This journal has been viewed 24211 times.
Posted to octagonaltopsider by Gail in Cupertino, CA
on 8/17/2009 11:39:29 AM
September 24, 2007
More about bats
Steve, armed with a worklight, scans the rafters looking for any signs of bats
When Steve joined us for a weekend up at our mountain building site,
he was particularly intrigued by our stories of bat sightings and bat
hunting. We know we have bats. We’ve seen them flying around inside the
house. We’ve attempted to cover every possible crack and roosting spot,
but we still have bats.
The original idea this weekend was to take advantage of Steve's
presence, and have the two guys go up on the roof to look for bat
signs. (Gail, with her fear of heights and edges, is extremely
reluctant to go up there.) Unfortunately, it began to rain on Saturday
morning, September 22, our main workday.
Relegated to working inside, Steve volunteered to do some detective
work. He scoured the ceilings both downstairs and upstairs, but didn’t
see any bats roosting or hiding. On the other hand, his set of fresh
eyes uncovered several bat-sized openings to the outside that Gail and
Russell had missed. He filled the holes with insulation and caulking.
One of the additional bat-sized holes that Steve found – this one was on the seccond floor, between a corner and a wall
Even better, Steve was able to reach several of the high places that
Gail couldn’t reach, to fill in potential bat-roosting places.
(Russell and Gail have an ongoing argument about the exact status of
the bats. Gail believes that they’re still getting in and out of the
house somehow. Russell counters that this is impossible, as we’ve
plugged all possible entrances and exits. Russell believes that a bat
is trapped inside the house, and we simply haven’t discovered its
roosting spot. Gail counters that this is impossible, as there is
nothing for the bat to eat.)
After lunch on Saturday, we experienced a small window of clear
weather. Russell and Steve took advantage, strapped on their harnesses,
and went up onto the roof for the first time in two years. (In fact, it
was exactly two years ago – September 24, 2005 – that we originally capped the roof.)
Steve and Russell, back on the roof again
It took us awhile to get our “roof legs” again, but it was also
incredibly wonderful to be back up on top of the house with an
unobstructed panoramic view all around us.
We took off the roof cap, not knowing if we would find sleeping
bats, tons of bat droppings, or what. We were surprised. Other than a
long-abandoned wasp nest, there was no sign of bats at all. In fact,
the insulation was still packed in there so tightly that nothing could
have gotten through.
Russell removes the roof cap
Steve peers under the roof cap, looking for any signs of bats
Since we had gone through so much trouble to get back up there, we
went ahead and filled the space with steel wool as an extra precaution
(all of the “get rid of bats” web sites say that bats will not try to
crawl or fly through steel wool). It was a bit tricky to get the roof
cap back on, but we managed it successfully.
We stuffed steel wool under the roof cap before screwing it back down
Just as we began to climb down from the roof, it started raining
again. Through sheer luck, we had managed to find the exact and only
window of opportunity to climb up on the roof between storms. As Steve
later observed, “Standing on top of a metal roof – on top of a mountain
– during a rainstorm is not a smart idea.”
During the two nights that we spent up on the mountain this weekend,
we had no bat sightings. Thanks to Steve’s help inside the house, we
are more convinced than ever that we have plugged every possible
entrance and exit hole. Thanks to Steve’s help outside on the roof, we
are also convinced that bats have never roosted up there either.
The mystery of the bats still remains just that – a mystery. We can
never “prove” absolutely that we have stopped the bats from getting
into the house. We can only hope that we continue to not see them.
The view from on top of the roof – still breathtaking
(hmm… are those storm clouds approaching?)
[Worldtrippers
home] [Mountaintop
home]
Comments (0)
Send Private Message
Posted to octagonaltopsider by Gail in Cupertino, CA
on 8/17/2009
August 9, 2009
August Marathon 4: Two Fans, One Landing
Our nephew Blake checks that the first stairwell landing is being constructed squarely
For the last weekend of our August week marathon, we were joined not only by our eldest son Cameron but Russell’s sister Joanne and her family. In order to have two full nights at our mountain home, they left late on Friday, August 7th and arrived at 10:00 PM.
On Saturday morning, all four of them were willing and able to pitch in and help. The two children helped Gail and Cameron cut and install some more drywall, particularly the mold-resistant “green board” behind the shower in the upstairs bathroom.
Gail, Alison and Blake look on as Cameron cuts drywall
Joanne picked up where she had left off during her last visit, removing the packing adhesive from all of the shutter boxes that have now been installed.
Joanne carefully and laboriously peels a layer of plastic film from every shutter box
As he has done in the past, Joanne’s husband Matt volunteered for the most physically demanding tasks. With the ceilings now lowered in both of the upstairs bathrooms, we need the exhaust fans installed. Before this could happen, though, we need exhaust pipes fed to the exterior of the house. And before this could happen, we need holes drilled in the outside walls.
Matt took on these tasks, using a four-inch hole saw that our friend Dirk had loaned us. Matt drilled the “easy” hole first in the master bathroom, and it’s a good thing he did. Although he had a balcony to stand on when drilling the hole, he discovered that it was too small. Although the flexible pipe is 4” inches in diameter, the vent itself is 4-1/2”. Lacking a 4-1/2” hole saw, Matt had to use a Sawz-All to widen the hole.
The “easy” wall. At least Matt had a balcony to stand on, although he ended up having to widen the vent hole he drilled.
Gail models the amount of wood and insulation that needed to be drilled through
And that was the easy hole. The difficult hole needed to go through Joss’ closet to vent to the outside. Unfortunately, there is no balcony outside of Joss’ closet. The working configuration ended up including Matt standing on a fully-extended 20-foot ladder, with Gail and Joanne holding a rope between balconies to provide him with a safety line. Russell provided extra ballast at the bottom of the ladder when he wasn’t taking pictures.
The “difficult” wall. While Matt perched atop a 20-foot ladder to drill a vent hole outside of Joss’ bedroom, Gail and Joanne held a rope across the balconies to provide extra safety.
  
The view from the inside. The exhaust pipe for the hall bathroom had to pass through Joss’ closet to reach the outside
The task was much more difficult and precarious than the pictures indicate. Fortunately, Matt seems to have no fear of heights or edges (unlike the rest of us), as he has previously demonstrated during the original house raising and roof installation. Learning from his first effort, he sawed a 5” hole and covered the slack with caulking. He even caulked part of the exterior wall where the lamination is starting to come loose (more questionable work from Topsider, our kit house manufacturer).
 
The exhaust fans successfully installed in the upstairs hall and master bathrooms
As he has been doing all week, Russell spent most of his time in front of the PC, still trying to finalize the stair plans. Every time he thought he was ready to begin building, he would find one more error or change that needed to be addressed. He ended up with 22 pages of plans, covering every flight and landing.
Russell spent most of the week staring at a PC screen
It was not until Saturday, the last full work day, that Russell was finally able to begin building the first landing. He worked on it all the way until Sunday morning when we finally had to pack up and leave to go home. Fortunately, the landing is as solid as a rock.
Gail's brother-in-law Steve, who passed away earlier this year, was an accomplished wordworker who used to come up and help build. In memory, Russell is using Steve's tools to build the stairs. Steve will continue to be a part of our mountain home construction.
  
The first stairwell landing (finally): 37.5” high and built like a rock
There was also time for relaxing and socializing. Russell played several boardgames with the kids and Matt. Cameron took his cousins on a hike and for target practice with the pellet guns.
Cameron takes his cousins target shooting with air soft pellet guns
On the wildlife front, the kids met up with our wandering flock of wild turkeys, who actually came through the property twice. Joanne also spotted a young buck deer who wandered through the same knoll.
The wild turkeys wander past our car. They're getting big!
After more than a week, we are very sorry to leave the mountain, the mountain house, the forest and the clear weather. It feels like we are just on a roll of high productivity. Unfortunately, our upcoming weekend calendar is getting busy with church camp, family events and the start of school. With any luck, we’ll still be able to make a few trips in September before the weather turns.
Russell and Gail enjoyed one last sunset the evening before we departed
[Worldtrippers home] [Mountaintop home]
Comments (0)
Send Private Message
Posted to octagonaltopsider by Gail in Cupertino, CA
on 8/17/2009
August 7, 2009
August Marathon 3: Toilet Number Two
Cameron, working from the bathtub, installs a toilet bowl in the upstairs hall bathroom
On Monday, August 3rd, our friends Dirk and Steve said “goodbye” and departed our mountain home construction site. Gail and Russell would have a few days and nights to themselves before we had additional visitors.
Though the weather continued to be gorgeous, we still had the Knight fire, which had been burning all weekend several miles away to the southeast. This left a continuous ring of black all the way around the horizon.
The ash from the Knight fire left a ring of soot around the horizon
On the wildlife front, we discovered a nest of baby finches in the tree right outside our living room balcony. We were also treated to our usual sightings of dragonflies, bats and raptors in the sky. (Russell has bought a 1.5 acre bug zapper hanging light, so we can spend evenings outdoors without being bitten by bugs.)
 
We discovered a nest of finches in a tree right next to the house
We took the time to slow down work tasks and enjoy ourselves a little. Knowing that she had to rest this trip, Gail had brought up her oil painting supplies and spent some time painting. Russell was practically glued to the PC for several days, trying to complete his stairwell plans so he could start building.
Gail was able to paint for the first time in years
We did go ahead and lay down some sheets of OSB in the kitchen (Cameron’s bedroom) and living room, where furniture legs were constantly falling into the wiring chases. This gave us a chance to rearrange the living room furniture to make the sofa bed more usable. We also repaired the futon that Russell had scavenged from a Stanford University move-out day years ago. The metal frame had finally buckled from constant use by the big guys, Steve and Dirk. We installed a wooden frame instead.
 
We haven't even finished the house yet, and we're already rearranging the furniture!
We were also visited by both our building inspector Dennis and our plumber Curtis. Dennis looked over Russell’s stair plans and made some suggestions, but approved them overall. Curtis came at Gail’s request to answer some questions about the installation that he had done almost two years ago. (Curtis has actually been spending most of his time in the Bay Area lately. Due to the economic recession, he hasn’t done any residential work in Calaveras County for the last year and a half.)
Gail and Curtis Jaspers talk plumbing
On Wednesday, August 5th, Russell left Gail alone on the mountain and drove back to the Bay Area for a work meeting on Thursday morning. When he returned on Thursday evening, he brought our oldest son Cameron for the second weekend. (Our youngest son Joss is still away on church caravan.)
On Friday, Russell and Cameron took on the task of installing a second toilet in the upstairs hall bathroom. For the last two years, we have been relying on the single toilet downstairs, which (as Gail has constantly stated) is very inconvenient in the middle of the night. While he was here last weekend, Dirk hooked up a spigot to the water intake pipe. The site was ready for installation.
The upstairs hall bathroom, all ready for a toilet
Russell was very excited about teaching Cameron the finer art of toilet installation. In fact, he was so excited that he left out an important step. While demonstrating the use of ABS cement on the toilet flange, Russell accidentally glued it to the waste pipe without trimming the pipe first. As a result, the flange stuck out of the floor by several inches as opposed to being flush.
Russell spent the next half hour hacksawing the flange back off. Cameron was most likely not impressed.
The toilet flange, correctly installed (after a half hour with a hacksaw)
Fortunately, the next steps went very well. Cameron screwed the ring to the floor and installed the bowl.
Almost there. Unfortunately, we hit a snag after the bowl was installed.
Unfortunately, when we tried installing the tank, we discovered that one of the carriage bolts was badly threaded. We tried forcing the nut with several screwdrivers and several larger pieces of metal. All Russell succeeded in doing was slicing his hand open on a piece of metal.
Fortunately, Russell’s sister Joanne was driving up that night with her family. She was able to stop at a hardware store and pick up a replacement bolt. At 11:00 pm Friday night, the second toilet was finally installed.
The upstairs toilet, finished at last!
We will have a full house again for the remainder of our week. The weather continues to be terrific, and we are looking forward to the company.
Sunset reflected in the house windows… just gorgeous!
[Worldtrippers home] [Mountaintop home]
Comments (0)
Send Private Message
Posted to octagonaltopsider by Gail in Cupertino, CA
on 8/17/2009
August 4, 2009
Dirk Speaks
In our Web letters about our mountain home construction, we have tended to gloss over much of the electrical wiring that our friend Dirk has been doing. This tends to short-change his hard work, but frankly we don't understand half of what he's doing.
In an attempt to give credit where it is due, we finally asked Dirk to write his own Web letter. After reading it, we still don't understand half of what he's doing. But here it is anyway…
“That sounds like it would be fun.” And with those words, I start on the biggest home electrical project I have ever taken on.
The goal is simple: design and install a wiring system for the Lee’s home that is functional (provides light and electricity where needed) and meets code (the rules specified at national, state and sometimes county/city levels). “Code” means the wiring system has to pass one of several inspections. Fortunately for me, the local inspector will answer any question I have ahead of time.
The challenge in joining the “build a house in Glencoe” project comes from a few factors:
- the wiring system is partially installed,
- there is only one sheet in the house plans for the electrical system showing where switches and outlets should go, and
- requirements from the home owners keep evolving.
The electrical supply comes into a residence over 3 wires – to “hot” legs represented as the black and red wires, and a “neutral” white wire as seen in the main electrical panel. This arrangement allows for two voltages to be available in the house: 120 volts for most lights, appliances and electronic devices; and 220 volts for heavy-duty usage such as the clothes dryer and floor heating. If you connect something between either hot wire and the neutral wire, you get 120 volts. For 220 volts, you connect the load (something that uses electrical power) between both hot wires.
There is also a fourth wire that you find extending throughout the house. This is the safety “ground” wire, which is either bare or insulated with a green coating. Under normal operation, the electricity flows through the hot and neutral wires, never the ground wire. The ground system is connected to a long, copper rod driven into the ground (hence the name for this wire) and is establishes the “zero” volt level in the system. As part of the electrical safety system in the home, the metal water pipes and gas pipes are also connected to the ground system.
A peek into the electrical panel shows the different wires coming into the house. The black and red wires are “hot” legs. The white wires are “neutral” legs. The green wires are “grounds”.
The National Electrical Code (NEC) specifies the amount of electricity (measured in amps) that a specific size of wire can carry. Wire sizes (or diameters) in the U.S. are measured in gauges. For the main electrical system, you work mostly with 14-gauge wire, which is limited to 15 amps; and 20-gauge wire, which can handle 20 amps. For a few bigger loads (such as the dryer and water heater), 10-gauge wire is used and can supply up to 30 amps.
The wires in a home are run in cables that contain a ground wire, a white (neutral) wire and a black (hot) wire inside a protective insulating jacket. If this cable is made with 14-gauge wires, then it’s referred to as 14/2 (the ground wire isn’t counted) and the cable has a flat profile. If you add a red (second hot) wire to the cable, it becomes 14/3 and the cable takes on a round profile.
In recent years, to help everyone keep track of the wire size in cables, in California exterior jackets of 14-gauge cables are colored white, 12-gauge cables are colored yellow, and 10-gauge cables are colored orange.
In California, cables are color-coded by gauge
The wire to be used dictates the capacity of each circuit breaker you need to install in the electrical main panel to protect the system. Most hot wires are black and are connected to a breaker; in some case you will also see a red wire, usually in a 220-volt circuit. Neutral white wires all connect to a bar together, followed by all the ground wires that connect together on their own bus.
 
Dirk's configuration of the electrical main panel is a work of art. Each circuit breaker is labeled and color-coded.
Electrical panels are arranged so that the two hot legs alternate in the locations where breakers can be installed. This means that for any 220-volt circuit, you need two breakers installed side-by-side with the handles tied together. You can use a 14/3 cable for a “home run” from the panel to the first switch or outlet in a circuit, and split a second circuit off the red wire, sharing the white wire. However, to keep from running too much current over the white wire, these two circuits must be on opposite legs.
Beyond needing to put circuit breakers on the right legs, modern circuit breakers come in single and dual configurations. The latter are called tandem breakers. Tandem breakers can both have the same amperage, or they can have different amperages. If you are putting in 220-volt circuits, you still need to have the breakers side by side. In one case, we needed two 20-amp circuits for the kitchen and a breaker for the dryer. So a quad breaker was used, with the breakers arranged as 20, 30, 30, 20 amps and the second and third breaker handles tied together.
A close-up of the electrical panel, showing several of the breaker handles tied together
The panel in the Lee home has “spaces” for 20 single breakers or 40 tandem breakers. The house needs 32 circuits to keep everything running. It takes some planning to organize the circuit breakers in a panel. (If you start a home in 2009, there are new code requirements for the circuits in bedrooms that mandate arc fault circuit breakers, which don’t come as tandem breakers.)
So how does one decide what makes up any single circuit? There are no hard and fast rules for the overall house. However, the NEC has a whole bunch of requirements for the kitchen. The counter top outlets must be split evenly between two 20-amp circuits. Then the refrigerator, microwave oven, dishwasher and garbage disposal must all be on their own circuits.
Each bathroom needs its own 20-amp circuit as an outlet for hair dryers, curling irons, shavers and so on. A space heater in a bathroom to keep you warm after your bath also needs its own circuit.
After that you ground outlets and lights together, trying to keep the use of each circuit below 80 percent of its maximum at any one point in time. That’s 1440 watts for a 15-amp circuit. (The breaker trips if you use more than 1800 watts on a 120-volt circuit.)
As you run cable through the house, you don’t start every outlet and light circuit at the main panel. It would cost too much for wire, and you’d never get all the wires into the panel. So cable is run to the first outlet, then the second, then the third, and so on. Sometimes it makes sense to branch out to two outlets (or switches) from one outlet.
 
Dirk pulls wires to create a “home run” circuit from the load to the electrical panel
The NEC has rules for how many wires you can put in an electrical box. The math is funny, as all the ground wires don’t count after the first. The gauge of the wire has an impact; you can’t put as many 12-gauge wires as 14-gauge wires in a standard single outlet box (called a 1-gang box). And the presence of a switch or outlet impacts the calculation. It’s all based on the interior volume of a box. Fortunately, 1-gang boxes come in several depths, and once you get to 2-gang boxes (and there some 3- and 4-gang boxes in the house), the wire limit problem goes away.
Here is a 1-gang box on the right and a 3-gang box on the left
This specific project has also had a few non-code challenges.
- Without a diagram, I have had to reverse-engineer the installed wiring.
- There will be free-standing air conditioners/heaters in each of the three bedrooms and family room that use 12 amps when used as heaters (they need to be on 20-amp circuits).
- There is a 220-volt electric radiant floor heating system that will be installed on the first floor, and two upstairs bathrooms that needed to be planned for in the main panel.
- Would you believe the location of the top of the stairs is an electrical issue? Yes, it is – it changes where light switches have to go.
Gail and Dirk spent a lot of time reverse-engineering the previous wiring – trying to figure out why certain cables went “hither” instead of “yon”
By the time this is all done, the Lee’s home will have lights and outlets where they need them, a sign-off inspection report, and a friend who has an expanded electrical knowledge base.
Dirk in his element – in this case, the tiny crawlspace closet between the master bathroom and the laundry room
[Worldtrippers home] [Mountaintop home]
Comments (0)
Send Private Message
Posted to octagonaltopsider by Gail in Cupertino, CA
on 8/17/2009
August 4, 2009
August Marathon 2: Wiring 202
In this panorama, Gail (who is afraid of heights) installs an electrical “pancake box” in the vaulted ceiling (for a fan), while Dirk stands by
We have now been wiring our mountain house for almost two years. (It’s been almost three years, if you count from the time that we first brought power to the house.) Back in October 2007, Gail’s brother-in-law (and professional electrician) Jim estimated that we would need a couple of weeks to completely wire the house. After more than a year of intermittent work, Jim’s health and other obligations finally prevented him from continuing to help. We were stuck with a half-wired house. Fortunately, our friend (and unprofessional electrician) Dirk has stepped in to complete the job.
Dirk joined us during the first weekend of our August marathon week to continue the electrical wiring. He has brought a meticulousness and attention to detail that does Russell proud.
 
Dirk installs an outlet box on one of the exterior corners
The wiring work has consisted of pulling wires from the electrical panel (outside of the downstairs pantry) to pretty much every electrical outlet, switch and electrical fixture in the house. Romex wire comes in various types:
- 14/2 (flat white) wire is used for regular 15-amp, 120-volt circuits
- 14/3 (round white) wire is used for three-way switches
- 12/2 (flat yellow) wire is used for 20-amp, 120-volt circuits
- 12/3 (round yellow) wire is used, again, for three-way switches
- 10/2 (orange) wire is used for 220-vol circuits
(The first number refers to the wire gauge or thickness. The second number refers to the number of wires in the casing.)
A stack of Romex wire
Part of the art of wiring is determining which devices (and how many) should be daisy-chained together onto the same circuit. Should each room be on its own circuit? If so, the downside is that if the circuit goes out, the entire room is without power. Should half of a room share a circuit with half of another room? If so, consideration must be paid to how much total electricity is likely to be pulled at any given time.
Ultimately, each circuit must end at the electrical panel, a connection called a “home run.” Jim and Gail spent countless hours drilling large holes through joists and studs in order to “pull wires” from the panel to the rooms.
Drilling 3/4” holes through studs is not fun! (One of the contributing factors to Gail's current tendonitis)
Unfortunately, the work they did was not completely documented. When Dirk stepped in, he was faced with a number of wires that left the panel and went nowhere. He was faced with a different set of wires that connected fixtures but didn’t go to the panel.
Not all of the current circuits made sense. Because our temporary kitchen is set up in Cameron’s bedroom, we were constantly tripping the circuit breaker for the refrigerator and microwave. We gave up trying to run them at the same time, and actually put the microwave downstairs so it would be on a different circuit. Separately, we were constantly tripping other circuit breakers from running the portable air conditioner/heater units throughout the house.
As a result, Dirk and Gail spent countless hours tracing every single wire in the house, marking what it did and where it went. They spent countless other hours unpulling wires, drilling new holes, and re-pulling wires. Again, Dirk has brought a meticulousness and attention to detail that does Russell proud.
 
The original switch box by the front door: a mess of unmarked wires.
The same switch box “AD” (After Dirk). Dirk installed a triple-switch box. In addition, the wires have all been labeled and screw-capped.
Dirk has done a number of wonderful things that have made Gail do happy dances. He has created a full electrical plan for the house. He has installed at least one 20-amp power outlet in each bedroom. We can now run the AC/heaters, refrigerator and microwave (as well as other devices) without constantly running downstairs to re-set the circuit breakers.
 
The original pantry wall (the hole at the bottom connects to the electrical panel outside the house). Our original electrician, Walt Perreira, hooked up a single outlet box to give us power.
The same pantry wall “AD.” Dirk and Gail have established all of the “home runs.”
A panorama of the pantry wall and ceiling, showing all of the “home runs”
Dirk has now confirmed every “home run” throughout the house. He still has a list of no less than 87 “to do” items, everything from wiring the radiant heat pads to wiring the outside lights. (Russell has a crazy idea of installing three different types of lights: white for the porch lights, yellow for bug lights, and red for animal viewing.)
  
One of the tasks still remaining is to “screw cap” and “pigtail” all of the circuit boxes.
First, the loose wires are pulled into the boxes.
Second, similar wires are “screw capped” together.
When necessary, a “pigtail” (extra wire scrap) is included in the screw cap to connect to the future switch.
Dirk has been patient and easy-going, a complement to our other friend Steve (and a good counterpoint to Russell’s intense and impatient work style). The only downside is that when the three men get together and talk about engineering, Gail starts to roll up into a little ball.
But that’s a small price to pay for the amazing productivity and generosity of our volunteer work crew.
Dirk and Steve with Gail – the finest work crew that Mike's Hard Lemonade can buy
[Worldtrippers home] [Mountaintop home]
Comments (0)
Send Private Message
Posted to octagonaltopsider by Gail in Cupertino, CA
on 8/17/2009
August 3, 2009
August Marathon 1: Rebuilding Cameron’s Wall
Gail and Russell use crowbars to pry apart Cameron’s bedroom wall
The beginning of August is usually a very productive time for us in building our mountain home. The days are long and the weather is sunny. In addition, our youngest son Joss is gone for an entire week with his church caravan. This gives us an opportunity to go up to our mountain for a longer period of time. This year, we planned and provisioned for nine days, from Saturday August 1st through Sunday August 9th.
By the time Gail and Russell arrived Saturday early afternoon, our friend Dirk was already there and working on the electrical wiring. Our other friend Steve showed up soon after, ready to clear and haul away more brush.
Gail received some bad news earlier in the week: she has developed tendonitis in both elbows, her right shoulder and her left thumb. This was undoubtedly aggravated by too much heavy lifting of drywall and floorboards lately. Gail has vowed to refrain from doing any heavy lifting for the next month. While she brought books and painting supplies to occupy her time, she was clearly frustrated by the situation. Fortunately, she was able to provide pitch-in help to all of the other workers.
Russell’s priority for the first few days was to rebuild Cameron’s bedroom wall. As we have previously recounted, the wall was framed and built 16 inches over the stair alcove. We didn’t realize the consequences until we started to design the stairs: we missed the minimum requirement for headroom by several inches. As an alternative to moving the entire wall, we decided to move the wall joists from underneath the floor to on top of it.
  
Cameron’s original wall, which protrudes 16 inches over the stairway alcove. The wall is constructed normally, with supporting 6” joists underneath the OSB subfloor.
Russell estimated that it would take two hours to remove the old joists and two hours to install the new ones. He had underestimated by several hours.
First, we had to cut and install the new joist. (For obvious support reasons, we decided to install the new joist before removing the old one.) We originally planned to use 2x6s doubled, but discovered that we didn’t have any suitable lumber on hand. Fortunately we had some 2x8s, so we used those instead.
 
Gail uses wood glue on the 2x8s to create a double-joist.
Gail and Russell use a circular saw to cut the stud bottoms (note Gail's wrist bandages)
Once the new joists were in place, we trimmed and plumbed the old studs and reattached them.
  
The sill plate has been removed, as well as several inches from each stud
Finally, we removed the old joists from below the floor. This ended up being the most difficult task, as Russell had installed the old joists to be as permanent as possible. The task was finally finished Monday mid-day. Fortunately, the result looked as if the wall had always been designed that way.
  
The new 2x8 joists have been installed. Note that there are currently two sets of joists: one above the OSB subfloor, and one underneath it. (Note also the temporary braces we installed, to prevent the new joist from falling over the edge!)
The critical path to completing the house is still the stairs. While Russell has yet to install a single piece of the future stairwell, rebuilding Cameron’s wall is a major milestone towards that goal.
 
The final wall, with the original joists removed from below the OSB subfloor. It looks like it was designed that way!
[Worldtrippers home] [Mountaintop home]
Comments (0)
Send Private Message
Posted to octagonaltopsider by Gail in Cupertino, CA
on 8/17/2009
July 26, 2009
Let Us All Re-joist
Russell saws through one of the bathroom ceiling joists, as Gail (reluctantly) holds the board steady
We have entered that period of summer that we normally call “the marathon,” when we try to be extra productive by traveling to our mountain house construction every weekend during the warm weather. As usual, we left our sons at home for the weekend of July 24-26th. And as usual, we were joined on Saturday by our friends Dirk and Steve.
As each worker arrived and settled in, everybody assumed their usual positions. Inside the house, Dirk and Gail worked on electrical wiring. Russell worked on construction. Outside the house, Steve worked on the overgrown scrub.
Russell’s agenda had been decided last weekend, when we discovered that the bathroom exhaust fans would not fit in the current four-inch ceiling joists. Russell would need to re-route the joists to run lengthwise instead of crosswise, so the exhaust hose could run to the exterior of the house. In addition, Russell would need to add a second layer of joists to make the ceiling thick enough to accommodate the fans.
To help Russell figure out how to re-joist the ceiling, Gail and Dirk drew this handy illustration of the exhaust fan on the bathroom wall
It took almost all of Saturday just to complete the hall bathroom. The master bathroom is even more complicated, with its zigzagged combination of 22.5º, 45º and 90º angles. Russell got less than halfway through the second bathroom; the rest will have to wait for next weekend.
 
The joists being re-engineered
The hall bathroom is on the left; the master bathroom is on the right
 
First, the cross-joists had to be cut where the fans and exhaust hoses would be installed
 
Then, new joists were installed lengthwise, creating a chase that would keep the ceiling structurally sound
Finally, a second set of joists was installed directly below the first set. This expanded the ceiling space from 3.5” to 7”, enough space to install the fans (someday). Russell only finished the hall bathroom; the master bathroom will have to wait for a future trip.
Outside, Steve worked on clearing the main approach road of overhanging branches. Gail helped on the main road as well, raking several hundred feet of rocks from the dirt road. In addition, Steve made two runs to the dump on Saturday and three on Sunday. (Unfortunately, we heard later that Steve’s truck overheated during his drive home.)
Gail had a weekend of very bad luck. While raking rocks, she developed a large blister on her hand. While installing a spigot on the water supply line in the upstairs bathroom, she stood up under a cabinet and developed a large welt on her head. Finally, while standing outside chatting, she was stung on the arm by a yellow jacket.
On the wildlife front, we were visited once again by our flock of wild turkeys, which came by early Saturday morning at 6:30 AM. Gail was so excited that she set the alarm clock for 6:00 AM on Sunday morning. Rising bright and early, she made herself a cup of coffee and snuggled under blankets next to the panoramic windows downstairs. Unfortunately, the turkeys never made a return appearance. The only other life Gail saw that early in the morning was Dirk. (There is a straight line there, but we’ll just leave it at that.)
The flock of wild turkeys on Saturday morning. Sadly, they did not make a return appearance on Sunday.
Once again, Dirk and Steve outlasted Gail and Russell, who had to depart at Sunday noon for obligations back home. But no worries – we’ll be back up here again next weekend.
In a gesture of compassion, Dirk and Steve volunteered to wash dishes before Gail injured herself further. We don't quite understand the pose.
[Worldtrippers home] [Mountaintop home]
Comments (0)
Send Private Message
Posted to octagonaltopsider by Gail in Cupertino, CA
on 8/17/2009
July 20, 2009
The Stairway Glitch of the Day
Russell marks the possible stairwell footprint with masking tape
We have previously recounted all of the time and trouble Russell has endured trying to design the interior stairs for our mountain home. After several iterations, he finally arrived at a plan that was approved by our building inspector.
We have also recounted how Russell spent the last weekend up at the mountain installing the remaining shutters. This was not the original plan.
Russell’s original plan was to begin mapping out the stairs. He actually started doing this on Saturday morning. He got as far as marking the location of the first landing when he ran into yet another glitch.
To recap, the main issue is back during framing, Russell had moved Cameron’s bedroom wall so that it hangs over the stairway alcove by 16 inches. Unfortunately, this created a limitation in headroom that Russell did not discover until he started to design the stairs. The solution was to make sure that the landing under this section is no higher than a 40 inch elevation. This would ensure a clearance of 80 inches below the second floor, which has an elevation of 120 inches.
To be sure, Russell’s plan has the landing at 37.5 inches. This should have created a headroom clearance of 82.5 inches, passing the building code requirements with several inches to spare. In reality, it did not.
The current stair plan includes a landing (upper right) that is elevated 37.5” off the ground
On paper, Russell had failed to account for the fact that the second floor is supported by 2x6” joists. In other words, the second floor does not have a true elevation of 120 inches. It has an actual elevation of 120 inches minus the 6-inch joist, or 114 inches. As a result, the headroom clearance over the second landing is actually only 76.5 inches, below the 80-inch minimum.
 
The landing (blue) has headroom of 82.5” from the second floor (yellow), but only 76.5” from the joist underneath (red)
Russell and Gail spent quite awhile brainstorming what to do about this latest glitch. The simplest solution would be to revert back from 7.5” risers to 8” risers. While we would be allowed to do this because we are grandfathered into the old code, both of us hated this idea. Our current construction stairs have an 8” rise and they are exhausting to go up and down all day.
The other solution would be to physically move Cameron’s wall 16 inches back. Both of us hated this idea even more. In fact, Gail said that she would rather live with 8” risers than spend up to a week moving Cameron’s wall.
 
A panorama of Cameron’s wall. Unfortunately, it is the single largest wall in the entire house. Russell estimates that moving it would require several days’ work.
Unable to come up with any better ideas, we decided to punt. Russell spent the rest of the weekend installing shutters; it was not until Sunday afternoon that Dirk had time to join us for a second brainstorm. This one was more productive.
The trick would be to reduce the amount of space that the joist takes up under the second-story sub-floor. The current culprit is a 2x6” double-joist. Russell suggested replacing the 2x6”s with 2x4”s. This would only gain us 2 inches, and we needed 3.5 inches.
 
Cameron's wall where it overlaps the alcove. The wall is supported by a 2x6” double-joist.
Russell’s idea: replace the 2x6” double-joist with a 2x4” double-joist. Unfortunately, this would only gain us 2 inches.
Gail suggested laying a single 2x4” joist horizontally instead of vertically. While this would gain us 4 inches, Russell did not believe the resulting wall would be structurally sound. A 2x4’s bow (horizontal sag) is much weaker than its crown (vertical sag).
Gail’s idea: replace the 2x6” double-joist with a 2x4” single-joist laid horizontally. Unfortunately, this would make the wall structurally unsound due to potential bowing.
It was Dirk, listening to this banter, who had the magical “aha” moment that led to a breakthrough. “Why not move the 2x6” double-joist from below the subfloor to above the subfloor?” The idea was brilliant. We could still secure it structurally at both ends. On the outside, it would be attached to the exterior wall. On the inside, it would be attached to a new subfloor joist that had yet to be built.
Dirk’s idea: Move the 2x6” double-joist from underneath the sill-plate to on top of it. We have a winner!
Everything depended on whether this new scenario would be approved by the building inspector.
On Monday, after we returned to the Bay Area, Russell sent an email to Dennis describing the situation and asking for approval. By that evening Dennis had written back. “I have no problem with that.”
It was “happy dance” time once more. There are still several details to be worked out, including how to remove the current double-joist, how to make room for a new double-joist, and exactly how to attach the new double-joist to the exterior wall.
The main point is that we still have an approved plan with 7.5” risers. That is, until the next glitch rears its ugly head…
Russell's emails to our building inspector tend to include elaborate illustrations. Yes, we believe he is detail-oriented enough to build the stairs!
[Worldtrippers home] [Mountaintop home]
Comments (0)
Send Private Message
Posted to octagonaltopsider by Gail in Cupertino, CA
on 8/17/2009
July 19, 2009
A Million Little Pieces
Gail looks on as Dirk wires an outlet downstairs
Russell’s original plan was to go back up to our mountain home construction site last weekend, July 10th. However, as a result of our previous trip (when he was clearing one of the trails), Russell contracted a fairly extensive case of poison oak. It was so bad that he also infected Gail just from coming in contact with her. Given his rash, his need to avoid sunlight and his lack of overall mobility (itchy legs), Russell took a weekend off.
Both Russell and Gail did come back up on Friday afternoon, July 17th, leaving the boys at home. They were joined on Saturday morning by both Steve and Dirk. There are a million tasks that need to be done, and everyone promptly set about to their individual to-do lists.
The temperature outside was 101º F in the shade and even hotter in the sun. By the time we got up in the mornings the temperature was already 80º F inside the house; by running all three air conditioners continuously we were able to keep it at that level all day.
Nevertheless, Steve spent the entire two days outside in the hot sun doing hard physical labor. He cleared brush until his axe broke, then picked up a hatchet and cleared some more. He made an astonishing seven runs to the dump and back with his truck and trailer. He even hauled away the old scrap insulation that Gail had torn from the ceilings more than four years ago, as well as some scrap metal that was onsite when we originally bought the property.
Steve prepares one of the last two shutter curtains (the front door) for hanging
Dirk continued to work on the electrical wiring, largely trying to figure out what his predecessor (Gail’s step-brother Jim) had done previously. Among other things, Dirk was able to install light switches (and lights) in both the downstairs and upstairs bathrooms. His next big project is to map out a detailed wiring schematic for the entire house.
Dirk lays out his electrical wiring schematic
Gail continued installing drywall. With the interior walls as far along as they can be (until we pass the wiring inspection), Gail turned her attention to the inside of the exterior walls. Because of our previous bad experiences with water leakage from sideways rain, Gail decided to line every exterior wall with a vapor barrier before putting up drywall. She also decided to put wire mesh across all gaps between wood panels as an extra deterrent against rodents.
Gail takes a break after drywalling her first exterior wall (the upstairs sitting room)
Russell was finally able to finish installing the last two shutters, calling in help at various times from the other three workers. We now have shutters around the entire downstairs perimeter.
  
The front door shutter… finished!
  
The bathroom window shutter… finished!
This last shutter was small enough for Russell and Dirk to install without the normal contraption of hanging ropes and pipes
We also had time to enjoy ourselves. Gail made a delicious dinner of tri-tip steak (with locally-made “Chaka’s” marinade sauce) on Saturday. In honor of the upcoming 40th anniversary of the moon landing, we watched several episodes of “From the Earth to the Moon.” (Gail was unnerved to be surrounded by so many analytical, engineering-wired men.)
On the wildlife front, we had an entire flock (rafter? congress?) of wild turkeys come meandering through the property twice in two days.
 
Only weeks ago, our entire kitchen was a tiny workspace. Now, we wonder how we ever functioned without all of the space!
Unfortunately, the weekend ended on a down-note, at least for Russell. Gail and Dirk informed him that building codes require externally-vented exhaust fans in both the hallway and master bathroom ceilings. Unfortunately, Russell constructed the ceilings with 2x4” joists – not enough space for the fans or hoses – and he doesn’t want anything protruding into the parapet above. The only alternative will be for him to drop both ceilings by installing an additional set of 2x4” joists below the first set.
So we actually have a million and one tasks, but this one will have to wait for future trip.
The upstairs bathroom now has a real light switch (and a real light)!
[Worldtrippers home] [Mountaintop home]
Comments (2)
Send Private Message
Posted to octagonaltopsider by Gail in Cupertino, CA
on 8/17/2009
July 5, 2009
“How Many Other Families…”
Gail installs drywall on the parapet – the hottest part of the house during the hottest part of the day
On July 2nd, our family of four – Gail, Russell, Cameron and Joss – took our (now) traditional drive up to our mountain house for the long July 4th holiday weekend. Unfortunately, it was 6:30 PM before we got out of the Bay Area; with the holiday traffic we didn’t arrive until almost 10:30 PM.
With two full work days, Gail went into overdrive with her drywalling. She spent the entire weekend either up in the parapet installing drywall, downstairs cutting drywall, or carrying drywall up two flights of stairs to the parapet.
 
A panorama of Cameron and Joss helping Gail install a particularly large piece of drywall.Gail closes up the parapet (the hole is for the octagonal window)
The good news is that by Sunday morning, just about the entire parapet had drywall on the inside walls. (She can’t install the outside until we’ve passed the electrical-wiring inspection.) The new barriers block out both light and noise, adding welcome privacy to both the master bedroom and Joss’ bedroom (where both boys currently sleep).
A panorama of the parapet completely drywalled (the octagonal window frame is to the right of the center pole)
Russell set himself a much less ambitious agenda, tackling a list of odd jobs that have been building up for awhile. With Cameron’s help, Russell built and installed a shelf in Cameron’s bedroom closet (just as Joss did in his own bedroom awhile ago). Cameron’s room is currently being used as our kitchen, but the extra shelf helps.
Ever since we moved the kitchen into Cameron’s room two years ago, Gail has had to deal with a challenging lack of counter space. This is because we have a four-foot-long wooden food box sitting directly on top of our only six-foot table.
For two years, we have had to cook with almost no counter space
So the three men built a wooden stand just for the food box. As part of the redecoration we had to rearrange the entire “kitchen,” including drywalling the closet (Gail, of course) and installing the aforementioned closet shelf. But the result is that we now have the entire six-foot table for counter space, as well as several extra shelves.
  
Cameron's closet is part of the temporary kitchen
Cameron and Russell install a shelf in the closet
The closet, now drywalled and shelved
 
Joss and Cameron build a stand for the food box
The food box, on the completed stand, sits in Cameron's closet
 
With the food box on its own stand and the addition of two new shelves, we can finally use all six feet of the folding table
Russell’s best achievement for the weekend – and our most positive news – was the stairway alcove. Previously, Russell had measured the distance between the alcove wall and a glulam beam at 64”. According to his proposed stair design, the uppermost step would therefore nick the glulam beam by two inches. Although our building inspector approved this design, Russell wanted to double-check his measurements.
This required cleaning out the entire alcove, which we had been using to store all of our tools, equipment and planks of OSB. With the alcove finally cleared out, Russell was able to take more precise measurements. This time, the distance came out to 66”. Incredibly, we have “gained” the exact two inches that will give us full clearance for our stairs! It was Russell’s turn to do a happy dance. Of course, all he has to do now is actually engineer and build the stairs.
 
The stairway alcove, before and after cleaning
Cameron and Joss got involved in their own project. Using scraps of lumber and OSB, they built four movable “walls” to use in their airsoft pellet-gun fights. Mom and Dad were happy to see their teenage sons enthusiastically motivated by a project, and happy as well to see the scrap lumber being put to good use.
  
Joss and Cameron build a portable wall (“Lee 1414” is our project number from a Topsider shipping crate)
Some of the completed walls
The arena in action
We enjoyed watching fireworks off in the distance from the mountaintop (best viewed with binoculars) and had two breakfasts out – one in Mokelumne Hill as part of their Independence Day celebration, and one at the nearby American Legion Hall. Gail even found time to grill hamburgers for our Independence Day dinner.
On the wildlife front, we saw four deer in four days – two of them right up near the house. Russell also got his best photos yet of a jackrabbit, as it hopped all the way from the access road to the trampoline to the tree swings to the shed.
 
Russell's best photos of a jackrabbit
We finished the long weekend by stopping for an early during our return drive on Sunday. Russell wanted to share a favorite dining experience from his recent birthday walk, at an atmospheric Pleasanton restaurant called “Eddie Papa's.” Gail and the boys kept the waitress in constant entertainment as they arm-wrestled at the table.
Russell pronounced the entire family weekend “a blast.” We accomplished a lot. At a moment when Gail was covered with white drywall dust and Russell was covered with sawdust, he remarked to her, “How many other families do you know who can do what we do?”
Happy Independence Day!
[Worldtrippers home] [Mountaintop home]
Comments (0)
Send Private Message
Posted to octagonaltopsider by Gail in Cupertino, CA
on 8/17/2009
June 29, 2009
Stairing Into Space
Russell studies Topsider's blueprints for our mountain house
Thanks to our friend Dirk, the wiring installation for our mountain home is now proceeding rapidly. As a result, the critical path for an occupancy permit is now the finished stairs. And while wiring was Gail’s domain, the stairs are Russell’s responsibility.
None of us knows anything about building or installing stairs. And while we could pay someone several thousands of dollars to do it for us, there is a certain challenge in building them ourselves. Furthermore, Gail did some reading and decided that Russell matches the exact profile of a good stair builder: analytical, meticulous and detail-oriented. Not to add any additional pressure, but Gail kept saying – more than once – “You know, the stairs are going to be a showcase of the finished house!”
For four years we’ve had temporary stairs, first assembled by by Russell's brother-in-law Matt in 2005 (the alcove is in the background)
There are stairs indicated in our blueprints from Topsider, but Gail doesn’t like them. They show a set of four flights (with three intermediate landings) that wind clockwise as you go up. Gail doesn’t like them because they have too large a footprint downstairs. She wants the lower floor to be as unobstructed as possible, especially given the huge walls of panoramic windows.
 
Topsider's blueprints call for stairs that wind clockwise as they ascend from the lower floor (left) to the upper floor (right)
We investigated spiral staircases, which have a very small footprint. Unfortunately, residential building codes state that if you have a spiral staircase, you must have a second staircase for fire safety. We actually investigated building a second staircase outside leading up to the deck. Ultimately, we rejected this for security reasons.
Instead, we decided to design a staircase that would fit into the alcove next to the front door, with as little protrusion into the downstairs as possible.
So during our long week up on the mountain in June, Russell took an initial look at the stair alcove. In fact, when he wasn’t derailing Gail and Dirk with door hanging, he was derailing them with long discussions about stairs.
The alcove is 114” wide by 36” deep by 120” high. Current residential codes require steps that are 36” wide (minimum), with a 7-3/4” rise (maximum) and 10” run (minimum). Fortunately, we are grandfathered into the old code, which has more lenient requirements of 8” rise (maximum) and 9” run (minimum).
Initially, Russell thought the stair design would be easy. Under the old code, we would require a total of 15 steps to reach the second floor. Simply compute how many steps will fit into the alcove, add a landing, make a 90º turn and add the remaining steps to the first floor. Simple, right?
It was not until we actually taped out this design on the floor that we ran into “Glitch No. 1.”
Back when Russell framed the upstairs, he had to move several walls from the blueprint spec in order to work around the center pole of the house. One of these walls was Cameron’s bedroom, which originally lined up with the north wall of the alcove. As built, the wall now protrudes 16” over the alcove.
  
“Glitch No. 1”: On the north end of the alcove (right side of drawing), Cam's bedroom upstairs protrudes 16” (red) over the alcove opening (blue), limiting headroom
The problem is that the proposed stairwell landing would be 48” off the ground. This would leave headroom clearance of only 72". Residential code specifies minimum headroom of 80”. Oops.
Scenario “A”: the landing (on right) does not have enough headroom
Back to the drawing board. Russell’s scenario “B” involved adjusting the stairwell 16” over. This caused two problems. First, the lower landing would now protrude much farther into the lower floor, which Gail wanted to avoid. Second, the uppermost step encountered “Glitch No. 2.”
On the other end of the alcove (the south end), the second floor has both a joist and a glu-lam beam. Because the upper flight will reach the second floor here, it is critical that the tread clears both the joist and glu-lam. Under scenario “B,” the last tread would cut into the joist. Oops.
 
“Glitch No. 2”: On the south end of the alcove (left side of drawing), the stairs can’t extend past the point where the joist (red) and glu-lam beam (brown) intersect (yellow circle)
Scenario “B”: The stairs have been shifted 16” over. Unfortunately, the upper flight cuts into the glu-lam beam and the lower flight’s footprint is too big.
Undaunted, Russell designed scenario “C,” which now had three flights and two landings – one on each end of the alcove. He actually drew this one at home, phoning the instructions to Gail and Dirk on the mountain. They measured everything out, even holding up some scrap pieces of wood to check site lines. Everything looked good.
Scenario “C”: A moment of success!
It wasn’t until Gail returned home that she began to have second thoughts. Wouldn’t it be better to have 7.5” rises instead of 8”, especially as we got older?
Russell explained that 7.5” rises would require 16 steps, not 15. Unfortunately, there was no way for scenario “C” to add that one extra step. It couldn’t go on the lower flight, because that would reduce the first-landing headroom below the minimum. It couldn’t go on the second flight, because the alcove was not wide enough. And it couldn’t go on the third flight, because the extra step would hit the glu-lam beam upstairs.
Gail resigned herself to 8” rises. Russell saw it as a challenge.
Over the next several days, Russell looked at additional landings, winders, and even curved steps. Each of these alternatives was rejected. (Russell has enough of a learning curve just building stairs; creating a curved stairway would probably make his brain explode.)
Russell created more than a dozen different stair scenarios, all of which had problems
In the end, Russell created two new scenarios with 7.5” rises, both of which were questionable. Scenario “D” added the 16th step to the upper flight, letting it cut into the glu-lam beam. Scenario “E” kept the same upper flight, but turned it at an angle to avoid the glu-lam beam.
 
Two scenarios with 7.5” rises, requiring an extra 16th step.
On scenario “D” (left), the extra step just nicks the glu-lam beam.
On scenario “E” (right), the entire upper flight is angled to avoid the glu-lam beam.
Russell emailed both drawings to Dennis, our building inspector, with the related questions:
- Are we allowed to “nick” one of the steps to avoid hitting the glu-lam beam?
- Are we allowed to construct a flight at an angle less than 90º?
Amazingly, Dennis’ answer to both questions was “yes.” He would approve either design.
For now, Russell hopes to proceed with scenario “D”. Secretly, he hopes that he measured something wrong and there is actually an extra inch or two between the alcove and the glu-lam beam.
He will find out on July 4th weekend, when he will return to the mountain with a tape measure.
Gail has already picked up two stair stringers from a salvage yard. We hope to re-use the treads and risers
[Worldtrippers home] [Mountaintop home]
Comments (0)
Send Private Message
Posted to octagonaltopsider by Gail in Cupertino, CA
on 8/17/2009
June 21, 2009
It’s the Water… And a Lot More
 
A full house on the mountain: Cameron and Joss with their cousins; Gail and Russell with the grown-ups
The week of June 16-20th saw the most people staying up on our mountain since the original “house raising party” more than four years ago.
On Tuesday, Russell drove up by himself. On Wednesday, he was joined by Gail, Cameron and Joss, as well as by our friend Steve. On Thursday they were joined by Russell’s sister Joanne, her two children and their cousin, as well as by our friend Dirk. On Thursday evening we had 10 people staying at the house.
Somehow the sleeping arrangements worked out. Gail and Russell were in the master bedrooms. Cameron, Joss and their cousin Blake were in Joss’ room. (We brought up and installed another bed – an extra-long twin that Gail had picked up from Craigslist – that became Cameron’s new bed.) Joanne and the two younger girls were in sleeping bags downstairs. Dirk slept outside. Steve started out sleeping outside, but a “large animal noise” in the dark drove him into the house and onto the futon.
Joss and Cameron and the new sleeping arrangements (they're playing a PC game against each other)
With the temperature in the mid-90s, we had all three portable air conditioners running. (They have been working terrifically as both heaters and coolers.) We had a very productive week, although we always wish that we could have gotten even more done.
Russell started out with a goal of hanging the final three security shutters, over the front door, back door, and bathroom window. Unfortunately, he underestimated the time it takes to stain and install trimwood, hang the rails, drill wiring access holes and hang the shutter boxes. With help from Steve and Joanne, he ended up installing three sets of rails, setting two boxes and hanging only one curtain.
 
Joanne and Russell (with Dirk's help) hang the shutter box over the front door
Russell and Steve hang the shutter curtain over the back door
Gail and Dirk, who had intended to proceed with wiring, constantly found their agenda usurped by Russell. Both the front and back doors needed to be re-framed to accommodate the shutters; Gail, Cameron and Dirk ended up spending all Thursday morning getting the back door to open and close properly. But as the unflappable Dirk remarked, “I don’t care what kind of progress we make, as long as it’s progress.”
Cameron and Gail try to figure out why the back door won't hang straight
When Steve wasn’t helping Russell, he spent all of his time working outdoors. He made three more trips to the dump with trailers full of brush. He weed-whacked and axe-chopped. (He also wanted to chainsaw, but we nixed that due to the hot, dry weather.) And he got his clothes and equipment covered with poison oak.
Steve tackles weeds that are as tall as he is
When Joanne wasn’t helping Russell, she helped with the massive amounts of used hardwood flooring that Gail has been scavenging. We had several hundred square feet of flooring that needed to be de-nailed, sorted, stacked and tied together. With an increasing need for floor space downstairs, Russell and Cameron took a lot of it down to the shed for longer-term storage. Even so, the lower floor of the house is still filled with wood.
 
Joanne helped bundle flooring wood
Cameron and Russell stacked it in the shed
But the major milestone of the week came courtesy of Dirk, who apparently dabbles in plumbing as well as electricity. Aware of the number of people who would be invading the house, Dirk came prepared with the equipment and tools necessary to connect our first interior running water! Joss volunteered to do the actual work. Dirk was a terrific mentor, helping Joss to connect both the faucet and drain for the upstairs bathroom sink.
 
Dirk gave Joss a crash course in plumbing
Success! We have running water!
This is a huge milestone. Until now, we had still been filling and storing gallon jugs of water, as well as draining our used water into a bucket. Gail did yet another happy dance.
There was also lots of time for fun and enjoyment. Russell got all of the kids hooked on “Dominion,” a card game that ended up getting played over and over again. The trampoline and tree swings got a lot of use. And the three boys enjoyed several skirmishes in the woods with their air soft pellet guns.
Steve, Joanne and her family departed on Friday. That evening we experienced the double-whammy of a flat tire on the Prius and a cracked radiator on the van. Our friend Dennis put a short-term fix on the van with some epoxy, while Russell and the boys departed on Saturday to get a new tire.
That left Gail and Dirk on the mountain, where they were finally able to make some real progress on their original agenda of wiring the house. As usual, Dirk was the “last man standing” on Sunday, putting in several more hours of productive work by himself even after Gail left.
Sunday, June 21st, marks the first day of summer. Either our car troubles or our work accomplishments foreshadow the coming season, and we certainly hope it’s the latter.
When you have your own mountain, you get to do fun things like ride around on the back of your van
[Worldtrippers home] [Mountaintop home]
Comments (0)
Send Private Message
Posted to octagonaltopsider by Gail in Cupertino, CA
on 8/17/2009
May 16, 2009
An Electrical Plan: Russell Walks, Gail Dances
Dirk and Gail discuss what needs to be done to finish wiring the house
As we have been reporting for some time, the current critical path in our mountain home construction is the electrical wiring. Wiring must be completed and approved before we can get our occupancy permit (and home insurance and a mortgage refinance).
Unfortunately, our original plan – relying on Gail’s step-brother Jim, a licensed electrician – has fallen through due to health and scheduling considerations on Jim’s part. We have been able to stall for awhile. Our inspector has found other things to sign off on during our regular inspections… but at some point, it will come down to the electrical. Gail has drywalled one side of each interior wall… but the second side can’t be drywalled until the wiring is approved.
This late in the process, we decided that it would be too late for us to try to learn everything necessary to complete it ourselves. Having run out of other options, we were willing to bite the bullet and hire a professional electrician. Our friend Dennis tried to put us in touch with some electricians, but most of them would prefer to scrap everything already done and start over.
A better solution was literally right under our noses. One of Russell’s long-time friends, Dirk, is a software engineer who is already happily semi-retired. We actually get together with Dirk about once a month for dinner. Unbeknownst to us, Dirk has actually done rewiring for several friends’ homes over the last several years. Even more unbeknownst to us, Dirk had been waiting patiently for us to invite him up to the mountain house to help out. We finally had a conversation about this, and Dirk was more than willing to come up and manage the rest of the electrical installation.
So on Friday, May 15th, Russell, Gail and Dirk all caravanned up to the mountain. Dirk hit the ground running, helping Russell to transport, unload and stack more than two dozen sheets of OSB that Gail had picked up on Craigslist (future subflooring).
Dirk atop a newly made stack of OSB
Russell and Gail had wildly different agendas for this trip. Russell was here to begin a 12-day, 160-mile walk to celebrate his 50th birthday. After spending Friday night, he departed on Saturday morning – literally walking down the road and off the property with a backpack and walking poles.
 
Russell departs on his 50th birthday walk
(You can read about Russell’s big walk on his separate blog here.)
Meanwhile, Gail and Dirk embarked on a different adventure, tackling the electrical wiring installation. Dirk immediately took charge, demonstrating his expertise and experience. He brought some incredibly cool gizmos, including a handheld device that would “beep” whenever a circuit was successfully completed. He helped identify and label all of the “home runs” (master wires that go all the way from each room to the breaker box). And he continued to pull more wire. The overall result was that Gail spent the weekend doing “happy dances.”
Gail and Dirk pull wires near the stairwell
Dirk's electrical work freed Gail up for other tasks, including prepping some second-hand floorboards for future use
Dirk was still hard at work when Gail departed late Sunday morning. He estimates that with one or two more long weekends, we will have the bulk of the electrical installation completed. With summer approaching, we can easily manage this. There is literally now a “light” at the end of the tunnel!
When we last left Dirk…
He was still busily (happily?) pulling wires
[Worldtrippers home] [Mountaintop home]
Comments (0)
Send Private Message
Posted to octagonaltopsider by Gail in Cupertino, CA
on 8/17/2009
April 17, 2009
Many Happy Returns
Gail installs the first drywall downstairs – on the wall separating the kitchen from the pantry and bathroom
We were not able to visit our mountain home building site for the entire month of March. We have already documents some of the reasons why, including our electrician (and Gail’s step-brother) Jim’s health problems and our son Joss’ continuing migraines.
Sadly, our lives were further put on hold when Gail’s brother-in-law Steve passed away on March 12th, a little more than a year after being stricken with brain cancer. Steve and his wife Debbie (Gail’s sister) were members of our original “house raising party” back in April 2005. In addition, Steve, Debbie and their son Eric spent many weekends with us up on the mountain, from tent camping to helping with construction. Russell has known Debbie longer than he has known Gail, so he played an active role in the memorial service.
The second week in April was Joss’ spring break from school, so Gail made a point of scheduling a long overdue trip back up to the mountain. Other than a one-hour stop in the beginning of April, Gail had not been to the mountain house since January. So on Wednesday, April 15th (Income Tax Day), the three of us – Gail, Russell and Joss – drove up for a two-night trip.
Gail’s agenda was to install more drywall (we drove up with an empty van to buy more sheets at the hardware store). Russell’s agenda was to clear more brush, given the unseasonably warm weather. Joss’ agenda was to try out his new soft air pellet gun (a sniper rifle complete with scope).
But our first priority – which we attacked on Wednesday evening after we arrived – was to try to take care of our rodent problem once and for all. When Russell was last here at the beginning of April, he was disappointed to see yet another mouse run across the floor of the master bedroom. (It’s a good thing Gail wasn’t there). We have come to the conclusion that the mice must be getting in through the crawlspace above the downstairs bathroom, which is currently covered with plastic sheet. (We have come to this conclusion because Gail has sealed or sprayfoamed every other possible crack in the house).
So in the fading sunlight of Wednesday afternoon, Russell went up on a ladder (Gail refused). Sure enough, the space was filled with rodent droppings. In addition, Russell shined a flashlight into the space and Gail could see all kinds of light from the outside of the house. Once the area was cleaned out, Gail attacked it with an entire can of spray foam. Needless to say, nothing is going to get through that space now. We went to be on Wednesday feeling a little more safe and secure than usual.
 
The crawlspace above the downstairs bathroom
Before: There is a small hole in the insulation on the right side, just perfect for rodents
After: Gail has filled the hole with an entire can of sprayfoam!
On Thursday morning, we were pleasantly surprised when our friend Dennis came by for a visit. Due to various organizational changes at the Calaveras Building Department, Dennis is now our building inspector once again. Dennis performed a visual inspection of our progress, signing us off for another six months. In addition, Dennis consulted with Gail on how to make further progress on the electrical wiring.
(We have accepted that Gail’s step-brother Jim will most likely be unable to finish helping with the electrical installation. Our choices are to finish the work without Jim or formally hire an electrician. We haven’t decided which course of action to take yet – Gail estimates that the wiring is about 80 percent completed to date.)
As Joss practices with his new air soft pellet gun, Gail chats with Dennis – once again our building inspector!
On Thursday afternoon, we were further surprised when Debbie and Eric drove up as well. We had extended an informal invitation to Debbie earlier in the week, but we really hadn’t expected her to take us up on it. The trip turned out to be a welcome opportunity for Debbie and Eric to get out of the Bay Area for awhile.
Debbie had not seen the mountain house since before we had started framing, and she was astonished and amazed at what we have accomplished to date. Everyone pitched in to do more work, both inside and outside the house. Eric was able to shoot target practice with his .22 caliber gun and ride a dirt bike around the property. On Thursday night we enjoyed a gorgeous sunset and watched a tearjerker movie.
  
Eric, Gail and Joss (up on the parapet) install a huge piece of drywall on the upstairs living room wall
It was great to be back up on the mountain. We spent a wonderful couple of days with both friend and family. We are still hopeful that we can get our occupancy permit before the end of summer, but it will require us returning much more often than we’ve been able to do lately.
In the meantime, Gail is off to spend a week in Louisiana to help with post-hurricane rebuilding. And Russell has his 50th birthday coming up in a little more than a month.
Debbie clears scrap lumber on the south side of the house – coincidentally, this is the same spot where her husband Steve used to meditate every morning when he visited the mountain
[Worldtrippers home] [Mountaintop home]
Comments (0)
Send Private Message
Posted to octagonaltopsider by Gail in Cupertino, CA
on 8/17/2009
April 4, 2009
Brushing Up
Steve loads his six-foot trailer for a run to the dump
While Gail has not been able to travel to our mountain house lately due to various scheduling conflicts, Russell and our friend Steve have still been dutifully (and happily) going up every couple of weeks. With interior work on hold, the two men have enjoyed working outside, tending to various areas of the 50-plus acres.
Steve’s only available time in April was the weekend of April 4th. Unfortunately, Russell had to be in town that Saturday evening. The solution was for Russell to take two days off of work, drive up Thursday and drive home Saturday. This enabled Gail to take a day trip and join Russell on Thursday. (Unfortunately, she pretty much had enough time to drive up, look around, then get back in her car and drive home again.) Meanwhile, Steve arrived on Friday for a 24-hour trip.
On their last trip, the men got rid of some piles of brush by burning them. Unfortunately, it took most of a day to burn, which meant that they could generate yard waste faster than they could get rid of it. Furthermore, the weather on the weekend of April 4 called for both sunny skies and high winds. Burning would be out of the question.
Steve solved the problem by bringing a six-foot trailer hitched to his truck. Gail had located a waste dump 15 minutes away that would accept unlimited yard waste. The agenda for the weekend was set.
Steve and Russell ended up making six trips to the dump, with each trip taking about an hour to load up the trailer, drive there, unload, and drive back. The result is a visibly cleaner area around the house. The southwest knoll (where the shed is) is now completely free of Manzanita.
  
When we bought the property in 2003, the southwestern knoll was relatively clear
After five years, it had become overgrown with manzanita
After several weeks of work, it is now even clearer than when we bought it!
As far as the house itself, Gail and Russell brought up a sofa bed that we had been storing in the garage, and Steve and Russell successfully moved it upstairs to the living room. (We had been using a futon that we had gotten as a free discard, but it was getting so uncomfortable that it was actually hurting our backs to sit in it).
 
In the upstairs living room, an old futon has now been replaced with an almost-new sofa bed
For such a short trip (for Gail and Steve at least), it turned out to be a very productive weekend.
The southwestern knoll – another panoramic view that we are able to enjoy for the first time in several years
[Worldtrippers home] [Mountaintop home]
Comments (0)
Send Private Message
Posted to octagonaltopsider by Gail in Cupertino, CA
on 8/17/2009
March 1, 2009
Our First Burn Piles
Russell tends a burn pile
As we continue building our mountain house, the current critical path in construction is the interior electrical wiring. Unfortunately, this task has been delayed for a couple of reasons. First, our electrician and brother-in-law Jim has been sidelined by ongoing health problems, including pneumonia and emphysema. Second, Gail has been occupied with our son Joss’ increasing migraines, his school absences and the required make-up work.
Russell continues to have available weekends to go up to the mountain, but there is less for him to do inside the house. Instead, he has been devoting his time to working outside. This is just fine with our friend Steve, who is only to happy to join Russell if it means working outside in the natural beauty.
When we first bought the property, Russell’s hope was to take a hands-off, “maintenance-free” approach to the land. We would let nature grow, self-select, die and decay naturally. Besides, 50 acres would be a lot to maintain continuously. Unfortunately, six years later we have had to re-think this strategy. New fir trees have begun sprouting up in inopportune places, threatening to cover up our panoramic view. Weeds and scrub – particularly Manzanita – have increasingly encroached on the trails and fields, creating a fire hazard as they surround the house.
So Russell and Steve have begun tending the grounds and clearing the brush during their last several trips. Russell bought a wood chipper in December. But while the chipper works for small yard jobs, it is nowhere near able to process the huge piles of brush that we have been cutting.
In preparation for Russell and Steve’s work trip on the weekend of February 27th, Gail signed up for a burn permit. The process was much easier than we had thought. You basically fill out a form, write a check, and mail it in. In return, you are given a burn permit good for six months. On any given day, you call a phone number to find out whether it’s a permitted burn day or not. With the weather forecast predicting rain for the weekend, we pretty much knew we would be able to burn.
A beautiful sky, conducive to burning
Russell spent the weekend setting up and maintaining two burns: one at the top of the mountain, near the house; another on the southwestern knoll near the shed. Due to the very high winds on the mountain, Russell ended up having to babysit the fires continuously to make sure nothing bad happened. In between, he was able to finish cutting and installing OSB on the parapet subfloor.
We had to move the burn pile that was up by the house – the original pile was right on top of the septic leech field
The burn pile on the southwestern knoll by the shed
Steve’s time was not as productive. His plan for the weekend was to cut more brush for the burn piles. However, late Friday evening when he first arrived, he immediately got his truck stuck in the mud on the northern trail approaching the house. After an hour of trying to pull it out with his comealong, he finally gave up and walked to the house in the dark. The following morning, we were able to free the truck by using a couple of boards to give the tires extra traction.
Unfortunately, only a few hours later, Steve proceeded to get his truck stuck yet again in the mud, this time on a trail southeast of the house that the boys’ have named “Bunny Flats.” This time, not only did boards not help, but Steve also ended up breaking his comealong. Ultimately, he had to walk over to our neighbor Scott, who used his tractor to pull the truck out of the mud.
After these mishaps, Steve considered continuing to drive around on the back trails. Russell's advice was simple: “Drive your truck to the top of the hill. Park it by the house… and leave it there.”
Steve predicament No. 1: With his truck mired on the north trail, we used 2x6s to get traction
Steve predicament No. 2: With his truck mired on Bunny Flats, we had to call on our neighbor Scott and his tractor
We never did end up getting rain that weekend. And while the two burn piles were successful, there is still a lot of brush to clear, even on just the two small spots that we had been concentrating on. The weather so far has been very conducive to working outdoors, but we are also expecting a very hot – and dry – year in 2009.
 
The southwestern knoll, before and after the burn – not quite cleared yet, but getting there
[Worldtrippers home] [Mountaintop home]
Comments (0)
Send Private Message
Posted to octagonaltopsider by Gail in Cupertino, CA
on 8/17/2009
February 8, 2009
The Parapet Puzzle
Russell with a piece of the “parapet puzzle” – each subfloor piece had to be custom-cut (usually multiple times)
For the past year and a half, Russell’s main task – and headache – in our mountain house construction has been framing the interior walls. The octagonal shape of the house has added to the complexity. With a normal house, everything is at 90º angles. With an octagonal house, walls can be 45º or even 22.5º degrees against each other.
Framing the upstairs walls has been even more difficult due to the vaulted ceiling. This has added additional vertical angles of 15-20º to account for the slanted roof and its supporting knee braces.
And most difficult of all has been the parapet – a quasi third story set above the upstairs hallway and closets. Framing the parapet has had all of the difficulties above, plus the added complexity of trying to construct around the center pole and the knee braces themselves. We chronicled the spaghetti-like joist construction in our blog of October 17, 2008.
The interior framing is now pretty much completed, with a few exceptions. One of these exceptions has been the need to construct an OSB subfloor on top of the parapet. Remembering how difficult the parapet was to frame, Russell was not looking forward to flooring it as well. However, Gail mentioned that this was one of her critical paths in order to continue wiring and drywalling.
So on Friday, February 6th, Russell made a trip up to the mountain. (Gail’s schedule has offered her less opportunity. Unfortunately, while our son Joss has recovered from last year’s spinal surgery, he has now begun suffering from debilitating migraine headaches.)
Joining Russell was our friend Steve. Still out of work, Steve asked for another opportunity to whack at things. As a result, Steve spent the weekend outside, clearing brush.
Steve clears brush, using a newly-acquired garden cart that Gail picked from Craigslist
Meanwhile, Russell began cutting pieces of 1/2” OSB to create a subfloor for the parapet. Not only did he have to avoid the center pole and knee braces, he also had to straddle the joists that ran in a hundred different lengths and angles. He spent more of his time measuring, cutting, remeasuring and recutting pieces than actually installing them. The average piece had to be recut three times, resulting in very sore knees from continuously climbing up and down the ladder.
  
Anatomy of a puzzle: floorbaord pieces had to be cut to straddle the oddly-angled joists, as well as the center pole and knee braces
By the end of the weekend, Russell had finished about three-quarters of the parapet. He was actually still cutting and installing on Sunday morning up until the time we had to leave. Frankly, the floored parapet looks pretty good. Now in his groove, Russell can’t wait to come back up and finish the job.
 
A panorama of the parapet, before and after
[Worldtrippers home] [Mountaintop home]
Comments (0)
Send Private Message
Posted to octagonaltopsider by Gail in Cupertino, CA
on 8/17/2009
January 19, 2009
From House to Home
Joss, Gail and Cameron take a break on the deck in the warm January sun
With our sons Cameron and Joss now in college and high school respectively, their trips to our mountain home construction have become fewer and farther between. First, they are now self-sufficient enough to be left alone for days. Second, they have their own social lives and better things to do than hang around with their parents.
But with drywalling now proceeding at a rapid pace, Gail wanted the boys to see how the house is visibly changing. In addition, we wanted them to have the opportunity to drywall their own bedrooms. So on Saturday, January 17th, we took advantage of the long Martin Luther King Jr. weekend and traveled once again as an entire family.
Gail tried to give the boys a balance between enjoying the weekend and contributing to the work. Joss helped install both drywall and a new shelf in his bedroom closet. Cameron helped drywall the upstairs hallway, as well as lug heavy sheets of drywall up the stairs with dad to give mom a break.
 
Joss installs a shelf in his bedroom closet
Cameron installs drywall in the upstairs hallway
Meanwhile, due to the unseasonably warm and sunny weather, Russell tried to work outside as much as possible. His spontaneous and self-assigned task for the weekend was to dismantle a large crate that has been obstructing our western panoramic view for the past four years (since the kit house was first delivered in March 2005).
 
A large crate, which originally held our windows, has been sitting on the western side of the house for the past four years
Russell began his task with hammer and crowbar on Saturday morning. Before he knew it, he was joined by Cameron (no doubt prodded by Gail to go and help). By Saturday afternoon the crate was gone, and we beheld the gorgeous panorama that we had first fallen in love with six years ago.
 
Cam and Russell worked for several hours to dismantle the crate
The western panorama, which we are fully able to see again for the first time since 2005
Little by little, our mountain house is looking less like a construction site and more like a home. By the time we departed on Monday, there was drywall on one side of almost every upstairs wall (we can’t install the other sides until the electrical wiring is done). Rooms are actually separated from each other!
As a further symbol of this transformation, Russell took the base of the dismantled crate and has re-cast it as a new front porch for our mountain home.
Joss relaxes – in a living room with real walls!
[Worldtrippers home] [Mountaintop home]
Comments (0)
Send Private Message
Posted to octagonaltopsider by Gail in Cupertino, CA
on 8/17/2009
January 3, 2009
Reframing the Closets
Gail installs drywall in the master bedroom closets
Gail and Russell celebrated the New Year by – what else? – going up to our mountain property to continue building our house.
Back on “Black Friday,” the day after Thanksgiving (when stores hold huge sales) we had tried to get some portable heaters at Fry’s Electronics; they were on sale for 75% off. We didn’t bother going there until early afternoon, and by then they were completely sold out.
We were surprised to see them on sale again after Christmas. This time, we took Cameron first thing in the morning, waited in line before the store opened, ran in and grabbed three heaters. (If we had been five minutes later, they would have been sold out again.)
The big question was whether these heaters would be adequate for the mountain house. So on New Year’s Day morning, we left the boys asleep in bed and drove up in the van with three heaters.
We were treated to crisp, sunny weather, book-ended by a gorgeous fog in the mornings and evenings. We plugged in the heaters and let them run automatically with their built-in thermostats. We were pleased to find that the house held a comfortable ambient temperature inside.
A panorama of the southern view on New Year's Day evening, as the fog rolls in
The same panorama the following morning, as sunlight melts the fog away
We also continued our construction work. With the electrical still on hold, Gail continued drywalling one side of each framed wall. This time around, she tackled the master bedroom closets.
Russell had intended to work outside with his wood chipper, but his agenda was soon superseded by Gail’s. Because of our high ceilings, we had framed the closets with a large interior space above each closet door. As Gail drywalled, she decided that this was wasted space. She asked Russell if he could reframe the closets with an additional door above the main door, to access the extra space.
 
The master bedroom closets, before and after drywalling
The reframing of the closets required several steps. First, we removed the electrical wiring from the vertical studs above the closet doors. Second, we removed the studs themselves, essentially creating another opening in the wall above the closet doors. Third, we installed a new set of horizontal joists at the top of the closet doors. This essentially lowered the ceiling of the closet, while creating a floor for the new space above.
 
The master bedroom closets, before and after installing the new shelf
It was a bit of work, but the closets were greatly improved. Gail also drywalled the master bedroom and half the hallway; Russell ultimately had some time to chip wood outside.
 
Russell constructs a frame of joists to lower the closet ceiling
Gail installs drywall at the end of the upstairs hallway
Our friend Dennis invited us to dinner with his family, and we spent New Year’s Day evening teaching our hosts how to play the “Settlers of Catan” board game. Overall, it was a relaxing yet productive trip – and a great way to ring in the New Year.
Oh, yes... the Soleus LX-100 portable air conditioner/heater, regularly $400 but on sale for $100
[Worldtrippers home] [Mountaintop home]
Comments (0)
Send Private Message
Posted to octagonaltopsider by Gail in Cupertino, CA
on 8/17/2009
December 20, 2008
Wet and Dry
Joss with the remnants of the previous snowfall
December 2008 broke some weather records in the Bay Area. We are still in a drought with rainfall well below normal, but there have been some unseasonably cold days and nights. On the weekend of December 12th there was rare snow up on our mountain, but we weren’t able to go there due to scheduling conflicts.
The weather forecast snow again on Friday December 19th, so we made plans to go. We even talked both of our sons into joining us; Cameron was already home from college and Joss was out of school after Thursday morning. Unfortunately, as we got nearer to the date, the forecast changed from “snow” to “rain.” Gail wanted to go up anyway and the boys didn’t mind.
We ended up traveling in two vehicles. Gail and Cameron drove up in the van, specifically so that Gail could buy some drywall. Her electrical work is pretty much at a standstill; our electrician step-brother Jim is still out with pneumonia. However, Gail can go ahead and begin drywalling one side of the walls without interfering with future inspections.
While Gail came up to work, the three guys had come up to relax and play. Unfortunately, it didn’t quite work out that way. The guys spent much of the time hauling drywall in from the van and up the stairs. Nevertheless, Gail worked the lion’s share, not only installing the sheets but cutting and stuffing insulation where necessary.
 
The guys unload drywall from the van.
We used our usual rope trick to get the drywall up the stairs.
When we arrived on Thursday afternoon, the inside of the house was 40º. Six hours and three heaters later, we got the temperature up to 60º and it stayed at that level for the rest of the weekend.
While Gail worked on Friday, Russell ended up driving into town to buy even more drywall, taking advantage of the empty van. Lowe’s hardware store kept giving him $10 coupons every time he made a purchase, so he kept going back in and making more purchases. All told, we bought nine sheets of 5/8” drywall (for the bathroom/utility room walls) and 19 sheets of 1/2” drywall (where we won’t need as much soundproofing). The van was so heavy that it took Russell three tries to drive up the last hill to the house.
 
Russell and Cam hold a sheet of drywall in place while Gail fastens it to the stud.
Joss gets creative taking photos.
We never did get to see snow, although it rained Friday and the ground was constantly covered with frost. By Saturday the weather was sunny and clear again. In the meantime, Gail was able to install seven sheets on four walls, and she can’t wait to do more – as soon as her hands and arms are no longer sore.
Gail installed drywall on four walls
 
(1) The utility room/living room
 
(2) The master bathroom/living room
 
(3) The hall bathroom/Joss’ bedroom
 
(4) The master bathroom/master bedroom
[Worldtrippers home] [Mountaintop home]
Comments (0)
Send Private Message
Posted to octagonaltopsider by Gail in Cupertino, CA
on 8/17/2009
December 7, 2008
Chipping Away
Russell with his wood chipper (he wanted this photo taken because he figures the chipper will never look this clean again)
When we first bought our mountain “kit house” back in 2003, little did we dream that we would still be working on the thing five years later. The advantage is that we have been able to work continuously for the past five years without spending a lot of money. Everything from the wood to the glass was shipped with the kit. We have only had to pay for the metal hardware and the various things that Topsider screwed up.
Unfortunately, we have now entered the stage where we are starting to have to pay for things ourselves. While we spent almost nothing to do the interior framing, we have had to pay for all of the electrical wiring ourselves. As the work increasingly starts to hit our pocketbook, we have had to slow our pace down. And with the current economic downturn, we are having to slow down even more.
Even as we have been concentrating on the house and its construction, we also have to worry about the 50-acre property itself. We recently paid a couple thousand dollars to have our dirt access road re-graded. And much of the land has become overgrown with tall grass, Manzanita and tree saplings. This is an increasing fire hazard, and we have to start dealing with it.
 
The southwestern knoll (the one with the shed) in 2003.
The knoll has become overgrown with Manzanita over the past five years.
For the past several months, Russell has had his eye on a 250-horsepower wood chipper as our next major purchase. He waited patiently until his Christmas bonus. The day he received his bonus – Friday, December 5th – we drove up to the Lowe’s hardware store near our property and bought the chipper.
Our original plan was to spend a private weekend up on the mountain with just Gail and Russell. At the last minute, however, our friend Steve inquired about joining us. Steve recently lost his job and he needed a getaway – not only to de-stress, but to take out his frustrations with a chainsaw. With a request like that, how could we refuse?
We were also joined by our local friend (and former building inspector) Dennis. Dennis had some free time this weekend and offered to help Gail make further progress on the electrical wiring. So on Saturday morning, Gail and Dennis worked inside the house, with Dennis making suggestions and offering some best practices.
Gail continues wiring the house with Dennis’ help
Meanwhile, Russell and Steve worked outside. Steve chainsawed and clipped Manzanita bushes; Russell put them through the chipper. It was a surprisingly sunny and warm weekend for November. We worked in short-sleeved shirts and enjoyed the sunshine.
 
Steve lets out his frustrations with a chain saw.
One of the nicest working environments one could imagine!
In the evenings, Steve had no problems watching the “chick flicks” that Russell had brought for Gail. Gail was getting tired of constantly watching “movies where things explode,” so she – and the guys – greatly enjoyed “27 Dresses” and “The Notebook.”
In further variation, we skipped having our usual Chinese restaurant lunch in town on Sunday morning. Instead, we attended the local monthly pancake breakfast at the nearby American Legion Hall, where we chatted with the locals and neighbors. It was a perfect way to end a perfect – and productive – weekend.
The southwestern knoll, after a hard day’s work
[Worldtrippers home] [Mountaintop home]
Comments (0)
Send Private Message
Posted to octagonaltopsider by Gail in Cupertino, CA
on 8/17/2009
November 7, 2008
Another Inspection, Another Extension
Shelly, our latest inspector, examines our current work
After six months of illnesses, funerals, and other delays, we finally reached our next building inspection deadline. The current milestones were the interior framing and the electrical wiring. Originally due back in May, we had received an extension from our building inspector, Randy.
Now here we were in November, and we still weren’t ready. Russell had largely finished the interior framing, other than a few trim pieces that weren’t subject to inspection. On the other hand, Gail still had quite a bit of work to do on the wiring. To be fair, our electrician brother-in-law Jim had been largely unavailable lately due to a new job and pneumonia.
Gail’s plan was to get as much done as possible by November, have the inspector yellow-tag whatever was missing, then finish the work afterward. On Tuesday, November 5th – a rare mid-week trip – Gail drove up to our mountain house building site to meet the inspector.
Gail drove up a day before the actual inspection so that she could do some additional work. On Wednesday morning, she received a visit from Dennis, our previous inspector and now good friend. Dennis did a “pre-inspection” of the work, pointing out places where Gail had used the wrong wiring gauge and making other suggestions.
The actual inspector showed up on Wednesday afternoon. Randy was out sick, so Shelly came instead. The two women hit it off wonderfully. Shelly complimented Gail on her willingness to be a “do-it-yourselfer.” Her overall comment was, “It looks like you’re doing a lot of good work here. I’m giving you an extension for another six months.”
Gail was ecstatic. The framing was signed off as completed, and we now have until May, 2009 to finish the electrical wiring.
Gail is now much more accustomed to being up at the mountain house by herself, so she stayed an extra night. She spent Thursday morning working outside, raking leaves and cleaning up the access road, before driving back home, just in time for the weekend.
Our building permit is slowly getting checked off!
[Worldtrippers home] [Mountaintop home]
Comments (0)
Send Private Message
Posted to octagonaltopsider by Gail in Cupertino, CA
on 8/17/2009
October 19, 2008
Capping the Chase
Russell sketches out the shape of the chase cap on a scrap piece of plastic
Russell’s first plan the weekend of October 18th was to go up to our mountain house building site with his friend Steve. The two would continue work on installing shutters and tending to the trails. Unfortunately, Steve’s schedule ended up getting too full for him to come.
Undaunted, Russell decided to drive up by himself for the weekend. His second plan was to continue installing shutters by himself. Unfortunately, after he arrived on Friday evening, he looked at the work and decided that it really needed two people.
Undaunted, Russell simply moved to the next item on his “to do” list. His third plan was to construct the top “cap” piece for the chase that surrounded the center pole downstairs. The chase had been constructed to be as small and close-fitting to the plumbing pipes as possible. Unfortunately, the pipes splayed out near the ceiling. A wider cap piece would be required to enclose those wider pipes.
The chase around the center pole – first constructed in May, then reconstructed in July
When he had designed and constructed the chase itself months ago, Russell had given no thought to how he would actually construct the cap piece. Now he had to think about it. He knew that it would need to be about 10 inches wider than the chase on each side, and about 9 inches high in order to fully enclose the pipes. What he didn’t know was how he would construct it.
Near the ceiling, the plumbing pipes splay out wider. Rather than construct an equally-wide chase, we decided to construct a wider cap at the top only.
Russell spent a couple of hours Saturday morning trying to figure out what to do. The first challenge was how to fasten 2x4s together at multiple right angles so that no nails or screws would be exposed in the finished product. Do you hang the 2x4s vertically (like joists) or horizontally (like sill plates)? The second challenge was how to fasten the whole thing to the eight glu-lam beams that spoked the ceiling. The third challenge was how to construct the cap so that all of the future drywall had places to attach.
Russell started by digging out the piece of clear plastic that he had used to construct the original (revised) chase. He successfully scrounged a second piece of plastic that he overlaid onto the first in order to draw the larger cap piece. He used this as a guide to cut the wood.
 
Russell designed the cap piece using a piece of clear plastic that he overlaid onto the original chase drawing.
The cap piece would also be six sides, with each side 10 inches wider than the original chase.
Russell spent the afternoon cutting the six-sided shape of the cap. It would be difficult to measure the exact placement of the cap around the chase (remember, there is no flat ceiling – there are only the eight glu-lam beams). So he also constructed nine “spokes” that would help serve as guides for the exact placement of the cap. Finally, he cut 15 five-and-a-half-inch pieces of wood to serve as the vertical walls of the cap.
Russell also constructed nine “spokes,” each one custom-measured and cut. These spokes would attach to the top of the chase and help determine exactly where the cap should be fastened to the glu-lam beamed ceiling.
The first problem came when Russell discovered that he had cut the 15 vertical pieces a half-inch too small. All of them had to be re-cut.
The second problem was even worse. Russell discovered that he had cut all nine of the spokes too long. This was even worse because Russell didn’t realize this until all nine spokes had been nailed and screwed into place on top of the chase. It had taken hours to install them, and Russell was not about to remove them. The only alternative was to saw each of them in place.
The spokes, nailed and screwed in place. Russell realized that he had cut each of them one-and-a-half inches too long. Rather than dismantle them, he decided to trim them in place.
Because of the glu-lam beamed ceiling, Russell had to use the heavy circular saw upside-down on top of a ladder. The result was face-fulls of sawdust and several runs to the faucet outside to wash out his eyes. By the time Russell trimmed the last spokes, he was using a flashlight because the sun had gone down. Frustrated and exhausted, Russell called it a day.
Sunday went much better. Rising at 6:00 AM (after waking up at 4:30 AM), Russell had a new day’s energy and a much better mood. The final assembly of the cap piece went much more smoothly, and he was finished by 9:00 AM.
The completed cap. The six pieces of the outline have been fastened to the spokes with the six-inch vertical pieces, then screwed into the glu-lam beamed ceiling.
With the cap piece in place, the center chase is now completely finished. (Gail will undoubtedly have a nightmare trying to drywall the whole structure, but that is a challenge for another day.) After one more task on a future trip – building a box around some exposed pipes on the lower-floor ceiling – the entire interior framing of the house will at long last be finished.
The center pole chase and top cap
[Worldtrippers home] [Mountaintop home]
Comments (0)
Send Private Message
Posted to octagonaltopsider by Gail in Cupertino, CA
on 8/17/2009
October 13, 2008
Gail's Boys
Tandré and Joss demolish the scaffold
Sunday, October 10th, saw an unusual situation. Russell was driving down from the mountain after a weekend stay with his friend Steve. Gail was driving up to the mountain to begin her own weekend stay. Joining her were our son Joss (who had Monday off of school) and his friend Tandré (who has become like another son to us).
We met for lunch at one of our favorite lunch eateries, André’s Delicatessen in Amador City, where we enjoyed Kobe beef pastrami sandwiches in the Indian Summer sun. From there, Russell continued home, while Gail began her late mountain weekend with the two boys.
Gail had several tasks, and she was able enlist the boys’ help. First, Gail wanted to make sure that the walls were now weatherproof, as winter was approaching. Gail gave Joss and Tandré the fun task of spraying the outside walls with a garden hose, while she checked for seepage inside. She found a couple of wet spots and caulked them.
 
Tandré and Joss hose down the master bedroom and Joss’ bedroom walls (Tandré is standing atop the scaffold)
Second, Gail wanted to dismantle the scaffold that we had built on the south wall, in anticipation of re-building it on another wall. Gail gave Joss and Tandré the fun task of demolishing the scaffold with hammers and pry bars.
Finally, Gail wanted to continue her wiring work. In this case, Joss and Tandré had the particularly fun task of goofing off and enjoying themselves while Gail worked.
Drilling three-quarter-inch wiring holes is not easy (or fun)
All in all, the weekend was not only a nice break for Gail away from Russell and the Bay Area, it was also a nice bonding time for her and the boys.
The tree swings are quite overgrown after five years, but still just as fun
[Worldtrippers home] [Mountaintop home]
Comments (0)
Send Private Message
Posted to octagonaltopsider by Gail in Cupertino, CA
on 8/17/2009
October 12, 2008
Three More Shutters
Steve inspects a shutter curtain to ensure that we can insert a 15-foot pipe as an axle without scratching anything
The end of August featured a memorial service for Russell’s brother Curtis in Texas The end of September featured a memorial service in California. With the arrival of October, Russell was finally able to think about going back up to our mountain house building site once more. Fortunately, his friend and building buddy Steve was also available after a busy summer. So on October 10th, the two made their usual drives through Friday afternoon rush-hour traffic to met up on the mountain.
This weekend’s task would be one of muscle and heavy lifting. After completely installing our first shutter back in July, Russell and Gail had successfully installed the guide rails and motor boxes for the other three large shutters. Unfortunately, Gail was not strong enough to help with the actual metal curtains. Thus the need for Steve.
The two men started work early Saturday morning, their only full work day. Installing the first curtain months ago had helped to determine the most successful process. Russell had arrived this time with three long pieces of 3/4-inch metal pipe that he proceeded to screw together. These would serve as an axle for the rolled-up curtain. The curtain would be hung from the deck overhead like a giant paper towel roll, then fed through the motor box and into the guide rails.
A shutter curtain, hung like a paper towel roll using 3/4-inch pipe and rope (note the “Pocahontas” blanket hung over the motorbox axle to prevent scratching)
Russell had estimated that each curtain would take about one to one-and-a-half hours. The first ended up taking three hours. The process worked well; it was just much more time consuming than we had imagined. From our previous experience, we knew to hang a large blanket over the motorbox axle to keep the curtain from getting scratched. We also knew to install dunnage beneath the guide rails, to stop the curtain from descending too far before we had attached it to the axle.
The hardest part was attaching the curtain to the axle. This step required attaching seven T-straps to the upper lip of the curtain. Unfortunately, the shutter had plastic end-guards that prevented us from being able to do this. We couldn’t remember having this problem with the first curtain, and were momentarily stumped. (As a reminder, the shutters had arrived with no instructions. The best thing we could find were some general procedures from the company’s website.) In the end, we had to use a screwdriver to bend and warp the plastic end-guards so that we could slide the T-straps into position.
 
The shutters had plastic end-guards (black, left) that prevented us from being able to slide on the T-straps (lower right).
The only solution was to bend and warp the end-guards.
It was lunch time before we completed the first curtain. We had only the afternoon to install the other two. Number two was finished right at the par of one-and-a-half hours.
We knew that the third curtain would be the most problematic, which is why we had saved it for last. There were two problems. First, the south window wall had no deck overhead, and thus no place to attach ropes for suspending the curtain from. Second, Gail and Steve had previously installed a huge scaffolding outside of this wall, leaving very little room to work in, let alone hang a curtain at all. We did not even want to entertain the idea of trying to dismantle or move the huge scaffolding, as that would turn into a day-long project all by itself.
The southern window wall had a large scaffold that left little room to hang a shutter curtain
With another one of his analytical “thought experiments,” Russell was able to improvise a solution. First, we suspended ropes from the large glu-lam beams that jutted out from the corners of the walls. Next, we strung additional ropes horizontally to pull the hanging curtain away from the scaffolding. The setup worked perfectly.
 
We had very little working space between the scaffolding and the window.
The last curtain was hung from the glu-lam beams, with additional ropes to pull it away from the scaffolding.
We finished the third and final curtain just in time for dinner, leaving the evening free to relax and watch a “Chuck” DVD on television.
The southwest side of the house, now protected with metal shutters all around (note the scaffolding still on the south wall to the right)
Russell plans to resume coming up to the mountain whenever his schedule allows. He figures that he has four remaining major tasks for the year:
- Install the remaining three shutters over the front door, back door and downstairs bathroom
- Design and install the cap piece for the new chase around the center pole
- Design and install a ceiling box around some exposed pipes downstairs
- Install OSB plywood on the parapet joists upstairs
Once he’s finished with those, he can turn his attention to the grounds and trails outside, which have been badly neglected for the last few years.
An inside view of the four full-window shutters
[Worldtrippers home] [Mountaintop home]
Comments (0)
Send Private Message
Posted to octagonaltopsider by Gail in Cupertino, CA
on 8/17/2009
September 21, 2008
Gail at Work
Not the mountain house: Gail textures the bathroom wall at our Bay Area house
It has been an “interesting” year for us. Back in May, we wrote about how our best-laid plans to build our mountain house have been interrupted by the intrusion of real life. At the time, we were referring to our son Joss’ scoliosis surgery and subsequent rehabilitation.
The ensuing months have not been any kinder. On August 18th, Russell’s only brother passed away after a four-and-a-half year battle against cancer. During this time, Curtis’ exoskeletal osteocarcoma had necessitated radiation, three rounds of chemotherapy, three surgeries and ultimately amputation of his entire right arm. Ultimately, the cancer metastasized into Curtis’ lungs and throughout the rest of his body. Russell and his sister spent weeks shuttling back and forth between California and Texas, both to share Curtis’ last few weeks and to make funeral arrangements.
On September 19th, our eldest son Cameron made his big move an hour’s drive south to begin his freshman year at the University of California Santa Cruz. Needless to say, we have not had many opportunities to escape to our mountain house as summer turned to autumn this year.
Strike three was the failure of one of our bathrooms at our primary house in the Bay Area. This bathroom had been causing us problems for years, requiring a replacement of the toilet and countless trips by Russell into the dark and cramped crawlspace under the house. For the past several months we had been noticing an increasing odor of mold, but we couldn’t figure out where it was coming from.
After checking the crawlspace, the hallway, the closet and the furnace room, Gail finally began ripping up the bathrooms. When she ripped out the floor of the downstairs bathroom, Gail discovered that the toilet had been slowly leaking into the subfloor and supporting joists.
With Russell in Texas for weeks on end, Gail began the slow job of completely gutting and rebuilding the bathroom. There was never any question that she would do all of the work herself; she had actually been wanting to redecorate the bathroom for years and had money set aside. In addition, the project would give her good practice for the similar work ahead in the mountain house.
For several weeks, Gail’s tasks included installing, taping, texturing and painting new dry wall; installing a reflective tin ceiling; stripping and refinishing an old cabinet that would serve as the new sink console; and installing all of the new fixtures. She was able to solicit Russell’s help to install the new joists and subfloor when he was in town.
 
The reconstructed bathroom with a new subfloor section (tongue and groove!) and a new cork floor
In between, Gail also found time to make a trip up to the mountain to continue wiring the house with her step-brother Jim. The work is slow but steady, and we now have live power outlets throughout both the downstairs and upstairs. Gail estimates that the wiring work is now more than halfway done.
At the mountain house: Gail installs wiring for a ceiling fan, on a high ladder over the stairwell hole
Gail also continues to have “animal adventures” up on the mountain. A letter from August recounted her evening encounter with a bat in the hallway. During this trip, Jim saw two mice run across the floor in the evening. This despite a supposedly sealed house and lots of rodent poison left out for the last several months.
It was in the middle of the night that Gail was awoken by a loud “splash,” followed by several minutes of smaller splashing sounds. When the noises stopped, she fell back to sleep. It wasn’t until the next morning that she realized what had happened. Apparently, one of the mice had gotten into the water catch-basin under the upstairs sink, and couldn’t get back out. What Gail found the next morning was a drowned mouse, which she appropriately disposed of in a spot outside that we have designated as our “animal burial ground.” One down, one to go. Gail left another bucket of water under the sink just in case.
Overall, we are looking forward to things settling down again so that we don’t have to juggle so much in our schedule. We have an inspection due in November for both wiring and framing, neither of which are finished yet. Given the way things have been going, we’ll just have to schedule the inspection for whatever we have completed when the time comes.
Gail has begun keeping her own notepad, listing the wiring tasks that remain
[Worldtrippers home] [Mountaintop home]
Comments (0)
Send Private Message
Posted to octagonaltopsider by Gail in Cupertino, CA
on 8/17/2009
August 9, 2008
Gail Alone
Gail pulls wires downstairs
When we came up to our mountain house building site in the first week of August, Gail kept commenting what a shame it was that we couldn’t stay longer. Our sons were out of town for the entire week on their annual church caravan trip, but Russell needed to be back by mid-week for work.
Gail first proposed that she stay a day longer than Russell and drive back on Wednesday with her step-brother Jim. Russell counter-proposed that she stay the entire week and he would drive back to pick her up on Saturday. Gail initially had major reservations: she would be alone for three nights, she would have no car, we didn’t have enough supplies. Once we were up here, though, Gail agreed that there was plenty of work that she could get accomplished.
So on Monday, August 4th, Russell drove into town to pick up everything that Gail might possibly need, from food and work supplies to books, a radio and a heating pad. On Tuesday, Russell said “good-bye” and left Gail with Jim. (Russell’s own departure was delayed by a flat tire, but that’s another story.) And on Wednesday, Jim also said “good-bye,” locked the gate and left Gail completely alone.
Gail, ever the workaholic, had an extremely productive three and a half days. She completely washed and cleaned the downstairs floor (actually the concrete foundation). She removed insulation, washed and scrubbed mold from the downstairs walls and ceiling, and painted several sections to weather-proof them. And she continued to pull wires for electricity.
  
Some of Gail's handiwork – next to the front door, before and after wiring (note that the entire section has been cleaned and painted for weather proofing)
Gail and Jim made notes to help her continue wiring after he departed
 
Gail also cleaned, scrubbed and painted several of the walls and ceilings downstairs, using the spray painter
Gail had no problems during the evenings and nights either. Originally afraid of being bored or scared, she was neither. She never even opened either of the two books that Russell had bought for her. Instead, she watched Olympics coverage on television or simply fell asleep, exhausted. And with the quiet and beauty of the mountains around her, she also got some of her best nights’ sleep in a long, long time.
Gail ended up not being completely alone, either. She was constantly entertained by the squirrel that seems to have adopted us. He comes down out of his tree every morning and watches us work for hours. He also loves to play in the outdoor sink that Gail set up. She put out food (granola) and water for him, and watched amused as he kept falling through the hole in the sink while trying to retrieve water. Gail even gave him a name – “Rupert,” after a squirrel that had befriended her parents decades ago.
 
Gail entertains – and is entertained by – Rupert the squirrel
Gail also saw several deer. A couple of young bucks came almost all the way up to the house, watching her as she watched them.
 
Gail saw several deer, including a young buck with only one antler (right)
Overall, Gail loved the time that she spent alone up on the mountain. She enjoyed waking up every morning to the sheer beauty of the panoramic view outside her bedroom window, and she enjoyed watching the sun set over the Central Valley every evening.
By the time Russell came to pick her up on Saturday afternoon, Gail was sorry that we couldn’t spend just one more night. She’s already thinking about when she could come back up to spend more time here.
Gail enjoyed – and photographed – her own sunsets (shades of Russell)
Comments (0)
Send Private Message
Posted to octagonaltopsider by Gail in Cupertino, CA
on 8/17/2009
August 6, 2008
Three More Bats!
Russell uses a stick to flush a bat from its hiding place above the west wall
The first week in August is traditionally our church’s annual youth caravan trip. This year, our sons Cameron and Joss traveled to Oregon for a week of community-related services. This week is also traditionally an opportunity for Gail and Russell to spend an extended week up at our mountain house building site. Unfortunately, this year the schedule conflicted with Russell’s work schedule. Nevertheless, we decided to go up for half a week.
We arrived on Saturday morning, August 2nd. Our goal was to continue work on the downstairs, installing more shutters, cleaning and painting walls (for mold and weather proofing), and wiring for electricity. Our electrician step-brother Jim would join us on Monday, then we would depart on Tuesday evening.
The weekend got off to a rousing start. While unpacking, Gail swore that she saw and felt something fly past her inside the house on the stairwell. We thought nothing more of it at that time.
Later that afternoon, Gail was on a ladder outside the house, spraying insulation foam into the crack between the wall and the ceiling on the west side. She suddenly let out a scream and leaped from the ladder. A bat, sleeping in that same crack, had suddenly popped its head out, angry at being awoken. Russell tried to get the bat out, but it re-hid itself out of sight.
The next morning, Russell investigated the spot again. As he suspected, the bat had re-settled itself into its accustomed sleeping spot. This time we were prepared. Using a long thin stick, Russell swept the length of the crack. The bat roused itself and flew off away from the house. Gail immediately sprayed the crack with insulation foam to prevent its return.
 
The bat in the west wall, above our first shutter
This series of events repeated itself an hour later, when Gail was spraying the north wall above the front door. A scream, a jump, and another bat. Russell with a stick and a bat flying off into the trees. Gail immediately spraying the crack to prevent a return.
 
The bat in the north wall, above the front door
Gail proceeded to spray every single crack she could find anywhere inside or outside of the house. We were concerned that we could be trapping bats inside of the house as well as outside of the house, but we didn’t have a whole lot of choice.
Gail sprays insulation foam into the crack above the north wall
The fear became reality on Tuesday evening, as Gail and Jim sat down to watch television. Gail thought she heard something go “thump” somewhere in the house. She walked into the various bedrooms in the dark, but couldn’t discern anything. It wasn’t until she was walking back that she looked down and saw a bat lying on the floor of the hallway. (It’s a wonder she hadn’t stepped on it.) It had apparently fallen from the ceiling, possibly weak from lack of food or an inability to get outside.
Loathe to take action at night, Gail and Jim covered the bat with a plastic bowl. The next morning they moved everything to the deck and lifted the bowl. The bat, apparently healthier than they feared, immediately flew off into the sky.
The third bat: it fell onto the upstairs hallway floor inside the house
As we have declared every time, we hope this is the last of the bats in the house. We continuously think we have sealed every opening, only to continuously discover additional openings and cracks. Fortunately, we’re slowly running out of places to seal.
On the plus side, we also got a lot of work done. Gail and Russell hung three more shutter boxes and rails (but not the actual shutter curtains). Gail and Jim continued to pull wire. And Gail herself continued to clean the downstairs floor and walls.
Overall we have made fewer trips to the mountain this summer, but we appear to be on track to meet our next inspection deadline in the fall.
We now have shutter boxes and rails installed on four walls
[Worldtrippers home] [Mountaintop home]
Comments (0)
Send Private Message
Posted to octagonaltopsider by Gail in Cupertino, CA
on 8/17/2009
July 13, 2008
Our First Shutter
A pile of shutters waits patiently for installation
When Topsider originally sold us our octagonal mountain house kit back in September 2003, salesman Steve Hill was able to upsell us very successfully. In addition to the house itself (which was more than twice our original budget), Steve started talking about the need for security. With a luxury house full of glass walls, weren’t we concerned about someone breaking and entering, especially when we were away? We still remember the exact line he used: “You can’t think about security as part of the cost of the house. You have to think about it as a separate expense.”
The solution was a full set of metal roll-down shutters. As Steve explained, we had to order them “now” because the house would be configured differently if shutters were included. Thankfully, we opted for the downstairs only. As well, we opted for the “medium-weight” metal, as opposed to the “heavy-weight” hurricane-proof grade. Nevertheless, we bought enough shutters to cover every opening downstairs, including the front and back doors. And we ordered electric as opposed to manual. In the end, we added almost $40,000 extra to the cost of our dream house.
When the house kit was finally delivered in March 2005, it was in the middle of the pouring rain. As a lower priority, we covered the large shutter crate with plastic sheeting and left it off to the side until we could deal with it. We did not deal with it until more than a year later in October 2006, when the house was finally weather-tight and we decided to bring everything in out of the elements.
Opening the shutter crate for the first time, we were horrified to find it filled with water. We spent a day opening what was left of the cardboard boxes and laying everything out in the sun to dry. Thankfully, the shutter components were wrapped separately in bubblewrap. They looked intact, but we didn’t dare unwrap them to find out. Instead, we moved everything into a pile inside the house and left it there.
 
The pile of waterlogged shutters dries in the sun (the crate is in the background)
The shutters were subjected to more than a year of mountain rain
In retrospect, we were probably in “denial” about everything connected to these shutters. We began to regret their purchase – or need – very early on. In reality, our property is remote with a metal gate across the access road, and our neighbor is terrific about keeping an eye on the place. We really didn’t need these shutters and were not looking forward to having to figure out how to install them. We simply hoped they would go away.
That didn’t happen, as our monthly mortgage bill continues to tell us. On the contrary, Gail’s electrician step-brother Jim began telling us that we would need to begin installing the shutters, so he could figure out how to wire them before the electrical inspection. So on July 4th weekend Gail made some tentative steps to unpack one of them, and a week later on July 11th we finally decided to install one.
Topsider had shipped the shutters with absolutely no instructions. We inquired about instructions for months, and Topsider finally sent us a print-out of some pages from http://www.alutech.com/, the makers of the shutters. These pages gave us partial – but incomplete – instructions. Once again, we would have to use a combination of improvisation and guess work.
Each shutter came with a bag full of hardware. Unfortunately, the instructions didn't tell us what to do with any of it.
Our crew this weekend included Gail, Russell and our friend Steve. Gail picked the southwest window as the least warped for an initial installation. Basically, the process would be:
- Install metal rails vertically on each side of the wall
- Hang the motor box on top of the rails
- Feed the metal curtain over the axle and down into the rails
- Fasten the top end of the curtain to the axle and roll the whole thing back up
 
The motor box with and without its cover
In reality, there were several additional steps. First, Gail and Steve stained the window wall where the shutter was to be installed. Next, Gail and Russell cut and stained long vertical pieces of trim wood to provide a backing for the rails.
 
Each side required a piece of stained trimwood to cover the gap between the wall unit and corner unit (seen here already filled with spray-in insulation)
The trim wood alone was a struggle. It was needed to fill the gap where each wall unit and corner unit came together. Unfortunately, the size of each gap was different. Our best guess was that we needed pieces of wood that were 1” by 3” by 95-1/2”. We went out and bought a bunch of 1x4s, planning to trim them. When we tried one, we realized that 1x4s are actually 3/4 inches by 3-1/2 inches. They would not work. We ultimately had to take 2x4s and rip them along both dimensions before cutting them to the correct length. On the plus side, this enabled us to rip each piece to the exact size of the gap. On the minus side, the process really worked our small table saw.
We ended up ripping 2x4s along both dimensions on our small table saw to get the correct trimwood
It wasn’t until midday on Saturday that we were finally able to hang the rails and motor box. Fortunately, these steps went easily. Unfortunately, the next step – hanging the metal curtain – ended up taking the rest of the day.
Steve and Russell hang the motor box
The curtain came rolled up and wrapped in bubblewrap. Because we had previously moved it with two people, we thought it would be fairly straightforward for Steve and Russell to lift it on ladders and feed it over the motor axle. We were wrong.
The curtain was heavy, awkward, and unmanageable. It was also impossible to hold. After failing at several different approaches, we ended up unrolling the entire curtain on the ground. We then re-rolled it onto a long 2x4, and hung that from the underside of the deck like a gigantic paper towel roll. With the weight literally off of our backs, we were finally able to unroll and feed the curtain over the axle and through the rails. (Because the curtain had been on a ground tarp, we also had to clean the thing as it unrolled – this would be our one and only chance to clean the inside of the curtain before it was forever trapped against the glass window.
 
The curtain, spread out on a ground tarp
We ended up having to hang the curtain from the deck in order to feed it over the axle (note the blanket to protect from scratches)
Once fed through the rails, the curtain didn’t want to stop descending, and we had to support it with a stack of dunnage to stop it from crashing to the ground. This also gave us time to figure out how to attach the curtain to the axle. Once again, the instructions did not tell us exactly how to do this, so we had to make it up. Russell guessed at the correct screws, broke two, lost one, but ultimately managed to attach the curtain to the axle.
Russell attaches the curtain to the axle, using sheer guesswork
By sheer good luck, the wiring hole that needed to be bored to the inside of the house happened to fall right in the gap between the wall unit and corner unit (Russell was afraid he’d have to drill a 3/4” hole through the long width of the 2x4). With no electrical hookup yet, we used the hand crank to raise and lower the curtain. It worked!
  
Stages of shutter installation
Despite all of the glitches and false starts, the shutter installation was actually a very simple process, once we figured out exactly what that process was supposed to be. At Saturday dinner, we began boasting about the possibility of hanging even more shutters before we departed the next morning. Ultimately, however, we only had time to cut and stain some more pieces of trim work.
We left with our one curtain lowered over the window wall. Our hope is that it will still be where we left it when we next return.
Lacking an electrical hookup, Russell uses a handcrank to lower the shutter
[Worldtrippers home] [Mountaintop home]
Comments (0)
Send Private Message
Posted to octagonaltopsider by Gail in Cupertino, CA
on 8/17/2009
July 6, 2008
Scaffold
Gail could only access the upstairs southern wall with difficulty. How could we stain the entire wall without a deck to stand on?
With the warm weather (and one of the hottest summers on record), we have been able to make a lot of progress on the construction of our mountain home. Our friend Steve has particularly enjoyed staining the exterior walls. This is beneficial, as the wood greatly needs the protection.
One challenge is that on the upper floor, three of the walls have no surrounding decks. They are therefore difficult to stain, as there is no place for a person to stand. Unfortunately, one of these three upper walls is the notorious “southern wall,” which is particularly prone to both winter rain and summer heat. We discovered (the hard way) that with the southwesterly winds on top of the mountain, rain hits this wall almost sideways.
While Gail was able to paint and caulk the wall from the inside – as well as caulk much of the outside by leaning out of the window – we still needed to cover the exterior with several coats of stain. The question was: how do you reach the wall?
How do you reach the wall?
On July 4th weekend, with the entire family up on the mountain for four days, we attempted to tackle this problem. Russell’s first idea was to take several of our longest planks of wood and span them across the deck ends on either side of the southern wall. Unfortunately, it was not until after Cameron and Joss had hoisted a couple of them up that we discovered they were not long enough.
After Joss and Cameron hoisted our longest planks up, we discovered that they were not long enough to span the gap
Russell’s second idea was to take our 10-foot metal ladder, straighten it into a 20-foot length of metal, and use that to span the gap. Russell never got to try his second idea because Gail then proposed her idea: build a scaffold up to the second story and rest the planks on top of that. Gail even had a foundation for the scaffold in mind: an old crate, originally used by Topsider to ship our shutters, that had been sitting off to the side of the building pad for the past four years.
The shutter crate
It was at this point that our friend Steve arrived for the weekend. Hearing the proposals, he immediately decided that Gail’s was the more suitable idea (and the safer one as well – Steve would be the one who would have to stand on top of the ultimate solution). Even better, this was a rare weekend where Steve had brought his truck (his motorcycle was in the shop).
So while Russell continued his work on reconstructing the downstairs chase, Gail and Steve set about improvising a scaffold out of the old crate. Our oldest son Cameron was also able to help, but our youngest son Joss was still recovering from his recent spinal surgery.
Last year, Russell had added lumber to the shutter crate to convert it into a shower. Cameron now had to remove all excess lumber to make the crate as light as possible.
The job ended up taking most of the day Saturday, July 5th. In order to approximate the height of the deck, the crate had to have 18 inches sawed off of the end. Then, it needed to be dragged about 40 feet to the side of the house and turned up on its end.
The crate (left) needed to be dragged 40 feet to the southern wall (right)
Despite Steve’s truck, the movers discovered that much of the intervening ground was covered with gravel. The move ultimately took a combination of skids, rock clearing, levers and brute force. We had not done anything this massively physical since three years ago when Steve and Russell had dragged a solid wall across the building site (also with Steve’s truck).
 
Moving the crate required Steve's truck and a combination of skids, rock clearing, levers and brute force
Turning the crate up on end was no easier, as it was heavier than it looked and had a low center of gravity. Due to the way it was dragged, the side that we envisioned as the top would end up having to be the bottom. This required extra lumber being added to one of the ends. Once again, the actual lifting effort ultimately required both levers and brute force. The crate was finally upended in late afternoon, and – despite the extra lumber added at the last minute – turned out to be a workable height.
Upright at last!
With planking then nailed onto the top (and several ropes holding everything in place), Gail was able to finish caulking and Steve was able to begin staining. By the time we departed a day later, the wall was pretty much weather tight from both inside and outside.
Gail caulks atop the scaffold while Steve plays “safety net”
We left the scaffolding in place, to allow one more coat of stain on our next trip. A future challenge will be to dismantle and reassemble the entire structure two more times to scaffold the other two deckless walls.
A vertical panorama – just as dangerous and precarious as it looks
[Worldtrippers home] [Mountaintop home]
Comments (0)
Send Private Message
Posted to octagonaltopsider by Gail in Cupertino, CA
on 8/17/2009
July 6, 2008
The Chase: Take Two
An exercise in hard thinking, mind bending and trigonometry – Russell tries to figure out how to reconstruct the downstairs chase
Russell has spent the last several months constructing an elaborate wooden “sleeve” around the downstairs center pole of our mountain house. This chase covers all of the plumbing that runs from the upstairs to the downstairs through the center of the house. For convenience, Russell constructed a four-foot-square sleeve that aligned with the existing hole in the foundation. He also constructed a larger cap piece at the top.
On June 26th, when Gail returned to the mountain for the first time in two months, we both took a hard look at Russell’s handiwork. Gail was already discouraged by the enormous size of the chase (her original vision was that the 12-inch center pole would be the only obstruction to the downstairs panoramic view). As we chatted, however, Russell realized that the current chase had an even bigger flaw: it did not account for a cooktop in the eventual kitchen that would hug the center pole. The angle of the current chase did not match the angle of the kitchen wall.
The angle of the triangular cooktop counter has to match the angle of the kitchen wall (red). Unfortunately, the hole in the concrete – and Russell's first chase – doesn't match this angle
With Gail’s condolences, Russell made the difficult decision to completely dismantle the chase and reconstruct it. He also committed to try to reduce the width of the new chase as much as possible.
There were a few givens that were “must-haves”:
- One wall of the chase had to be parallel to the pantry/bathroom wall that would also serve as the kitchen wall
- That chase wall had to be 38” wide, to accommodate a cooktop that Gail had already obtained from freecycle.org
- All chase walls had to be at least one inch away from any pipe
 
All chase walls had to be at least one inch away from any pipe – and there were lots of pipes, at various angles and distances from the center pole
Beyond these requirements, we decided to give ourselves more latitude than Russell had used for the first chase:
- The chase did not need to be symmetrical around the center pole; it could be “off-center”
- The chase did not need to be square or even four-sided
With these new parameters, Russell envisioned an equilateral triangle, with three identical sides. Gail encouraged him to go even further to minimize size. So Russell proposed an isosceles triangle, with only two identical sides. Russell also investigated having soft corners on each of the three angles. In effect, the new chase would be a non-uniform hexagon, set off-center from the center pole.
The new chase (yellow) would be a much smaller isosceles triangle, off-center with rounded corners, matching the angle of the kitchen wall
The planning process was extremely complicated. What followed were several weeks of hard thinking, mind bending and trigonometry. Russell made an elaborate set of diagrams to try to figure out how to make everything aesthetically pleasing, while still fitting – and optimizing – all of the parameters.
 
Russell made an elaborate set of diagrams, including little cardboard cut-outs of possible chase walls
Constructing the new chase was even more complicated. After a couple of failed attempts, Russell concluded that he lacked the tools to make the exact angles necessary for each of the six sides. Ultimately, he constructed a full-scale diagram (on a scrap piece of plastic sheeting) that he used as a template for measuring and cutting the wood.
Russell constructed a full-scale diagram on a scrap piece of plastic sheeting
Assembling the new chase was the most complicated of all. Because the new chase was smaller than the square hole in the foundation, there was no “floor” to rest the individual wall sections on. The only way that Russell was able to install the chase was to fasten the pieces together as he constructed them. This way the pieces were able to support each other, while the few parts that overlapped the foundation hole held the whole thing up.
The chase pieces had to be assembled as they were constructed – otherwise the smaller pieces would fall right through the hole in the foundation
Finally, Russell installed scrap pieces of wood to support an eventual sub-floor on the bottom, as well as to attach the structure to the glu-lam beams on the top.
 
On top, scrap wood fastens the chase to the glu-lam beams. On bottom, scrap wood fastens the chase to the center pole plumbing sleeve. Additional scrap wood creates a foundation for the future sub-floor
Amazingly, the whole thing worked. As we hoped, you can’t tell that the chase off-center because the center pole is completely hidden. You can’t tell that it’s non-symmetrical because you can only ever see two sides of the triangle at once.
 
 
The old chase compared to the new – a much less-obstructed view
Unlike the previous chase, Russell has not pre-designed the eventual top cap piece – he will make that up later. Nevertheless, he considers the new chase to be his best engineering feat to date – and that’s saying a lot, considering some of the mental and physical gymnastics that this house has required so far.
Three panoramas of our view – chase-free, the old, and the new
[Worldtrippers home] [Mountaintop home]
Comments (0)
Send Private Message
Posted to octagonaltopsider by Gail in Cupertino, CA
on 8/17/2009
July 6, 2008
Celebrating Small Towns
The town of Mokelumne Hill prepares to celebrate Independence Day
On June 26th, Gail was able to visit our mountain home for the first time in more than two months. Russell took a day off of work and we went up a day early – on Thursday evening instead of Friday evening. The reason was that we had received word of two local meetings taking place.
The first meeting, which we received notice of in the mail, was a community meeting to discuss the long-term future of the nearby town of Glencoe. Did it want to grow and develop into a larger town? Did it want to remain small and anonymous? We thought it would be enlightening to participate in local politics.
The second meeting, which we learned about through the Internet, was the monthly meeting of the Calaveras Historical Society. Not only were they meeting in the nearby town of Westpoint, but they would be selling a locally-produced book (a compendium of local newspaper clippings from the 1800s) that Russell was interested in purchasing.
Unfortunately, both meetings were on Thursday evening. The Westpoint meeting started at 6:00 and included dinner. The Glencoe meeting started ten-minutes’ drive away at 7:00. We learned that it was not too late to make dinner reservations, but that we might be stretching things a bit to attend both meetings. We decided to try anyway.
Driving through Thursday evening’s commuter traffic, we arrived at our mountain house with just enough time to unload the van and drive off to Westpoint. For the first time we were able to meet some of our neighbors. These included Debbie, who lives a few miles down from our mountain in a vineyard that we can see from our house. She knew at once what our “octagonal house” was, as she had been watching its construction from her property for the last several years. (We invited her to see it close up and had a very nice visit.)
The Calaveras Historical Society held its meeting at Westpoint's Veterans of Foreign Wars assembly hall
Unfortunately, dinner was not served until 6:30, so we barely had time to wolf it down before we ran off to the second meeting. (We missed both dessert and getting to hear the author speak.)
We arrived ten minutes late to the planning meeting, where Calaveras supervisor Steve Wilensky discussed Glencoe’s general plan. Apparently there hadn’t been one in the last ten years – a no-no under state law – so they were trying to create one now. We learned that the majority of the two dozen attendees – ourselves included – favored little to no growth in Glencoe. They enjoy being off of the maps and do not feel a need to become a Gold-Country tourist attraction.
Glencoe held its planning meeting at its American Legion hall
Our enjoyment of small-town life continued when we brought the whole family back for Fourth of July weekend. This was Cameron and Joss’ first visit since New Year’s. It was also our sixth Fourth of July celebration since we acquired the property in 2003.
The closest Independence Day celebration was in the nearby town of Mokelumne Hill, where they were hosting a pancake breakfast and parade. At breakfast we met even more of our neighbors. The parade consisted of 39 local “floats,” including the period-dressed “Calaveras Mountain Men,” a local farmer driving his tractor, and a family that had paid the 10-dollar entry fee just to walk in the parade. It was a very enjoyable morning, and our two teenagers were very good sports about their parents’ cultural indulgences.
Gail, Cameron and Joss walk the street fair at Mokelumne Hill
On Saturday the 5th, we attended a party hosted by neighbors Tom and Deanna, whom we had met previously at the Glencoe meeting. They were holding their annual weekend barbecue for Deanna’s line dancing club and we were invited to join. The attraction for the boys was that Tom had offered to teach them how to shoot on his shooting range. Cameron and Joss learned to shoot from a 22-caliber Rueger 1022 rifle with a scope. Even better, they learned gun safety from Tom’s father-in-law (also named Tom), who used to run the Livermore Shooting Range.
Cameron gives Joss some pointers on target shooting (We discovered that Joss shoots “goofy-eyed” – though ostensibly right-handed, he leads with his left eye)
It was a very enjoyable family weekend alternated by work and fun. Gail took advantage of the boys’ presence to have them move lumber from the inside of the house to the outside gazebo. (We need to clear the downstairs floor so that we can install an electronic radiant heat system before our next inspection.)
Balancing work and play – the boys move a stack of lumber
But perhaps the best spectacle was being able to watch 15-year-old Joss jumping on the trampoline once again. Only two-and-a-half months after undergoing major spinal surgery for scoliosis, it was wonderful to see Joss smiling, engaging in physical activity, and enjoying himself.
Joss, doing exceptionally well after his scoliosis surgery
[Worldtrippers home] [Mountaintop home]
Comments (0)
Send Private Message
Posted to octagonaltopsider by Gail in Cupertino, CA
on 8/17/2009
June 15, 2008
The Downstairs Framing Is… Not Finished!
Russell tries to figure out how – and where – to construct joists around all of the downstairs plumbing
As the weather turns from “cold” to “hot” (somehow bypassing “nice”), we continue to work on constructing our mountain home in anticipation of the next inspection milestones. In May, Russell was able to finish the upstairs interior wall frames.
Although the downstairs has fewer interior walls, a lot of the framing work requires two sets of hands. Gail was not available to join Russell up on the mountain the weekend of June 14-15, but luckily our friend Steve was.
On this 90-degree hot weekend, the three downstairs framing tasks were to:
- Install a drop-ceiling over the southwest to cover plumbing,
- Install a drop-ceiling over the pantry, and
- Install a drop-ceiling over the bathroom
On previous trips, Russell had installed some of the smaller joists, and Russell and Steve had waterproofed the exterior-facing walls with paint and caulk. We were now at the point where we could attach a cross-beam and install the remaining joists. The process was straightforward and was completed Saturday morning.
 
The southwest ceiling section, at various points of joint construction – the wall had to be water-proofed before we could attach the cross beam to it
The construction of the drop-ceilings over the pantry and bathroom was a little more complex, only because:
- The rooms were being used for storage and had to be emptied out,
- We had to work around all of the plumbing that had been installed, and
- The rooms were barely large enough to fit a single ladder in, let alone two guys with power tools
Once again, Russell tried to do as much of the one-person work as he could. This enabled Steve to continue bleaching and painting walls on the inside. Steve also went out and stained walls on the outside, enjoying the blue skies and sunshine.
In the pantry, there was barely enough room to maneuver. In the bathroom, Russell stood on the toilet tank and Steve stood on the sink cabinet.
We finished the pantry on Saturday evening and the bathroom Sunday morning.
The completed north-east ceiling section, showing the drop-ceiling. The pantry is back-left. The bathroom is back-right.
Russell had to get creative with some of the joists, such as here in the bathroom where the pipe actually protructed just a little bit from the wall
In addition, Steve was able to stain six of the eight lower exterior walls. The southern walls have the unfortunate plight of getting the most exposure to both sun and rain. Steve recommends that we put at least two more coats of stain on these walls before we consider them finished.
Unfortunately, the downstairs framing is not yet finished either. We still have to figure out how we want the center chase to intercept the ceiling, for both the drop-ceilings and the raised ceilings. In addition, Steve pointed out another section where a pipe runs lower than the raised ceiling. We’ll have to save those tasks for another trip, as Russell and Gail need to figure out what they want to build before they can actually build it.
 
Not quite finished yet: as Steve pointed out to Russell's disappointment, there is another pipe that runs below the raised ceilng on the south section
Still to be determined: how the vertical chase should intercept the horizontal ceiling, especially where the plumbing is exposed
[Worldtrippers home] [Mountaintop home]
Comments (0)
Send Private Message
Posted to octagonaltopsider by Gail in Cupertino, CA
on 8/17/2009
June 14, 2008
Heat… and Fire
A news photo of the Electra Fire, burning about three miles from our mountain house
(photo courtesy of KCRA Channel 3 in Sacramento)
The last time we visited our mountain home, we still had rain in the Bay Area. Only three weeks later, when Russell drove up to the property on Friday afternoon, July 13th, the temperature was 102º in California’s Central Valley. There were numerous fires burning throughout the Bay Area:
- Indians Fire (33,000 acres in Big Sur)
- Humboldt Fire (23,000+ acres in Butte County)
- Jackson Fire (6,400 acres in Sacramento)
- Ophir County Fire (1,600 acres in Paradise)
- Martin Fire (520+ acres in Santa Cruz)
The commute was extra long, due to a number of roadside fires that caused traffic back-ups. In fact, when Russell reached Gold Country and the final half hour of his drive, all he could see in front of him was smoke coming from the mountains in the direction that he was headed.
Russell's Friday the 13th commute was delayed by roadside fires such as this vehicle fire in Sunol
When Russell finally arrived on top of the mountain at 5:00 pm, it was 90º both inside and outside the house. Russell had been looking forward to trying the new ceiling fan that our electrician step-brother Jim had installed during the week. Combined with the window air conditioner, the new fan should keep things comfortable inside. Unfortunately, when Russell opened up the house, he discovered that there was no electricity. The power was out.
Our step-brother Jim has been coming up during the week to continue wiring the house. In addition to adding circuits and outlets (we can now run the refrigerator, microwave oven, and air conditioner at the same time!), he installed a ceiling fan over the eating area. Unfortunately, there was no electricity to turn it on.
Russell’s friend Steve arrived for the weekend as well. Together, we watched the fire burning on the nearby mountain as winds blew smoke and ash in our direction. Russell was able to eat his dinner alfresco (fortunately, he had picked up sushi instead of a frozen pizza). We were joined by our neighbor’s children, who also came up to watch the fire. Apparently, our mountain top offered the best view.
As we later learned, the Electra Fire had started at about 4:00 pm that afternoon (cause unknown), about three miles away on the Mokelumne River where Amador County and Calaveras County meet. In addition to burning 400 acres of rural brush, the fire had knocked out power for about 13,000 residents due to damaged power lines. This included roughly half of Amador County, as well as households along the Calaveras County border (including us).
 
The view to the west normally looks something like this
 
On Friday afternoon, the view looked more like this
We asked Robert and Jerry where their parents were. “They're sitting at home, worried.” Steve wondered if should evacuate, especially since the wind was blowing in our general direction. The thought of evacuation had never occurred to Russell, so we decided to stay. Before our neighbors departed, we did request that they come and tell us if things took a turn for the worse, as we had no direct access to news.
Fortunately, the fire was declared under control and power restored by 7:00 that evening. After doing some inside painting and caulking, Steve and Russell were able to enjoy an evening with electrical lights, fans, and more episodes of “Lost.”
All of the smoke and ash created a particularly hazy sunset on Friday evening
There were two more power outages Friday night. We were able to work Saturday morning until the power went out yet one more time. Russell tried to continue building without power tools in the heat, until Steve suggested that we go and clear brush from the trails instead.
The good news is that this particular fire caused no threat or harm to our mountain or home construction. The bad news is that we can’t obtain fire insurance until the house has passed its final inspection. At this rate, that may be more than a year away. In the meantime, we remain cautious as we face one of the driest California summers in years.
On Saturday, we could clearly see the 400 acres that had been damaged by the fire
[Worldtrippers home] [Mountaintop home]
Comments (0)
Send Private Message
Posted to octagonaltopsider by Gail in Cupertino, CA
on 8/17/2009
May 25, 2008
How many steps does it take to fix a wall?
The downstairs southeast wall, with some of the mold-damaged areas marked
Since the beginning of the year, we have been dealing with the fact that the exterior walls of our mountain home are not waterproof. We discovered this just after New Year, when a windstorm drove rain almost sideways into the south side of our house. What we had hoped would be an evening of listening to the rain outside turned into a nightmare of mitigating water damage with towels and buckets.
The situation has turned into Gail’s “personal hell.” She is meticulously going through every external wall, staining the wood, removing trimwork and caulking seams. When the weather has been too cold outside she has worked inside, removing blocks of insulation and bleaching the walls. In the last several months, Gail has also begun coating the insides of the walls with enamel paint to create a further water barrier.
This was the task that Russell’s friend Steve volunteered for when he joined Russell on Memorial Day weekend.
Russell’s original intention had been to continue installing a drop ceiling downstairs to cover the plumbing – a task that would require two people. Unfortunately, he couldn’t install joists until he installed a cross-beam. He couldn’t install a cross-beam until he installed a wall brace. And he couldn’t install a wall brace until the wall itself had been repaired.
The southwest ceiling and wall, showing the overhead plumbing where a drop ceiling would be required. Before we could construct a brace across the wall, step one would be to remove all of the insulation blocks.
So while Russell continued framing upstairs, Steve began the tedious work of fixing walls downstairs. Following Gail’s example, Steve first marked and removed the insulation blocks from the southwest wall. Second, he bleached the wall and connecting 2x4s to kill any mold that had accumulated. Third, he painted the wall and connecting 2x4s with enamel paint to create a water barrier.
 
Step two: Steve bleached the wall and surrounding wood to remove mold
 
Step three: Steve painted the wall and surrounding wood to create an additional water barrier
After a phone conversation with Gail, Russell decided to add an additional step: caulking all contact points between the wall and connecting 2x4s just to be sure.
Step four: Russell added caulking in every single seam between the wall and the surrounding wood
By Sunday morning, Steve and Russell had bleached four walls, painted three and caulked one (the southwest). Unfortunately, they had run out of time to begin installing the drop ceiling.
By Sunday morning, three of the walls had been painted
On his first visit in several months, Steve also took time to get outside (despite the rain), clearing brush from one of the riding trails.
We still have several walls to repair, both downstairs and upstairs and both inside and outside. Already, Steve can’t wait for the next opportunity to come back again.
On the wildlife front, Russell encountered a two-foot-long rattlesnake next to the step-up pump. Fortunately for Russell, it appeared to be too cold to strike.
[Worldtrippers home] [Mountaintop home]
Comments (0)
Send Private Message
Posted to octagonaltopsider by Gail in Cupertino, CA
on 8/17/2009
May 24, 2008
The Upstairs Framing is Finished!
Russell installs top plates on a particularly difficult part of the upstairs walls – above the master bedroom, where angled walls meet an angled ceiling
There are two major inspection milestones approaching as we continue to build our mountain home: the framing and the electrical wiring. The framing is the higher priority; you can’t install wires until there is something to install them in. Russell has the lead in framing, while Gail has the lead in electrical wiring (with her step-brother Jim).
Russell has been working on the framing, mostly single-handedly, for almost a year since July 2007. Most of the downstairs is one large room with no interior walls, so the bulk of work has been upstairs. It is normally a straightforward process to frame walls, but we have had to deal with ambiguous blueprints, warped wood, strange angles and vaulted ceilings. Russell finished the main walls in October 2007, only to turn around and begin working on the walls that extend higher up to the vaulted ceilings (i.e., most of them).
The vaulted ceiling walls have provided more challenges and frustrations. There is the physical work of lugging larger pieces of wood eight feet up into the air. There is the balancing problem of making the upper studs plumb with the lower studs while having nowhere to stand. And there is the logistical nightmare of cutting studs and top plates so that they match the ridiculous angles of the slanted and pie-wedged octagonal ceiling.
Our schedule has been confounded by our son Joss’ recent surgery for scoliosis. Joss has reached the point where he is sleeping through the night in his own bed, so Russell has felt comfortable leaving Gail at home as a single parent so he can get more work done.
Last weekend, Russell came up in the hottest weather so far this year – it was 100º F outside and 90º F inside the house. Fortunately, Gail had gotten a small window air conditioner on http://www.freecycle.org/ which provided Russell with some relief. Unfortunately, Russell installed it using a plastic sheet and some painter’s tape to secure the window. When Russell saw Gail’s reaction to his photo, he realized he would have to come back up again to make the arrangement more secure before a wind blew a hole in the set-up.
 
Russell's first attempt at installing a window air conditioner included plastic sheeting and painter's tape
He had to come back and strengthen the arrangement with plywood
So on Friday, May 23, Russell drove up once more. Gail had originally planned to join him – leaving Joss in the care of his brother Cameron – but Cameron ended up having a scheduling conflict. Fortunately, Russell’s friend Steve became available at the last minute, so he joined Russell up on the mountain.
Russell had wanted a co-worker because he thought he had reached a point where he couldn’t continue the vaulted walls without help. As it turned out, he was able to continue framing alone, while Steve worked on cleaning and painting the walls downstairs.
  
The last vaulted walls to be framed were above the master bedroom: this sequence shows the space, the top plates, and the final studs
A week ago it had been 100º. A week later, it started raining on Friday evening and continued all day Saturday. (This was probably our last rain of the season, and unfortunately Gail missed it. As it turned out, Cameron could have watched Joss after all, but we didn’t find that out until it was too late.)
At mid-day on Saturday, Russell called Gail with the good news: “The upstairs framing is finished!”
Of course, the next task is to finish the downstairs framing…
Another montage of photos: this one shows some of the upstairs framing (viewed from the northwest looking towards the southeast)
Cameron's bedroom (currently being used as the kitchen) is on the left
The hallway is center
The upstairs sitting room is on the right
[Worldtrippers home] [Mountaintop home]
Comments (0)
Send Private Message
Posted to octagonaltopsider by Gail in Cupertino, CA
on 8/17/2009
May 18, 2008
The Chase
Russell ponders how to construct a chase around the center pole and plumbing
The main reason that we originally bought our particular mountain property was because of its panoramic view. The main reason that we specifically bought a Topsider kit home was because it permitted a panoramic view. With its post-and-beam construction, the Topsider was the only home that permitted entire walls to be constructed of glass. And with Topsider’s octagonal shape, we would have an almost unobstructed 270-degree view from inside the house.
Almost, that is, except for the center pole. We decided that we could live with a 12”-wide pole in the center of the house, because it would enable us to construct with no interior walls. With that in mind, we went ahead and purchased from Topsider.
Our original conception was a 270-degree panoramic view that would be obstructed only by a 12-inch center pole
The problems – and the resulting compromises – began almost immediately. When we were preparing to build, Gail looked at the blueprints and realized that there was no plumbing diagram. With no interior walls downstairs and a cantilevered second story, how would the upstairs toilets, sinks and bathtub drain to the outside of the house?
Gail posed this question to Topsider, and after several days they faxed us a hand-drawn diagram. The only place that the pipes could run down from upstairs would be alongside the center pole. In other words, we would have to construct a column or “chase” around the center pole.
In response to our complaints about incomplete blueprints, Topsider faxed us a hand-drawn diagram showing that we would have to construct a chase around the center pole to accommodate the plumbing
We were understandably disappointed that the center pole would now be fatter than we had previously thought, but there was little that we could do about it at this point.
It was almost four years later that our plumber installed the pipes that actually ran alongside the center pole. Just after New Year 2008, we saw for the first time how large the chase would have to be: almost four feet wide.
We had always pictured the pipes running right up against the center pole. Reality was quite different; drainage pipes must have very specific angles in order to pass code and prevent possible blockages.
 
The center pole, surrounded by plumbing
By April 2008, the building of the chase was becoming a critical path toward completing the electrical wiring. Russell, ever the analytical, spent some time figuring out exactly how to construct it. Using both the hole in the foundation and the location of the pipes as references (Gail wanted several inches between the pipes and the chase to insulate and muffle sound), he decided on a width of just under four feet.
 
Russell used the hole in the foundation as a guideline for the chase
 
The finished framing of the chase
He also had to construct a wider cap piece on top, as the pipes took a couple of funny turns right at the ceiling.
The cap piece adds another foot of width on each side of the chase at the top
Another example of Topsider’s less-than-perfect manufacture: the upper top plate is aligned to the glu-lam beams; the lower top plate is level
On the weekend of May 18, Russell finished the basic chase. We still don’t know how the top of the cap piece will work with the ceiling and its glu-lam beams; we will have to figure that out later. In the meantime, the chase is framed enough to continue wiring the house.
And we now have a better idea of just how much our panoramic view will be obstructed.
This montage of photos shows how the final chase will ultimately impact our panoramic view
[Worldtrippers home] [Mountaintop home]
Comments (0)
Send Private Message
Posted to octagonaltopsider by Gail in Cupertino, CA
on 8/17/2009
May 2, 2008
Real Life Intrudes
Cameron visits Joss in the hospital following his scoliosis surgery
We have worked on our mountain house – and written about it – much less recently than in previous years. The simple reason is that we have been dealing with a major health situation with our youngest son Joss: scoliosis (curvature of the spine).
We would not normally include such information here, but we discovered that few resources exist for people in our situation. Our hope is that this post may help someone else who is looking for answers.
We first discovered Joss’ situation in November 2006, when he was 13-and-a-half years old. Gail was goofing off with him, and on a whim she decided to check his spine. She felt a slight curve mid-spine that had not been there a month earlier.
We were not able to get Joss into a doctor until early 2007. Joss’ pediatrician referred us to a pediatric spine specialist, who took x-rays. Joss had scoliosis with a bend of 25 degrees. Dr. Bucklin explained that the protocol above 25 degrees is a back brace. (The protocol above 50 degrees is surgery.)
 
In early 2007, Joss' scoliosis was 25 degrees. A year later it had grown to 65 degrees.
From his experience, Dr. Bucklin said the only brace he would recommend as effective was the Boston brace. He made it clear that the brace would not fix the scoliosis – it would only prevent the curve from getting worse. Dr. Bucklin showed an example of the brace. Gail put on a brave face, but when she got home she cried to Russell that it looked like an iron maiden.
The situation was particularly devastating to Joss. He has always been wiry, athletic and agile. He loves to run around, climb on things, and push himself physically. He would need to wear the Boston brace for 23 hours a day for the next three years (the only relief would be during meals) and do a regime of physical therapy exercises twice a day.
As a concerned parent, Gail promptly hit the Internet to research as much as she could. She discovered:
- No one knows what causes scoliosis
- Scoliosis is extremely rare among males; the overwhelming majority of sufferers are females
- Treatment protocols have not changed much in the last 30 years
Gail looked for alternatives to both the Boston brace and the physical therapy (which consisted of very generic exercises, not specific for Joss’ situation). The most promising alternative was a combination of Schroth therapy with a Rigo-Cheneau brace. This procedure has been successful in Europe but is only now making its way to the U.S. The problem was that the only American center was across the country in Wisconsin. Gail and Joss would need to spend a month there.
After numerous exchanges, the Center recommended that we try the Boston brace first, since we had already paid for it. If that treatment proved unsuccessful, we could then investigate the alternatives.
What followed was more than a year of sheer hell for Joss and his parents. Joss’ first reaction to the Boston brace was “I’m not going to wear that.” Rather than fight him directly (one does not accomplish much by confronting Joss), we let time ease his stance. Gail promised to do his exercises with him twice a day, and we were able to get him to start wearing the brace for a couple of hours at a time.
We discovered that tag-team parenting worked best. Gail’s style of coaching would work with Joss for a few weeks, then Russell would take over with a different approach. We got Joss to wear the brace to bed (though he would usually take it off after a few hours of sleeplessness) and to school. The school made special accommodations to give him extra time between classes, as well as duplicate books so he wouldn't have to carry them to and from home. After several months, Joss was wearing the brace up to 16 hours a day. (We learned that doctors prescribe “23 hours a day” so that you’ll actually commit to about 16).
In this photo from July 2007, Joss wears his Boston brace while helping to build the mountain house
Joss complained of constant back pain. The doctors kept telling us that “scoliosis does not cause pain.” Maybe not, but the torquing of the muscles around the spine was absolutely making life miserable for Joss.
We were making terrific progress until September 2007, when Joss cracked a rib while camping. With even more pain, Joss was unable to wear his brace or do his exercises. By the time he felt better, Joss was out of all of his habits. Any attempts to resume his scoliosis protocol resulted in major conflict.
The situation took its toll not only on our relationship with Joss, but on our relationship with each other. Gail and Russell didn’t resort to any blaming or resentment toward each other, but the constant stress, lack of quality time and mounting frustration created a very unhappy household. We enrolled Joss in counseling to make sure that he always had someone he could talk to. There were times when Joss’ brother Cameron was the only one who could put Joss into a good mood.
In November 2007, Gail and Joss returned to Dr. Bucklin for a progress appointment. A new set of x-rays showed that Joss’ curve was now 48 degrees. The good news was that Joss no longer needed to wear the brace – it wasn’t doing any good. The bad news was that Joss would require spinal surgery.
The surgeon, Dr. Lincoln, was an hour’s drive away in Oakland, but he is considered one of the best pediatric spinal surgeons in the state. (He is also a distant relative of Gail’s – they’re both related to Abe.) Friendly and experienced, Dr. Lincoln shared all of the possible worst-case scenarios for the six-hour surgery, including death, paralysis and blindness (from being face-down for six hours).
By this point, Joss’ spine curve had reached 65 degrees. Dr. Lincoln said it was “particularly aggressive.” Surgery was scheduled for April 23.
All four of us went to Oakland on April 22nd. Joss had one last meltdown that evening, but was relaxed and calm by the morning of the surgery. The operation was completed two hours early; Dr. Lincoln said Joss’ spine was still very flexible and he was an easy patient. Joss spent the night in intensive care, followed by five days in the hospital.
Joss has two permanent metal rods inserted on either side of his spine, with a set of screws securing the rods to vertebrae T3 through L1. Because his neck and waist were not affected, he should have minimal long-term limitations on his mobility. His ultimate height should also be minimally affected because most of his remaining growth will be in his legs. He has instantly gained 1-1/4 inches in height and 15 lbs. in weight (from the rods and screws). His convalescence will be three to six months, and he will be home-tutored for the remainder of his freshman year. Our hope is that things will finally start to get better for Joss after a year-and-a-half of misery.
 
Joss’ spine post-surgery (Note that he actually bends the other way from compensation – it’ll take about three months for his body to straighten out)
Joss has two permanent metal rods inserted on either side of his spine (the spine itself is too faint to show up in this x-ray)
All of our postings and work on the mountain house for the last year-and-a-half have been between doctor visits and helping Joss. Needless to say, our progress has been slow. Gail succeeded in getting our next inspection (originally due in June) pushed out until the end of the year.
Four years ago, our hope had been to build a vacation house that the whole family could enjoy. That is unlikely to happen at this point. Our eldest son Cameron will graduate from high school in a month and has been accepted to a four-year college. When he leaves home in the fall, we will still be working on our mountain house.
Joss’ therapy: Cameron and Joss play the “Rock Band” videogame, currently about the only exercise Joss can do
[Worldtrippers home] [Mountaintop home]
Comments (0)
Send Private Message
Posted to octagonaltopsider by Gail in Cupertino, CA
on 8/17/2009
March 9, 2008
Gail's Personal Hell
Gail (who has a fear of edges and heights) balances herself between a ladder and a parapet to install a top plate on the vaulted ceiling
Back in 2004, when we first had to make the decision of whether to build our mountain home ourselves or hire a contractor, we did an inventory of our skills. We decided that Russell’s forté was the outside of the house, where muscle would be required for the raw construction. Gail’s forté was the inside of the house, where finishing skills would be required for the interior decorating. As a result, Russell has been taking the lead for the work so far, as we have constructed the exterior skeleton. After the structure as passed inspection, Gail will begin to take the lead as we finish the interior walls, floors, ceilings and fixtures.
It is fitting, then, that Russell’s biggest challenges have involved his work on the inside of the house. In past letters, we have documented Russell’s “personal hell” of trying to construct a ceiling of joists around the center pole and eight knee braces. Russell finally got through his hell in October, when he finally finished the spaghetti-like mess of joists above the second floor.
Since then, Russell has had a much more relaxing time constructing the upper walls that join the lower walls to the vaulted ceiling. (Constructing the top plates that attach to the vaulted ceiling, however, has been a two-person nightmare for both Russell and Gail.)
Sadly, Gail’s “personal hell” has just begun. Ironically, her frustration involves her work on the outside of the house.
During the harsh winter storms of the past few months, we discovered (the hard way) that the exterior walls of our mountain home are not watertight. After investigating, Gail discovered that Topsider manufactured with walls without any vapor barrier layer or any caulking, even though the walls are constructed with multiple pieces. We would have to add caulk after the fact, despite the walls already being installed and in place 20 feet above the ground.
On Friday, March 7th, we had clear weather to drive up for the weekend. Once again, we left our two sons at home. Russell’s priority would be to continue constructing and installing the upper walls. Gail’s priority would be to begin weatherproofing the exterior walls.
Gail did not have an enjoyable weekend. As she began to work on the exterior of Joss’ bedroom wall, she discovered that the siding has begun to peel away from the structure. This may be because we have not finished staining the siding. It may be because of water damage. Or it may just be because of shoddy construction on the part of Topsider. In any event, Gail had to start repairing that, before she could get to her top priority of caulking.
 
Discovery No. 1: The siding on the exterior walls is beginning to separate from the wall frames
(Note that this particular wall was stained two years ago!)
As far as caulking, Gail decided to do what Topsider should have done in the first place: remove the wood trim and caulk underneath the trim. That way, it wouldn’t matter whether we used stain or paint, since the caulk would not be exposed to it. Furthermore, the caulk would be hidden from the elements and last longer.
When Gail removed the first piece of trim, she made another hellacious discovery: Topsider had not installed any Z-flashing on the trim pieces. Normally, when a wall is constructed with T1-11 (instead of a Tyvek vapor barrier), Z-flashing is used to make the seams weather tight. Gail was horrified.
 
Discovery No. 2: The trim wood (seen here with quarter-round removed above and below) was installed with no weathertight Z-flashing
At this point, Gail’s choices were to completely dismantle and reverse-engineer all of the exterior walls and install Z-flashing, or just proceed forward and caulk them as they are. She decided on the latter. Just removing the trim pieces and caulking underneath will take hours and hours of work. By the end of the weekend, Gail had just finished Joss’ wall.
In the meantime, Russell was able to be more productive. He installed the upper wall studs over the master bedroom closets and over Cameron’s bedroom wall. Cameron’s wall was especially challenging. Not only is it the highest vaulted ceiling, but there is no parapet to stand on and the wall itself has a sheer drop two stories down the stairwell. Gail was happy to take a break from outside and help Russell install the last top plates above Cameron’s wall.
As usual, we had a very busy and productive weekend, yet still felt like we had accomplished little. Gail was not able to install any electrical wiring at all, and we still have to repair the rest of the exterior walls as the weather improves.
At this point, we have until May to complete both the interior wall framing and the electrical wiring. Between Cameron’s upcoming college tours and Joss’ upcoming back surgery for scoliosis, we will be hard-pressed to get time up here during the next couple of months.
 
 
On the positive side: Russell was able to install the upper wall studs above the master bedroom closets (left) and Cameron's beroom (right)
[Worldtrippers home] [Mountaintop home]
Comments (0)
Send Private Message
Posted to octagonaltopsider by Gail in Cupertino, CA
on 8/17/2009
January 30, 2008
Between Storms
Gail made a new friend up on our mountain
When we last left our mountain house at the beginning of January, we had just been through the worst storm in two years. We discovered that while the roof doesn’t leak, the walls do. We departed in a hurry, basically leaving the leaks and mess to be dealt with at a future date.
After we returned to the Bay Area, Gail had numerous telephone and email exchanges with the folks at Topsider (who had supplied our kit home) to figure out why our walls were leaking. The first thing she discovered was that our longtime customer service rep, Brian Reed, is no longer with the company.
Starting with a new contact, Gail began to go through her list of questions. Why were our exterior wall panels constructed without a Tyvek vapor barrier? As it turns out, they were made with T1-11 plywood siding, which does not require a barrier. All of the walls do need to be stained though, and we have not finished doing that yet.
Why were our walls leaking? Gail was shocked to learn that Topsider had not caulked any of the seams in any of the exterior walls. Dumbfounded, Gail asked why. The Topsider rep explained that there are two kinds of caulking, depending on whether the finished house is stained or painted. Because Topsider doesn’t know what the owner will ultimately do, Topsider doesn’t caulk anything at all. The rep further explained that any contractor would have known this.
Gail asked why Topsider didn’t simply caulk all of the seams underneath the finished wood, where they would not be exposed to any stain or paint. The rep didn’t really have an answer to this question. In the end, it was obvious that the reason our walls leak is because none of the seams have been caulked. We had a new construction priority, but we would be dependent on both the weather and our availability.
Our first opportunity would be right after our daughter Colleen returned to Michigan. Unfortunately, this would also be a weekday, when Russell was at work and the boys were at school. Nevertheless, Gail drove back up on Monday, January 7 for her first-ever night alone up on the mountain. Her goals were to clean up any water damage, empty any catch basins as necessary, and begin caulking the two most critical walls – the master bedroom and Joss' bedroom, which faced the south toward the wind.
Gail did well caulking the exterior in the cold and wind. To reach a wall outside the master bedroom that had no deck access, she ended up hanging outside the window and caulking blindly by feel. She even single-handedly removed and re-installed a sliding glass door.
We would not have another chance to drive back up together again until Saturday morning, January 26, leaving the boys at home. It would be a short weekend, but another incentive was that it had snowed earlier in the week. Although the sun was now out again (hence our visit), we hoped to see some remnants. We also hoped to make more progress in caulking, wall building and wiring.
We saw evidence that it had snowed, but there was little left by the time we arrived
Once again, our careful plans were interrupted by reality. When driving the last quarter mile to the house, we discovered that a large tree had fallen down across the dirt road – a casualty of the recent storms. We walked the last distance to the house and returned with a chain saw and clippers. We took half of the afternoon to cut and clear the tree.
 
We spent the first half of the afteroon cutting and clearing a tree
As we surveyed the area, we also saw that autumn oak leaves now covered the dirt road. In addition to making the road slippery, they also clogged the water run-off ditches. As a result, the rain water was now eating gullies into the dirt road. After going back up to the house once more to get rakes, we ended up taking the other half of the afternoon to rake leaves.
We spent the second half of the afternoon raking leaves
The good news is that the house itself appears not to have suffered any permanent water damage. We spent Sunday cleaning up, putting down dry newspaper and emptying the catch basins. However, we were only able to do a minimal amount of caulking before it was time to leave.
The tree across the road wasn't our only storm casualty. We also lost a huge fir tree on top of the mountain near the house.
After returning to the Bay Area, Gail turned around and drove back up to the mountain only two days later, once again during midweek.
There were three reasons. First, Gail’s step-brother (and electrician) Jim was available that day, and Gail wanted to consult with him about the electrical wiring. Second, there would be another clear day between storms to do some more caulking. Third, there had been another rare snowfall, and Gail really wanted to see some of the white stuff on our mountain.
So on Wednesday, January 30th, Gail and Jim went back up for a day trip. Sure enough, the road, trees and house were all covered with a thin layer of snow. Gail and Jim were able to accomplish most of what they came up for, including more caulking and wiring. One task that they did not accomplish was to install an outlet at the step-up pump down the hill to power the heat tape. Once again, that will have to wait for another day.
We are hopeful that the heavy storms and freezing weather are mostly done for the season. As the weather continues to improve, we hope to finish caulking, staining and sealing the house so that it is truly weather tight.
In the meantime, Gail beat the rest of us by being the first one to experience snow on our mountain.
Gail enjoys her own personal snow day
[Worldtrippers home] [Mountaintop home]
Comments (0)
Send Private Message
Posted to octagonaltopsider by Gail in Cupertino, CA
on 8/17/2009
January 4, 2008
The Worst Storm in Two Years
The trees outside our house are buffeted by 100-mph winds
One of our best Christmas presents this holiday season was a last-minute visit by our 30-year-old daughter Colleen from Michigan. We hadn’t seen or heard much from her since she got married last May, so it was great that she had some free time to fly out (although her new husband was not able to join her). She arrived for a week in the middle of a head cold. Nevertheless, one of her goals in California was to finally visit our mountain property, which she had never seen.
The best time would be the first weekend in January, after all of the family gatherings were out of the way. The forecast was for rain, but with our walls and roof now secure, we would be safe and comfortable inside the house. Gail was actually looking forward to it; we had not yet been up in inclement weather since the house had been sealed. As for Colleen, rain was certainly better than Midwest snow. Everyone looked forward to sitting inside a nice warm and dry house, watching the rain outside.
As we got nearer to the date, the weather reports started getting more dramatic. Saturday, January 4th, was now expected to be “the worst storm in two years” (since New Year’s Eve 2005), with three inches of rain and 100 mph winds expected. We planned to drive up Friday (before the storm) and return Sunday (after the storm), so we weren’t worried.
Cameron was unavailable for this trip, but the rest of us had a leisurely drive up and arrived in mid-afternoon (Colleen drove up in the Prius, while the rest of us drove up in the van). After a nice afternoon and dinner, we settled in for the night.
The storm hit at about midnight. By 2:00 AM, Gail and Colleen were both shaken wide awake by the sound of the wind. Gail was convinced that she heard something rattling in the ceiling. Using a flashlight, she discovered that the wind was so strong, it had actually blown out the insulation that we had stuffed between the wall and the roof panel in the master bedroom. The loose insulation was now rattling around inside of the plastic vapor barrier sheeting that we had stapled to the ceiling.
By 4:00 am we were all up with the lights on. The good news was that the roof was not leaking. The bad news was that the walls were leaking – and it was raining sideways.
Gale force winds were flowing from the south southwest. Unfortunately, this directly affected both the master bedroom and Joss’ bedroom, where all of us were sleeping. Rainwater was seeping in through the cracks between the walls and ceilings; between the walls, windows and doors; and through seams and splices in the walls themselves. Insulation panels on the walls were getting soaked, as was the floor inside.
Joss' bedroom floor
Joss slept through it, but Gail, Russell and Colleen ran around in damage-control mode. We stuffed plastic bags into cracks. We lined the floors with plastic sheeting and newspaper. We lined up storage bins, dishes, and food storage containers to catch the dripping water. By the time morning came, we were exhausted.
Gail uses the tools at hand to wedge plastic bags into the seams of the master bedroom wall (note the loose insulation under the plastic vapor barrier at the top of the photo)
On Saturday, we had to re-evaluate our plans. Gone were the ideas of sitting cozily inside while watching the rain outside. Our choices now were to spend the day watching the upper floor slowly flood, or to leave a day earlier than planned and come back another time. We opted for the latter.
We spent the morning trying to leave things in the best shape possible. Gail and Russell actually went outside and nailed plastic sheeting outside Joss’s wall so keep the rain from getting in. We could only do so much before the strong winds almost pushed us off of the balcony.
Gail tries to keep from getting blown off of the balcony as she nails plastic sheeting outside of Joss' bedroom
We finally left by mid-afternoon, and ended up driving home during the height of the storm.
 
The house as we left it: storage bins, dishes, and food storage containers catch the still-dripping water
We felt like we came home with our tails between our legs, but there is actually a positive side to this disaster. We are ultimately very fortunate to have discovered the wall leaks this early in the building process. We shudder to think what would have happened if we didn’t find out the walls leaked until the house had been dry-walled and finished.
On the other hand, we still shudder to think what we’ll have to do to clean up and repair this latest disaster during our next visit…
Colleen and Gail go for a stroll (Colleen was actually quite amused by the weekend's adventure)
[Worldtrippers home] [Mountaintop home]
Comments (0)
Send Private Message
Posted to octagonaltopsider by Gail in Cupertino, CA
on 8/17/2009
December 4, 2007
Plumbing
 
In anticipation of the coming winter...
Russell installs heat tape on the step-up pump down the hill
Gail installs insulation in the water tank shed outside the house
In building our mountain house, one of our goals has been to do as much of the work ourselves as possible. This is (hopefully) the only chance we will ever have to build a house from the ground up. Our efforts so far have included hauling and building walls, hauling and building the roof, installing doors and windows, and troubleshooting countless construction problems.
There have been notable exceptions to our “build it yourself” philosophy. So far these have included the foundation, the septic system and the step-up water pump, all of which we have happily subcontracted out with no regrets.
Another recommendation was made by our friend Dennis. (Dennis used to be our building inspector, but due to position transfers he is now just our good friend. He still visits regularly to advise us on “dos” and “don’ts.”) Back in August, during one of his periodic visits and brain-picking sessions, he mentioned that one of the most frequent failures in home-builder projects is the plumbing. Dennis explained that many connectors available in hardware stores are actually not approved for construction, and only a licensed plumber would know that. As a result, most home-builder plumbing is red-tagged by the inspectors and has to be re-done.
Dennis advised that we might be better off subcontracting the plumbing. When we asked for recommendations, Dennis mentioned that his cousin, Curtis Jaspers, is a plumber. With winter approaching, Curtis might have some free time during weekends.
After several phone calls and emails, we finally met Curtis during one of our building trips in October. What surprised us was not that Curtis showed up with his dad, Randy. It was that Randy is a childhood friend of Frank Gilbeau, our crane man. We ended up having a mini-reunion with Frank, always a pleasure.
Gail, Frank Gilbeau, Randy and Curtis Jaspers have a neighborly chat (around here, apparently everybody knows everybody)
In yet another an incredible coincidence, it turns out that Curtis was the one who originally plumbed the pipes in our foundation two and a half years ago, working as a subcontractor for Rick Dietrich and Cliff Overmeier. Curtis remembered our project well. He looked at our plans, quoted us an incredibly reasonable price, and predicted that he could plumb the entire interior of the house in about three visits.
Curtis plumbs the upstairs hall bathroom
Curtis worked on our mountain house at various times during the next couple of months. Occasionally he worked during times when we were also on site, and it was fascinating to watch how rapidly and efficiently he worked. We had no regrets at all about having outsourced this task or hiring Curtis, especially when we watched him saw through joists, studs, beams and even the roof. Curtis even re-plumbed some areas of the exterior water tank to make them more accessible.
 
 
Installing (and sealing) a "stink pipe" through the roof
Curtis continued to work, even as the holiday season approached and we were no longer available to go up to the mountain. Finally, on December 14th, Curtis telephoned with good news: the interior plumbing had been inspected, approved and signed off on the first try.
We are ecstatic, as our building permit required us to reach a milestone by January. With the plumbing approved, we now have until May or so before we have to finish our next milestones (interior walls and electrical). Although we now have pipes running throughout the house, we don’t have any water flowing through them yet. That will have to wait for another day.
 
We have plumbing in the walls!
[Worldtrippers home] [Mountaintop home]
Comments (0)
Send Private Message
Posted to octagonaltopsider by Gail in Cupertino, CA
on 8/17/2009
October 20, 2007
The Octagon
Russell constructs a frame for the octagonal window. He is working downstairs where the floor is flattest.
When Gail and Russell were both up at our mountain house building site last weekend, Gail brought up the idea of installing a window somewhere in the plumbing walls. She had several good reasons. One, it would break up the monotony of a long and high continuous wall running the entire length of the upstairs. Two, it would provide additional light to the upstairs parapet loft once the walls were completely dry walled. Three, it would give someone up in the loft a way to see what was going on down below.
Of course, Gail did not have the easy idea of simply installing a square or rectangular pane of glass. Instead, she suggested that we install an octagonal window. This would add a fourth benefit: it would mimic the overall motif of the octagonal house.
Russell suggested that there was only one place that the window could be located: directly over the hallway. Anywhere else, and it would possibly interfere with a pipe that had to run upwards through the rough. Unfortunately, this would place the window in an unsymmetrical and unbalanced position. Gail realized that if we located the window directly in front of the center pole, it would be directly over the wall of the hallway where there would be no pipes.
 
Future home of an octagonal window
Back at home, Gail did some research on octagonal windows. She learned that we could buy a ready-to-install framed octagonal window for about $400. On the other hand, we could also buy a 24” piece of tempered glass cut into an octagon for under $100. She decided to go the cheaper route.
Meanwhile, Russell was back up on the mountain by himself; and after three and a half days of hard physical work, he decided to work on something less physical and more mental. So on Friday, October 20th, he decided to build an octagonal window frame.
There are two ways to get an octagon. The easy way is to take a square, divide it into thirds both ways, and draw diagonals between the thirds. While incredibly easy, this method does not result in a true octagon. Instead, it results in an eight-sided figure that does not have uniform sides.
The easy way to build an octagonal window. It is not a true octagon, as the diagonal sides are longer than the flat sides.
The difficult way is to construct a shape in which all eight sides are exactly the same length. This method involves using the Pythagoras theorem and the square root of two. Needing some mental exercise, Russell chose the difficult way.
The difficult way to build an octagonal window. While all sides end up identical in length, this method requires measuring the square root of two.
Russell’s octagon window frame project ended up taking all day. He figured out that a 24” octagon meant that each side would be slightly over 10” long (10-1/16”, in fact). With the weather outside looking like it might break into rain at any minute, he worked mostly inside (although it never did rain).
 
The octagonal window frame in place
Russell also constructed a rough-in in the parapet plumbing wall that enabled him to slide the octagon window frame in and out. This would enable us to install the glass before we put the frame in place. Finally, Russell finished off the frame with quarter-round trim that was left over from the exterior sliding glass doors.
 
The rough-in with the window frame removed. (Note the additional “girdles” under the ceiling beams for future drywalling.)
Once more, Russell finished just as the sun set and he ran out of light. His week of work is over, and this was his last milestone. Tomorrow he will pack up and go home after six days. But both he and Gail will return next weekend, when we hope to meet with a plumber.
Russell with the finished octagon window frame, including dark brown quarter-round trim
[Worldtrippers home] [Mountaintop home]
Comments (0)
Send Private Message
Posted to octagonaltopsider by Gail in Cupertino, CA
on 8/17/2009
October 19, 2007
Plumbing Walls
Russell tries to figure out how to construct a corner where two walls come together… right in the middle of a knee brace
In the blueprints for the mountain house that we are constructing, there are a few interior walls on the second floor that are designated as “plumbing walls.” This refers to the fact that they are next to a bathroom or laundry room and will have pipes running through them. As a result, they need to be constructed using 2x6 instead of 2x4 pieces of lumber. These particular walls also run all the way up to the vaulted ceiling, as opposed to ending at a drop-ceiling or parapet. This is so that ventilation pipes can run all the way out through the roof.
While we have completed all of the interior walls as high as the drop-ceilings (about eight and a half feet high), we have not built any of the upper halves of walls that extend farther up. This is because we first needed to complete all of the drop-ceiling joists.
During the first full workday of his weeklong solo stay up at the mountain, Russell finally completed the joists. On Thursday, October 18th, he began work on the extended walls. His first priority would be the three plumbing walls, adjacent to the hall bath, master bath, and laundry room. These walls would need to be completed before we could begin to install any of the actual plumbing.
In anticipation of this, Gail had spent the previous weekend attaching more plastic sheeting to the vaulted ceiling sections as a required vapor barrier.
She had also helped Russell mark where the walls would touch the ceiling. This was an incredibly tedious task; each wall would have to extend upwards perfectly plumb in line with the lower part of the wall that was already built. Any misalignment would cause a bump or bulge when drywall was ultimately installed. Marking the ceilings was a difficult task, requiring two people and a combination of plumb lines, levels, and a laser sight.
Gail poses with her vapor barriers
With everything pre-prepped, Russell was now ready to begin the actual installation of the plumbing walls. He had not been looking forward to this particular task; and the execution confirmed his fears.
Step No. 1 was to install the top plates. These were horizontal joists installed against the ceiling, so that the vertical studs would have something to attach to. As Russell described it to Gail on the phone, “Imagine standing on the edge of an eight-foot drop, trying to balance a heavy 2x6 over your head with both arms fully extended, then trying to secure it to a slippery plastic-covered ceiling with your third hand.”
It was extremely grueling and physically-exhausting work. Each piece of wood had to be cut with a double-miter at each end, to match both the slope of the vaulted ceiling and the angle of the glu-lam beams. Because the dimensions could not be measured exactly, Russell had to cut each piece, try to fit it, then cut it again – often several times. Each time he had to re-cut, Russell had to climb up and down the ladder, then up and down the stairs. (He kept the saw outside to avoid sawdust getting all over everything inside of the house.)
Often, there were no ceiling joists to attach the top plate to, and Russell would have to figure out some other way to attach it to the ceiling.
Once a top plate was installed, Step No. 2 was to install the vertical studs. Again, each piece of wood had to be double-mitered, and each piece had to be re-cut several times before it fit. By the end of the first full day, Russell had completed only half of the plumbing walls.
  
Step No. 1: install a top plate against the ceiling (if you can find anything to attach it to)
Step No. 2: install studs against the top plate
Luckily, the weather was on Russell’s side. The forecast had been for rain off and on, but so far Russell had experienced only sunny skies and a nice constant working temperature of 60º inside of the house. The second day went smoothly, and Russell was able to finish the second half of the plumbing walls.
The plumbing walls run from the hall bathroom (left), over the hallway to the laundry room (center), then to the master bathroom (right)
By the end of the first day, Russell had completed the right half of the plumbing walls
By the end of the second day, Russell had completed the left half of the plumbing walls (he also removed the temporary brace that spanned the knee braces)
Russell saved the biggest challenge for last. Over the living room, there was a point where two walls formed a 90º corner right in the middle of a knee brace. As usual, we had not been warned in Topsider’s blueprints, and Topsider provided no instructions on how to construct this. After a particularly long thought experiment, Russell was able to engineer a solution. He installed the last stud at 6:15 pm, just after dusk when it was getting too dark to work.
The problem: two walls come together to form a corner right in the middle of a knee brace.
Russell was able to install a short stud underneath the knee brace, but couldn't figure out how to construct any higher.
 
The solution: Russell installed "girdles" above and below the knee braces (red circles). When we install drywall in the future, we can attach it to these girdles.
Russell could now install the final corner stud above the knee place (yellow circle) by attaching it to the girdles.
(These last pictures were taken with a flash because it was basically getting too dark to work at this late hour.)
After two long and exhausting workdays, the plumbing walls are complete. Russell’s original stretch goal was to install all of the vaulted ceiling walls – including the non-plumbing walls – but he has since regained his sanity. Tomorrow is Saturday, and he plans to spend his last full day of the work week doing something a little less physically demanding.
On the wildlife front, we seem to have been adopted by a squirrel. He likes to play around in the wood pile when we're not looking, then he runs up onto this branch and spies down on us.
[Worldtrippers home] [Mountaintop home]
Comments (0)
Send Private Message
Posted to octagonaltopsider by Gail in Cupertino, CA
on 8/17/2009
October 17, 2007
Pole Dancing
The center pole, vaulted ceiling beams and knee braces. Beautiful to look at, but painful to construct around.
Gail’s stepfather Gordon is long-retired; but in his younger days, he built several houses from scratch by himself. When he came up to visit our mountain house building site last weekend, he shook his head. Noting our octagonal post-and-beam construction, with its vaulted ceiling beams and knee braces, he remarked, “You know, stick-built is a whole lot easier than this.”
Gordon wasn’t kidding. We have already endured two years of crazy non-perpendicular angles, from the foundation to the exterior walls to the floor sections. At least we anticipated those because they were in the blueprints. But nothing prepared us for the horrors we would face in trying to construct the interior walls.
Topsider’s blueprints showed the interior walls fairly clearly, although Russell still had to do a lot of calculating and guessing for exact lengths and locations. The blueprints also showed which walls should extend all the way upward to the vaulted ceiling, versus other walls that terminated with a drop ceiling and parapet.
What Topsider’s blueprints did not show us was that a majority of the interior walls would run right into the center pole and the eight knee braces that protruded from it. There were no plans that indicated where this would happen, and no instructions for how to deal with it. Russell took on the task of making everything fit, and he ended up spending weeks and months working out solutions.
Every wall was different, and walls would intersect knee braces at 22.5º, 45º, 77.5ºor some other octagonal angle horizontally. Because the knee braces and ceiling beams slanted at a 15º vertical angle as well, wood needed to be double-mitered for both studs and joists.
The joists were a particular challenge. Whereas the wall studs always attached to the floor as an anchor, the joists often had nothing to attach to except for other joists. They had to avoid the center pole and knee braces while still coming right up against them. And they all had to be level.
At home up in the rafters, Russell makes sure that a joist is level
As a result, Russell was faced with a chicken-and-egg puzzle of which joists to place first, and which joists to attach to other joists. Every single piece of wood had to be cut individually to length, horizontal angle and vertical angle. Some could be held together by nails, while others could only be secured with screws.
 
 
The hallway joists, viewed from below and above.
We had to finish the joists before we could finish the plumbing walls. We had to finish the plumbing walls before we could install the plumbing. And we had to finish the plumbing by January, when our next inspection would be due.
With these deadlines looming and the weather turning colder, Russell finally decided to take a half-week off of work and stay at the mountain for six days by himself. His goal was to finish the joists and the plumbing walls.
Russell left at midday on Tuesday, October 16th and made good time, beating all of the normal commute traffic. He spent a rainy Tuesday afternoon unloading hundreds of square feet of hardwood flooring from the van that Gail had picked up from freecycle.org.
With an early start and clear skies on Wednesday morning, Russell worked straight through the day, stopping only for meals. By late afternoon, the joists were finished.
Because we would ultimately construct a floor over the dropped ceilings (parapets), Russell constructed a "girdle" on either side of each knee brace to help support the flooring
The center pole also required a "girdle," so that flooring could be adequately supported in he future
It’s a satisfying milestone, but there’s more work ahead. The next task is to complete the plumbing walls, which will be even more physical and exhausting. It’s only the beginning of a long week, and Russell’s biggest challenge will be to pace himself.
 
A glimpse at Russell's notebook page detailing the joists, and the actual construction viewed from the same angle
[Worldtrippers home] [Mountaintop home]
Comments (0)
Send Private Message
Posted to octagonaltopsider by Gail in Cupertino, CA
on 8/17/2009
October 14, 2007
Wiring 101
Gail and her step-brother Jim inventory their collection of various switchboxes
We have been busily installing interior walls in our mountain home as a step along the way to two major milestones: the plumbing and the electrical wiring. After a conversation with our building inspector friend Dennis, we have decided to subcontract the plumbing. On the other hand, we are still going to try to do the electrical wiring ourselves.
Of course, it helps immensely that Gail’s step-brother Jim is a licensed electrician with 20 years’ experience. On the weekend of October 13th, we decided that our interior walls were far enough along to invite Jim up for a day to go over wiring.
We knew that Jim would be bringing his father Gordon and Gail’s mother Pat. What we didn’t know was that Jim was also bringing several hundred dollars’ worth of wiring and switch boxes. We were actually going to begin doing the wiring work, and Gail was thrilled.
Jim was only here for one day, Saturday, so he and Gail decided to concentrate on the upstairs light switches and electrical outlets. (Russell was still in the midst of his endless crusade of installing joists around the center pole.) Jim was wonderfully patient, giving Gail a crash course in single-gang versus double-gang boxes, 2-way versus 3-way light switches, and 12/3 (yellow) versus 14/3 (white) wire.
The first step was to mark the locations on the walls where switch boxes and outlet boxes would go. Gail learned the various codes and symbols: “S1,” “S2” and “S3” for the various light switches, a “O” with two slashes for a power outlet, etc.
Gail marks where the various light switches and power outlets will go
The second step was to nail the boxes in place.
 
Jim shows Gail the proper height to install a switch box
In order to install the outlet boxes, Gail had to deal with her old nemesis, the foam insulation
The third step was to daisy-chain the wiring from box to box. This involved using a paddle bit to auger holes in various joists and studs.
Gail and Jim pull wire
Jim and Gail were nowhere near finished by the end of the day, but they were off to a very good and productive start. Best of all, Jim believes that we have plenty of time to get the electrical wiring completely roughed in by our January inspection deadline.
Taking a lunch break: Jim, Gail's mother Pat, and Jim's father Gordon
[Worldtrippers home] [Mountaintop home]
Comments (0)
Send Private Message
Posted to octagonaltopsider by Gail in Cupertino, CA
on 8/17/2009
October 13, 2007
Return of the Bat
Myotis lucifugus (this picture is courtesy of the Illinois Natural History Survey at http://www.inhs.uiuc.edu/chf/pub/surveyreports/nov-dec99/lbbat.html)
Myotis lucifugus, also known as the little brown bat (“myotis” means “mouse-eared”), is found in California and several other states. It is about three inches long, has a 10-inch wingspan, and weighs about 1/4 of an ounce. It is most active in the two hours after sunset, when it eats half of its bodyweight in insects (about 300 bugs a night). Its lifespan is anywhere from three to seven years on average.
The little brown myotis hibernates between September and May, when the weather turns colder. It will look for a hiding place under tree bark, in a hollow tree, in a rock crevice… or in our case, inside our mountain house.
We knew that we had a bat in the house this summer. We thought that we had gotten rid of it in September, when we stopped seeing it fly around inside the house after dark. Little did we know that the bat had merely gone to sleep.
We discovered it completely by chance shortly after our arrival on Friday evening, October 12. Gail had brought up clean sheets and we were in the process of making the bed. We noticed a surprisingly large amount of bat poop all over the bed spread. Looking up, we saw that the only crack in the ceiling had already been sprayed full of spray insulation during a previous trip.
Russell got up on a ladder and looked harder. Even with a flashlight, it took several passes to see. In a smaller crack – no more than a quarter of an inch wide – was a sleeping bat. It had found a winter home, and was happily sleeping – and pooping – right over our bed.
 
The ceiling over our bed had a large crack that we had already sprayed full of insulation (yellow circle). The sneaky little bat was hiding in the smaller crack.
The first thing we did was decide not to do anything about it that night. It was a rainy evening, already dark outside, and difficult to see the bat even with a flashlight. The second thing we did was move our bed to the other side of the room, so that it was no longer under the pooping bat.
On Saturday morning, we awoke to a gorgeously sunny day with a plan already in mind. First, Russell gently stuffed insulation on either side of the crevice around the sleeping bat. This would prevent it from crawling away where we wouldn’t be able to reach it.
Then, Gail took some of the plastic sheeting she was using for the ceiling vapor barrier. She stapled it to the ceiling around the bat’s roosting crevice, then led it down like a tube and out the window. This would give the bat only one way to go – out of the house.
Gail stapled plastic sheeting around the bat's hiding place and made a tunnel that led out the window
Finally, Russell got up on the ladder with a yardstick. Poking the yardstick through a slit in the plastic, he pushed it into the crevice next to the bat and gently started sweeping it across. It took a couple of nudges, but the bat suddenly fell into the plastic tube. We bumped it down the length of the tube, where it finally fell out of the window and plummeted straight down.
 
Russell used a yardstick to bump the bat out of its crevice and into the plastic tunnel
We ran around to the outside of the house, where we found the bat all curled up in a ball and lying on its back. It was shivering tremendously. Thinking that it must be freezing cold, Russell decided to move it into the sun. However, when he picked up the board it was resting on, the bat rolled off and landed on the ground on its stomach.
Gail decided to place a glove next to it, to show scale if we took a picture of it. Just at that moment, the bat awoke, spread its wings, and flew straight at us. It didn’t hit us, of course, but it flew wildly around our heads for a few scary seconds before disappearing up into the trees.
 
We finally get a close-up look at our house guest: on its back shivering, and on its stomach about to spread its wings
We have successfully gotten the bat out of our house, something we thought we would never be able to do. Hopefully the bat is still alive and healthy, perhaps resuming its hibernation somewhere in a nearby tree.
In the meantime, we will continue sealing every possible crack and roosting spot anywhere around the house… just in case.
[Worldtrippers home] [Mountaintop home]
Comments (0)
Send Private Message
Posted to octagonaltopsider by Gail in Cupertino, CA
on 8/17/2009
September 30, 2007
Men at Work
Cameron takes advantage of the newly-cleaned downstairs floor to engage in his favorite pastime – reading – in the passive solar heat of the panoramic window walls
The weekend of September 29th, 2007 was the first weekend that our two sons, Cameron and Joss, were able to join us at our mountain home building site in more than two months. Joss even invited a friend, Tandré, to join us for the first time.
This weekend was also the second trip in a row that our friend Steve was able to join us. As a result, Gail had five strong and able-bodied men to work on the many tasks that need to be done, and she came equipped with a hearty to-do list.
Russell drove up separately and early on Friday, September 28, taking a half-day off of work so that he could arrive on the mountain by dinnertime. He took advantage of the extra time to begin re-arranging and consolidating the dwindling lumber piles on the lower floor. Because it was a school day, Gail and the teens drove up after dinner, arriving at 9:30 PM. Steve, coming off of play rehearsal once again, didn’t arrive until 11:30 PM. No sooner had Steve stepped out of his truck than it began pouring rain. The storm continued all night.
By the time we woke up on Saturday morning, the storm had passed, the weather was clear, and it was a gorgeous sunny day with no clouds in sight. We would enjoy blue skies for the entire weekend.
Before coming up, we had decided that we would not push the boys to too much work, especially since Joss was hosting a friend for his first visit. When they arrived, the boys were impressed with all of the interior walls, and Joss and Tandré immediately climbed up into the rafters to check them out.
Tandré and Joss play a board game up in the rafters
Still, Gail found time to commit the three teens to a number of work projects. With winter around the corner, Gail had purchased two 25-foot wattles – long snake-like rolls of straw for preventing erosion on hillsides. She had the teens stake the wattles onto one of the particularly steep hillsides that abutted the approach road.
Three men and a wattle
As a second project, Gail had the teens use scrap wood to build a stand for an old sink that she had acquired on freecycle.org. While the sink would not be plumbed at this point, it would still make things easier when using the outside faucet.
 
Tandré, Joss, Cameron and Gail build a sink stand
The teens were assigned dishwashing duty using the sink stand they had just built
While the teens alternately worked on these projects and entertained themselves, the adults were also hard at work. Steve and Gail continued the work of re-arranging and consolidating the lumber piles that covered the downstairs floor. When this was done, Steve went back to staining the exterior walls.
 
 
The downstairs floor, before and after cleaning
The extra floor space allowed us to set up a private area for Steve's hammock
Meanwhile, Russell continued installing joists. Gail tacked plastic sheeting to the vaulted ceiling so that Russell could extend the walls farther upward.
 
Russell installs yet more joists cut at strange and wondrous angles
Gail and Cameron re-staple a plastic vapor barrier to the vaulted ceiling
 
The ceiling-high extended wall frame between the living room and master bathroom
It was a busy and productive Saturday. It had to be, because Gail departed with the three teens early Sunday morning (Joss had to get back home by late morning for another obligation).
Russell and Steve stayed at the building site Sunday morning, making more wall/joist measurements and continuing to stain until the cans ran dry. Happily, the timing gave them an excuse to go back to their favorite all-you-can-eat Chinese restaurant for the first time in a long while.
We will not see Steve again until at least December, due to his many theater commitments. With the end of September, this weekend also marks the end of our “every weekend” building schedule, and we can surely use a break.
But we’ll be back again soon. Russell estimates that it will take at least three more weekends until enough walls are installed to begin either the plumbing or the electrical wiring. And at least one of those has to be finished before our next inspection in January.
Men no longer at work
[Worldtrippers home] [Mountaintop home]
Comments (0)
Send Private Message
Posted to octagonaltopsider by Gail in Cupertino, CA
on 8/17/2009
September 23, 2007
God Chuckles
An ominous-looking sky
??? ??????, ???? ?????.
“Man makes plans
and God laughs”
– Yiddish proverb
We were particularly excited about the weekend of September 22nd. This would be the first time in several months that Russell’s friend Steve was able to join us. (Steve has had a busy year doing music direction for several theater productions at home.) As it was, Steve didn’t get out of rehearsal until 9:00 PM Friday evening, and he didn’t arrive at our mountain home until 11:30 PM.
(We had also planned to have our sons Cameron and Joss join us; in fact each of them had invited a friend. But scheduling conflicts came up at the last minute, so they stayed at home while Gail and Russell came up.)
We had a very full agenda of activities, not only to take advantage of Steve’s help, but to finish a lot of outdoor activities before the weather turned cold. Much of the house exterior needed staining. We still had to put a roof on our latest gazebo. And of course, we had to go up on the roof and take off the roof cap to check for bats.
We awoke on Saturday morning to find the entire mountain and surrounding valley covered with fog. The fog turned into overcast clouds. And the overcast clouds turned to rain.
 
 
The views east and west – as they normally look, and as they looked Saturday morning
On the positive side, we had been looking forward to our first chance to be inside the house, watch it rain outside, and not get cold or wet. On the negative side, all of our exterior work plans were out the window.
Instead, Steve and Gail went around re-installing insulation panels around the inside of the vaulted ceiling. They had been falling out over the years, and they would all need to be restored (along with the vapor barrier plastic) before we could extend the walls up to the vaulted ceiling. It worked better as a two-person job, and Gail and Steve teamed well.
Steve had no problem reaching some of the high scary places that Gail prefers to avoid
Meanwhile, Russell installed the last two interior walls of the upper story. These walls both required strange measurements and cuts – one was a narrrow diagonally-angled corner for the hallway; the other ran into the center pole – so it was a one-person job.
 
The last two walls of the upper story (in the center of the photo)… finished at last!
 
The last two walls, viewed from the bottom (showing the diagonal angle cut) and from the top (showing the proximity of the center pole and knee brace)
In the afternoon, the rain cleared just long enough for Gail to do a little bit of staining, while Russell and Steve made their journey up on the roof. The break in the weather was short-lived though, as it soon started raining again.
The weather was better on Sunday morning, allowing Gail and Steve to put a layer of tar paper on the gazebo roof. Russell, meanwhile, began installing joists on the southwest side of the upper story.
Steve and Gail tar-paper the gazebo
Gail also helped Russell install joists
Our agenda didn’t work out the way we had planned, but we were still productive and got a lot done. God may not have laughed, but He certainly had a good chuckle. And on the bright side, we got to experience our first rainy weekend with the house weather-tight.
Gail and Steve relax with all of the comforts of home
[Worldtrippers home] [Mountaintop home]
Comments (0)
Send Private Message
Posted to octagonaltopsider by Gail in Cupertino, CA
on 8/17/2009
September 16, 2007
The Walls Close In
As we build out the upper story, we are literally running out of space to construct the remaining walls
One of the joys of this year has been the new ability to leave our sons home for the weekend while we come up and work on our mountain house. In exchange for giving them their independence and not dragging them up to the mountain every weekend, we expect them to complete their homework and chores, as well as keep the house clean.
After our last several trips, we noticed that the house was in progressively worse shape every time we returned. After last weekend, we finally decided that it was getting out of hand. Our constant weekend absences were having a negative effect on both the house and the boys’ attitudes.
We decided that Gail would stay home the second week in September in order to get the house back into shape. Because there was still so much construction work to do, Russell would go up to the mountain by himself.
Working from Friday afternoon until Sunday afternoon, Russell set himself to a mini-marathon of wall building. On Friday afternoon he reconstructed the master bathroom/closet wall that he had constructed incorrectly last weekend. On Saturday, he spent the entire day constructing and installing a whopping five additional walls.
This bizarre little five-sided room will be be accessed by the master bathroom as a linen closet from the top (left side) and by the utility room as a storage closet from the bottom (right side).
The left wall was the one that Russell constructed incorrectly last weekend (he forgot to include the opening!).
Sunday morning, Russell spent more than an hour just figuring how to construct another one of the most challenging upstairs walls. The living room/utility room wall is not only a long plumbing wall (2x6 instead of 2x4), but the left side of it would run directly into one of the knee braces off of the center pole.
 
Another center pole problem: the plumbing wall between the living room and utility room will run right into a knee brace in the upper left-hand corner
Using a borrowed laser level and an improvised plumb line, Russell was able to figure out more or less exactly where the wall would hit the knee brace, and constructed the studs and top plate to accommodate it. It took some maneuvering to get the wall upright and in place, but it fit perfectly.
  
Russell's solution: build a carefully-measured gap right into the wall. (Constructing the wall was difficult enough; fitting it into place was a separate challenge, given the limited maneuvering space.)
On that happy note, Russell called it another weekend, packed up and headed out. There are now only two short walls left to construct upstairs. After that, we will need to begin expanding the walls upwards to the vaulted ceiling, installing joists, and dealing with that pesky center pole.
The weekend's work: seven more down, two more to go!
[Worldtrippers home] [Mountaintop home]
Comments (0)
Send Private Message
|