Thanks for the advice. This site is the best for O-B's. You have all been so helpful!!! Nick Colella

Tony's Forum Posts: 0
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Still doing ducts

Posted to Our-Ohio-ICF-home by Tony in Mansfield, OH on 3/20/2008 6:10:46 AM

Still working on the ductwork. It takes a while with one person doing it only on weekends and one night a week, especially if you lose some days to weather. Almost done though. This weekend should finally bring an end to ducts and a beginning to the plumbing. After staring at the ductwork for so long and trying to figure where it all fit, the plumbing was imagined right in there as well, so not much more time should be needed to decide where the plumbing will actually go.

That thousand hours of planning? If you're doing your own ductwork, add 40 or so hours to that thousand. You'll need it.

It's been awhile...

Posted to Our-Ohio-ICF-home by Tony in Mansfield, OH on 2/15/2008 6:19:56 AM

Well, I know it has been awhile since I posted, but wow, not since November!

The house is coming along, slowly. We ended up hiring a boom truck operator and his three brothers to put up the trusses, which was a big help. The truss truck couldn't make it up our drive, so he unloaded the trusses in the road. Luckily we live at the end of a gravel road with little traffic! Trusses went up in one day on the house, then they came back and did the garage trusses in a few hours the next day. They were going to sheath the roof as well, but they had other jobs, and by the time they returned, my father-in-law and my wife and I had 3/4 of the roof already covered. Their bill was $3,000 that we didn't have budgeted.

Windows. The windows came on a frosty day, in a box truck with well-worn road tires. They couldn't get up the drive either. So we loaded windows into my pickup and hauled them up to the shed. Only took about 7 trips. I have put in 2/3 of the windows now, still have 7 upstairs and 4 in the garage, and the French doors to put up. My wife helped with a couple, but I have wrangled in most on my own. Wrangled is the right word, especially on the double 3052s. We went with Marvin Integrity windows, I really like them. So far, anyway.

It took over a year of phone calls, but the phone company finally ran wire down the road to the end of the driveway. They want to wait until we get the trench dug for the electric before they finish running the wires up to the house.

Last weekend we sheathed half the garage roof, finally. Sunday it was very cold and windy up there! It makes a huge difference, not seeing the sky through the trusses there. We went with attic trusses in the garage, and a 32-foot long, 14-foot wide storage room above the garage will definitely be useful.

The furnace arrived the other day. I picked it up at the freight terminal in my little pickup and hauled it down to the house. It was 'interesting', to say the least, unloading the 800-pound monster single-handed. But with a 2x4 lever, some 2x10 planks for ramps and firewood for rollers, I unloaded the furnace, got it through the doorway into the walkout basement, and rolled it into place. After that experience, I think I know how they built the pyramids.

Wednesday night I put the handle and latch on the sliding door in the basement, and installed a door on the kitchen. I can now lock up the house when I leave, instead of nailing a sheet of OSB over the doorways. This weekend I think I'll finally put the stairs together for the basement. I was a little intimidated by the upper stairs, having never built stairs before, but they came out just fine. The basement stairs are a little different, but they should be just as 'easy'. I'm ordering the ducts from Ductworks today, that shipment should arrive next week, and I'm guessing that installing ducts should take several days. when that's done, there's plumbing, then electrical, insulation, then drywall, cabinets, flooring, trim, paint, and of course back outside to do the siding, soffit, and shingles. The roof is covered with synthetic underlayment, which is a lot stronger than tar paper, and can be left exposed for 6 months.  So we still get to climb up there and put up all the shingles.

The only other contractors we have planned on the project are a well driller for the well, and a mason to brick the front of the house.

Going up...

Posted to Our-Ohio-ICF-home by Tony in Mansfield, OH on 11/28/2007 6:11:06 AM

Well, I see it has been almost a month since I last posted; hard to believe. Thanksgiving weekend was a good one, we put up the last 7 second-floor joists, put down the entire second floor, all but one of the second-floor walls (we left one out so the trusses will be easier to put up) and sheathed the rest of the back wall of the house, which is almost 30 feet above the ground.

The trusses will be here next week, and we'll be ready for them. We did some serious head-scratching and determined that we could probably best put up the trusses by hand, not with a machine. It will be lots of grunt work but it worked out on the 30-foot trusses in the shed, and these will be lighter trusses. One more section on the scaffold we have will allow us to get the sheathing on the roof on at least three sides of the house; the tall fourth side (the walkout basement side) will be a tough one.

Photos

A little more.

Posted to Our-Ohio-ICF-home by Tony in Mansfield, OH on 10/30/2007 1:14:54 PM

Last night in about four hours we managed to place all but about 6 floor joists in the first floor. All the little things that made the first half of the floor go slowly are already in place, allowing the rest of the joists to almost fall into place. Each engineered joist came out at least 3 inches too long, so all had to be cut to fit. but it is really nice to lay a 33-foot joist into place and know it is 9.5 inches tall for every inch of that length, than to try to make two 20-foot 2x10s span the same distance, and try to make up for the changes from 9 and a half to 9 and an eighth inches over the distance.  

Working....

Posted to Our-Ohio-ICF-home by Tony in Mansfield, OH on 10/29/2007 9:58:40 AM

Well, things are going slowly. We have about half of the first floor floor joists in now, the backfilling is mostly done, the septic fields are covered. Tonight we should have all the first floor joists in, and ready for subfloor. Then, hopefully, things will start moving a little faster, when we start building walls. More pictures soon.

Pictures

Posted to Our-Ohio-ICF-home by Tony in Mansfield, OH on 10/16/2007 10:13:26 AM

I had stated earlier I would post some pictures, so here is a boatload of them. They show the Form-A-Drain being set, the footer being poured, the Nudura forms being stacked, the wall bracing going up, the walls being poured with a boom truck (an 85-foot boom truck with a 'Z'-fold had no trouble getting in and pouring on our wooded site), the finished walls after the bracing was removed, and installing the waterproofing on the walls. Our septic system was installed at the end of last week, and we are waiting for the basement floor to be poured so we can move ahead.  

Photos

Little things while waiting for concrete

Posted to Our-Ohio-ICF-home by Tony in Mansfield, OH on 10/11/2007 11:10:27 AM

We are waiting for the basement floor to be poured. Meanwhile, we have spread 35 tons of gravel in the basement, and put in the sewer pipe. I've been laying block in the cellar, that kind of stuff. The floor joists arrived, but we need the basement floor to set the bearing wall on in order to hold up the LVL beam to hold up the floor joists. Plenty of other stuff to do, so it's not like our project is on hold, but it does seem to be going slow.

Both our first choice for concrete sub and our second choice are tied up with a lot of other jobs right now, and the other subs I contacted haven't bothered to call me back. But, we should have a floor by mid-week next week. It's not real easy to get much done when it gets dark two hours after I get there at night, but we're doing what I can.  I know the title of my building Journal is "Our Ohio ICF home" but as it turns out only the basement will be ICF. We couldn't justify the extra $15,000-$20,000 for ICF to the eaves, although I would have liked to have done ICF.

Walls poured

Posted to Our-Ohio-ICF-home by Tony in Mansfield, OH on 9/28/2007 2:03:06 PM

We got the walls poured on the 26th. Yeah, it took a bit. We set up and poured the garage footer on the 22nd, then poured all the walls together except for the one part of the garage where the excavation caved in. I'll block that up and get the forms set and poured soon.

Took the bracing down yesterday in the mud; it rained again most of the day yesterday. This morning I got up early and drove my overloaded pickup to Dayton to return the bracing. Tomorrow we'll get the waterproofing on the walls, dig the trench in the basement for the sewer pipe, maybe get started stacking some block in the 'bonus' cellar we added. I was pondering how best to put a footer under the laundry room, the plan basically shows that room sitting on the garage floor, I wanted something better, and my wife wanted a cellar, so we made a doorway in the Nudura forms, and a cellar will hold up the laundry room.

After the sewer line is set, we'll get a stone slinger to put a few yards of gravel in, smooth it out, spread the Insul-Tarp, and get the basement floor poured.

Sorry no pictures yet, I'll get some posted.

Basement walls

Posted to Our-Ohio-ICF-home by Tony in Mansfield, OH on 9/17/2007 1:47:56 PM

Over the weekend, we stacked nearly all the forms for the basement walls; still fighting the mud in the excavation. The trees around the site keep nearly all the sun out of the hole, and it is drying very slowly. We will have some trouble tying the garage footer back to the basement because of the dirt lost when the edge of the hole fell in. We hope to get the garage footer poured either before the basement walls or at the same time. The sun sure is going down early already...

Posted by Anonymous on 10/19/2007 10/19/2007

Tony, Great pictures.  Thanks very much.  It looks like you didn't have to brace the ICF blocks as much as I thought you would.  Did you have any problems during the pour?   Thanks,   Mark

Footer

Posted to Our-Ohio-ICF-home by Tony in Mansfield, OH on 9/13/2007 2:38:04 PM

Well, we have a footer. nothing like a bit of rain in an open hole to slow things down. ankle-deep mud and large portions of the walls of the excavation falling in make for really fun working conditions. But the footer is in, we are stripping the forms we have to strip today, and beginning to stack the Nudura ICF tomorrow. hopefully we will have it all stacked and ready to pour by Sunday evening.

We used Form-A-Drain on most of the footer, we had to form up the frost wall on the walkout side with wood. Form-A-Drain, I think I like it a lot, but it really needs to be staked well. 18" stakes every 4 feet just aren't enough in mud. We had some bowing of the Form-A-Drain, but no failures. we put gravel next to the Form-A-Drain before we poured, and as we were smoothing the concrete in the footer, the Form-A-Drain started dripping water. Already doing its job!

basement dug

Posted to Our-Ohio-ICF-home by Tony in Mansfield, OH on 9/5/2007 7:13:46 AM

Monday we got the basement dug, the corners of the house have been re-marked, now while waiting for the Form-A-Drain and the Nudura to arrive, we are placing the sewer pipe and the forms for the bearing wall footers.

Photos

Posted by Anonymous on 9/5/2007 9/5/2007

Who are some of the contractors that did great work from you? Are there any that you would not recommend in the area? We are getting started in the process of building a new home and would like some input from you. Can't wait to see more pictures!

Finally......

Posted to Our-Ohio-ICF-home by Tony in Mansfield, OH on 8/24/2007

Well, for various reasons we haven't started our house yet. the shed is done, a nice 48 by 30 footer, so we have a place for materials, but the good news is we finally are closing on our construction loan today. We will begin as soon as our excavator can get in there.

Temporary electric

Posted to Our-Ohio-ICF-home by Tony in Mansfield, OH on 5/10/2007

This week, we've rented a trencher and cut 525 feet of 48-inch trench down among the trees for the electric line, which is being laid today. Also while the trencher was out there, the trench for the shed foundation was cut. Looks like the shed is started before the house. The basement should be dug within the next two weeks, and we'll be on our way.

Posted by Mike in Marion, OH on 5/12/2007 Mike's Forum Posts: 6 Journal Entries: 44 Interview Answers: 140 Average Forum Rating: 3.78 Image from Mike's blog 5/12/2007

Tony, you will have to check out my blog. We are hoping to dig our basement in two weeks as well!

Driveway

Posted to Our-Ohio-ICF-home by Tony in Mansfield, OH on 4/10/2007

Our driveway looks more like a driveway now, instead of just a trail through the woods. I hauled three loads of gravel Friday and 6 loads Monday, using an old dump truck with a top speed of 30 miles per hour on flat ground, and more like 7 miles per hour in this hilly country. The 15-mile round trip to the gravel pit took at least an hour and 10 minutes, and a lot longer the three times I got the truck stuck in the mud Friday. My wife did an admirable job spreading the gravel with a Bobcat skid loader, which she had never driven before yesterday. Now we're still waiting to hear back from the electric company so we can dig the trench for our temporary electric, and we're waiting on framing bids from three different framers. I was supposed to have some faxes waiting for me this morning, but apparently none of the three have finished their quotes.

Still Planning

Posted to Our-Ohio-ICF-home by Tony in Mansfield, OH on 3/26/2007

It's been quite awhile since my last update, it seems like not much has happened although we've been doing a lot of work. We are no longer doing ICF to the eaves, the cost of it changed our minds. so we are now doing Nudura ICF for the basement walls, and 2x6 framed walls for the first and second floor. We have decided to go with Marvin Ultrex windows, instead of Andersen 400 series, except our local dealer won't accept our help. We gave her the plans, we gave her the list of Andersen windows we had worked so long to get right, and we gave her a copy of the Andersen quote (minus the totals). The Marvin rep said she only wanted the plans, she does her own work. well, of course she got it wrong. She never looked at the other sheets we gave her, and last night we spent another 3 hours going over her quote to set it right so she can do it again. She would have saved us both several hours by actually looking at the extra material she had.

The electric company has been a ball to work with as well. I sent them my application and never heard from them. I finally called and they said an engineer would be out on a certain day at 1:00 pm. I took off work and drove 40 miles to meet him, only to find footprints and flags marking their desired trench location. Right through 300 feet of thick trees. They didn't want to run the underground trench 40 feet over in the area that I cleared for the driveway. And they didn't want to put the pad-mount transformer at the road, like they had done for the neighbor two lots down the road. No, they wanted the transformer back in the trees too, right on the property line, so the next lot over would have access to it when they decide to build. And of course they wanted me to pay for all of it, because I turned my application in first. It took three nasty phone calls but I finally got them to see things (partially) my way.

I get to move the flags over to mark the trench at the edge of the driveway, then I can dig the trench so they can come lay their wire so I can pay for that. Then I get to pay for half the transformer, instead of paying for the whole job, and then after the neighbor builds and ties in, going to the electric company and arguing to get half the fees back. I haven't met the owners of the lot next to us, but I feel that they can pay for their own electricity when they are ready for it.

So currently, we are trying to trim our quotes down a bit. We are currently about 10% more than we wanted for our total construction costs, and we don't have our 10% contingency in yet. Then there is the fun of trying to convince the bank that I can be my own general contractor. I would like to be my own framer as well, but it's not looking promising. One quote we got for framing, from a fellow who talked about not wanting to try to do our 'complex' roof, was $28,000. I'm sure he had it high because he didn't want to do this job. I had an Amish fellow tell me he could do the job for cost plus 10%, but when I was supposed to meet him to have him look at the plans, he didn't show up. I gave him two chances, and never heard from him, so it looks like he doesn't want this one either.

Quotes and wires

Posted to Our-Ohio-ICF-home by Tony in Mansfield, OH on 1/8/2007

It's been almost a month since my last entry, so here's an update. Quotes, quotes, and more quotes. Working on getting them in order and filling in the blanks with more quotes. $18,000 for Andersen Windows. That's more than twice what the whole roof comes in at, trusses and all.

Spent the weekend sketching in and measuring the amount of electrical wiring we will need. Didn't get the basement completed but I am up to 3,300 feet of 12-3 with ground.

Our house will be ICF to the eaves, two-car garage, wood/oil heat, approximately 3,500 square feet with an unfinished basement. Most of the work will be done by us. Right now the things we are looking at contracting out are the excavation, the bricklaying, the septic installation, and possibly the roof. I can do bricks, but I think my time would be better spent at that point inside the house. I could do the roof, but it could be done faster by roofers while I am inside pulling wire. And I could do the excavation, but it would take me at least twice as long as a pro, and I would likely have trouble digging the hole we need to start with.

Final Plans

Posted to Our-Ohio-ICF-home by Tony in Mansfield, OH on 12/14/2006

Picked up the finished house plans today, one copy is headed in for a quote on trusses and floor joists, and I am taking another copy down today to get a quote on Nudura forms. Gathering quotes should keep us busy for a few weeks.

Preliminary plans

Posted to Our-Ohio-ICF-home by Tony in Mansfield, OH on 12/4/2006

Got a preliminary copy of the plans to look over the other day; it all looked pretty good except for the missing window above the kitchen sink, and the garage was only 17 and a half feet deep. Not deep enough. We're crowding 19 and a half feet in the garage we have now. So we need to add two feet more depth to the garage, which adds two more feet to the master bedroom above. The plan is pushing 3,600 square feet now. Kept a copy of the preliminary plans so I can put the locations of the lights, switches, and outlets on paper, and start getting accurate numbers on square feet of tile, wood flooring, and carpet. Less than 90 days to planned start date!

Permits and training

Posted to Our-Ohio-ICF-home by Tony in Mansfield, OH on 11/15/2006

Our well and septic permits came in the mail. A little surveying of our property shows that we won't have to remove quite as much dirt as previously thought, but also showed that we can't set the house directly on the bedrock unless we want our front porch two feet underground. The good news is that the walkout basement on the back of the house will only require three feet of soil removal. Now the big problem is finding a place to put all that dirt. 

Attended the Nudura ICF Installation class yesterday. If you are considering ICF, definitely take a class like this one. Some good hands-on training and sharing of knowledge.

We should see our first draft of our house plans next week.

Posted by Mike in Marion, OH on 11/16/2006 Mike's Forum Posts: 6 Journal Entries: 44 Interview Answers: 140 Average Forum Rating: 3.78 Image from Mike's blog 11/16/2006

Tony, I was wondering if you could send info on the ICF class. I'm over in Marion and am considering all options at this point. Sounds like we are about in the same time table as you. We are hoping for ground breaking May or June. I wanted to let you know about a sawmill over your way as well. It's Johnsville Hardwood. It's near the corner of 314 and 42 in Morrow County. I have not personally been there but have had a general contractor tell me about it. He said for example that stainable stair treads are half as much there as compared to Lowes or Home Depot. Mike

Permits and plans

Posted to Our-Ohio-ICF-home by Tony in Mansfield, OH on 11/8/2006

We are on our way. Met with designer yesterday to get our ideas on paper for our house plans. Two-story with unfinished basement, all bedrooms upstairs, ICF construction to the eaves. We weren’t really trying to get the house this big, but it looks like about 3,000 square feet, plus basement. Well permit and septic permit paid for last week, bricks picked out yesterday, going to an ICF construction class next week. Getting quotes and trying to piece together a takeoff for materials before we actually get the plans back from the designer. We hope to begin construction the first of March next year depending on weather.