vacation was to build a cover for the septic pump electrical outlet/cord.  Since the pump replacement the outlet has been covered with a garbage bag to keep the rainwater off of it.

I used some 14 inch wide white aluminum coilstock that I had sitting around, so the resulting cover isn’t very pretty, as the sheets weren’t big enough to make the cover without lots of seams.  I gunked up the seams with caulk, and when it’s dried I plan on spray-painting it an earth-tone to make it blend in more with the surrounding foliage/terrain.

(The angled top is meant to shed rainwater.)

Filed under: Building Construction 2009-10 on August 6th, 2010 | 3 Comments »