Almost Finished Framing the First Floor

So I started framing the first floor. And, since I’ve never done framing before of this magnitude, I figured I would build out 12′ sections, raising them myself and see how it goes. It went pretty well. In fact I am 4 wall sections away from finishing the first floor framing. I even took a little video for everybody to see it. It took me a good solid day, about 10 hours to get this framing you see here in the pictures done.

Before I start getting comments like “Hey, where’s the header on that window?”, or ” You forgot a couple 2×10′s on that door header!”  I didn’t put all the headers on so the weight of the wall wasn’t more than I could lift up on my own. I was a little nervous lifting that first section, but once I got the hang of it, the lifting of the walls went well.

The most time consuming thing about the framing the walls are the door and window openings. Doors require a header and trimmers while windows require cripples in addition to these. Trimmers go on the inside of the door or window jam and essentially hold up the header. The cripples support under the window opening under the sill. All the measurements and cuts are the most time consuming part, at least for a novice owner builder.

I posted a couple pictures of the windows I picked out as well. I’m going with a low to middle of the road window since I can’t afford to spend $10,000 on windows right now. I found a place in North Georgia that buys building materials, then sells to the public. I found these 6′ and 5′ windows for under $100 a piece. They are beige and they don’t have grates, like a lot of Georgia houses do. I didn’t want to buy white, builder grade vinyl windows, like you see everywhere around here.

I researched Silverline, the brand of window I bought, and they are made by Anderson. We’ll, Anderson bought the Silverline brand. I saw a lot of mixed feedback about the window brand, but at the end of the day I really can’t spend a lot of money on the windows or I won’t be able to finish the house. From what I could examine and from what other builders I’ve met could tell me, these windows blanket GA in a lot of subdivisions and held up to be a pretty okay window. For the better window you have to spend more, so maybe down the road I’ll get better ones if they don’t live up to what I’ve heard.

I’ll post the video in a little bit in the video category I am building now. Thanks for stopping by. Comment or ask questions.

Floor System Joists and Girders

The floor system for the first floor is almost finished. I’ve been working on it for about a week and a half because I have been fighting the rain. Every time I get busy, I’m held up by rain. Plus, I’m Mr. Owner Builder – Do it Yourselfer on this, so I am handling all of the work on my own.

I’m using 3-ply 2×12′s as my girder, glued and nailed together spanning the 24′ and supported at 8′ intervals. It’s a little over engineered, but I wanted a strong floor. I’m using #1 pine 2×10′s as my floor joists with the longest span at 13’6″. I wanted the house to be closer to the ground, so I’ve opted to hang the joists from the girders instead of resting on top of a girder. The building code calls for joists to have a 18″ clearance and girders to have a 12″ clearance in a crawl space. So, I made my girders 15″ so I have 18″ to the joists at the very lowest point in the crawl space.

The joist hangers are Simpson Strong-Tie LUS210Z 2×10 joist hangers. They require 10 nails in each hanger, so the bulk of my time has been spent banging these in. There is a little trick to these that I didn’t know, but quickly figured out. There is a cut out piece of metal that is bent in and angled toward the direction of your girder. Once you line the joist hanger up, you can easily hit this metal piece and it drives it into the girder as a sort of temporary staple. It WILL NOT hang on for long if you’re hanging joists on both ends. As soon as you knock the other end, your opposite side will pop out with the smallest vibration. I knocked these metal staples in, then nailed in the top two nail holes on either side of the hanger then went over to the other side to line up the joist on the opposite end.

I’m at my wits end with the rain because I put that 6 mil plastic down, so if water gets in there it will just puddle up and have nowhere to go. But, once I put the floor down and screw everything in I am going to put some plastic over it all, then it can rain all it wants. I’ll just get frustrated when I start working on the second floor.  Here are some pictures of my progress with the floor system.

This Foundation is Still a Work in Progress

I am still working on the concrete block foundation wall. I am filling some of the cores down to the footer with concrete and seal up the others with a top layer of concrete in all the cores on the top course.

I know I’ve posted this last week, but I am hoping to finish this tomorrow. I was supposed to have a hired hand, but he didn’t show up last week. I have 2×8 pressure treated boards sitting there on the property for the sill and I am also sitting on go to have my other lumber delivered, it’s itemized and ordered, just need to have it delivered.

Doing most of the work yourself takes time. I’ve been contacting some other local Georgia companies I’ve found on craigslist who have unused building materials. Aside from lumber, there is a load of stuff out there for the house at huge discounts off what you would pay at a building supply store like Lowes or Home Depot.

I’ll check back later and post some more pictures, maybe even some video. I keep forgetting to get my Flipcamera out of the car.

Concrete Block Crawl Space Foundation

I wanted to check back in and include some pictures of my block work. I’m building a crawl space foundation, mainly because I don’t want to seal up all of my pipes for water, sewer, and electrical, but also for the HVAC to run from the floor up instead of the roof down since we know that cold air sinks and hot air rises.

Laying this concrete block has been very time consuming. I really want to get it right the first time, so I’ve been meticulously laying each block, making sure they are all level and square. This is very time consuming work.

My Block Laying Process Went Like This…

1.) I let the footer cure for a few days. I know I didn’t have to let it cure so long, but I was busy anyway. In case you were wondering, footings in my county need to be 8″ deep by 16″ wide, I made mine 10″ deep by 20″ wide with two pieces of rebar all the way around. I also set vertical rebar every 6′.

2.) I laid down a 1″ thick bed of mortar for the bottom layer or first course of block. I painstakingly leveled every block like I was building the great pyramids.

3.) I got to the first block I laid and… SURPRISE! It was level! I felt like I had accomplished something, then I realized I had to do it again for second and third course.

4.) I applied an water sealer to the 1st layer of block and footer I had poured since there was some rain in the forecast.

5.) I added ladder reinforcement in between the second and third course, as seen in the photo below. I plan on filling the cores every four feet, from the footer up where I have my vertical rebar embedded in the footer, as well as filling the top course to create what is called a bond beam around the entire wall.

6.) I left spaces where I would have to add venting.

7.) I made sure everything was level with a masonry string with a line level and also 4′ long level.

I’m still working on finishing the block work but it’s raining today. I figured I’d take a couple minutes and upload some pictures to share if there is anyone out there reading this already. I know Google picked my site up and indexed all of my categories. I checked the traffic stats and it looks like you are out there reading. Share some comments.

If you’re looking at the picture and saying, man that hill looks like it sends water right down to the house, I have a small v shaped trench over there now and I do plan on grading that hill down even further to make sure water goes in the opposite direction of my house.

Laying Concrete Block

So, I’m embarking on laying concrete blocks tomorrow. I’m laying 3 courses of 8x8x16 concrete blocks for my crawl space foundation. This should be a simple owner builder project since it’s done little by little, you can really get precise with your mortar joint. I’m sure a contractor in the business of laying block could do this in a few hours. I actually had a guy call me to offer to do it for $600 who’s been in the business for 15 years. He claimed he could lay 780 blocks in an 8 hour day. If that’s true, that’s a lot of block.

I have vertical rebar that I put in the wet concrete before it cured. I layed out some blocks dry today to make sure it all lined up square… it does. So, I’m off to the races tomorrow. I’ll post back soon to let you know how it goes. Hopefully it won’t be that difficult. I’ve watched a ton of youtube videos including one basement windows video and re-read my block section in my owner builder book. Until tomorrow.

Laying Concrete Block is VERY Time Consuming

Laying concrete block is a lot more time consuming than I thought. You have to get that first course down level and it’s a lot harder than the pros make it look. It is doable though, it just takes much longer.

I had a good rain come today, so yesterday and the day before I was able to do the first course and get some waterproofing down. I wanted to get it done and back-filled before the rain hit, but it just didn’t happen. I really wanted to give up and just hire someone, but an owner builder must push forward. Getting it done quickly is not what it’s all about, it’s about getting it done right the first time. Although I really want to get it done quickly, I have to concentrate on taking my time.

Concrete block should be spaced apart with 3/8″ gaps, so I bought a 3/8″ rod at the hardware store to space out my block before applying mortar to make it permanent. It seems to work really well. I saw online, there is a company that sells 3/8″ metal spacers to make sure your other courses are exact, but I think I’m going to just try to get it right with my trusty metal rod and a tape measure.

I was happy when I got all the way around to the first block I laid and they all lined up level. Second course and third course of block will go up next week. This weekend it’s storming, so I’m stuck inside with the kids.

 

Digging Footers in Georgia Clay

When I graded down, I took out about 4 feet of clay to get my home site flat, and moved the dirt outwards to create a gradual drop in elevation in all directions from my house. This way, my house is not just sitting on the top of a hill.

I marked out all my corners and put up my batter boards. I put the batter boards up far enough out so I would avoid hitting them when using the excavator. The point of batter boards is to establish square and level and be able to put your strings back up at any time to reference at any time.
Since I’m an owner builder and never operated an excavator before, I went for a slightly smaller excavator, the Powerhouse PX-10 with a 12″ bucket. My footers were to be 20″ wide and I need at least 12″ below grade. Footers in my county need to be 16″ wide x 8″ deep, I went 10″ deep and 20″ wide.

I practiced digging in an inconspicuous area in my yard for a few minutes, then came back to tackle the footers. It wasn’t the prettiest once it was done, so I went back with shovels and squared it off real nice and leveled it up. It took me about a day to complete the footers.

I opted to put two pieces of 1/2″ rebar in a continuous run around the entire building in addition to steel fiber mesh in the concrete. Once everything was in, I remembered that I wanted to put a 6 mil plastic down to protect the footers from any water in the future, so we pulled some under the rebar before the pour the next day.

I called around and haggled on the concrete and got a price of $105 a yard, nylon fiber was another $6 per yard. I calculated how much concrete I needed by using this concrete volume calculator and figured I needed about 7 yards.

The morning of the pour, I will admit that I was a little nervous, I’m an novice owner builder, I’m no concrete contractor, but this is a pretty simple pour. I watched tons of videos, read through my owner building book and checked and rechecked my level lines.

Once the lines are up and level, you measure down as to the depth of your concrete. We poured a little, spread it out, all while checking the measurement from the line for level. We got to the end and put a little extra concrete into the trench to work with once the truck left… You can always take concrete out, but once the truck leaves you can’t put anymore in.

Quotes I received to contract out the footers were $4500-$5000. My cost was $1200 for everything: concrete, excavator rental, a buddy to help me, rebar, plastic liner… and my labor was free :) I still need to build my stem wall for my crawlspace, so I expect to spend another $450 on block, 3 courses high. I am still in the mega savings zone.

Long Nasty Winter – Temporary Power

Ok, so I started this blog with the best intentions and instead of blogging about how frustrated I was with the weather, I figured I would just put it on hold. Now that the spring has arrived and the rain and freezing temps went away, I’ve been busy out there getting my temporary power set up, getting my footers dug out, and pouring concrete.

Temporary Power – Owner Builder

You need power at your home site and luckily there was an old mobile home on my property, so the power was already ran out to where I need to hook up. Otherwise, I would have had to have the electric company out to install poles and power 350′ out to where I am building my house on my property.

I had a meter there without an actual meter in the meter casing. There was a plastic cover over where the meter would go, so I called the electric company and asked if they would come out to remove the plastic cover and make sure it wasn’t hot (power coming down the pole into the meter box). They came out the next day and said everything was alright to start working in the meter box.

I tested the leads to make sure they really weren’t hot and started working. I stopped by Home Depot and picked up a small breaker box with 4 slots, 2 twenty amp breakers, some romex, and an outdoor outlet.

I ran the power cables down from the meter box into the breaker panel. Once I had that connected, ran the romex down from the breakers into my outdoor electrical box. I called the county to come inspect it. They gave it the okay and I called the electric company to come out and install a meter. Took two days to get the power hooked up, about 20 minutes to install everything, but now I have power on the property.

Some states and counties may require a licensed electrician to do this type of work, so check before you start a project like this.

Grading the Lot with Bobcat T190

Last weekend before it started raining here like you wouldn’t believe, we began grading our lot with a Bobcat T190.

The Bobcat was great at digging down around the roots of large trees in order to push them over. I had 2 large white oaks right in the center of the home site that needed to be removed as well as 6-8 sweet gum trees. The white oaks were pretty easy to push out with the Bobcat, but the sweet gum’s have a tap root that runs very deep and is larger than the trunk of the tree at the base.

I was impressed at the power of the T190 with it’s track system. Those trees came down fairly easy.

I probably could have used a little bigger equipment to get the job done, but I didn’t have access at the time and a Bobcat is fairly easy to operate with it’s hand controls. I had my best friends dad, who’s like a 2nd father to me, Charlie come by and help me do some of the grading work. He mainly loves being on a machine, plus it was nice to have him there while I was cutting up the trees with my Husqvarna chain saw.

Rain Rain Go Away! New Plans Anyway.

I’m very happy to have all this rain considering just last year we were in a drought situation here in Georgia, but it’s really messing up my plans to get this house started. I guess it’s a good thing though because it’s given us some time to consider changing our plans and budgeting those plans.

We are going with a house plan very similar to the house plan seen here on FamilyHomePlans
We are planning on building the main house then adding the garage in the near future after the house is finished since we don’t want to spend the extra money at this time. With all the rain though, it’s almost impossible to get this project started. So, we’re praying for a break in the weather.

I don’t mind framing in the cold, but I need that foundation to set right and before the rain, we had a cold snap.

Looks like warmer drier weather is right around the corner. Permits are the next project this next week. I’ll keep you posted on our owner builder process. Attached are the engineered trusses I will be using that integrate the floor system for the second floor into the truss.

2 Car Garage with Apartment Plans

After checking with the county, I am going to build a 2 car garage first with a 1 bedroom apartment above it, then live in it while I construct my house. I’m not looking for extravagant garage plans, just a simple structure that will accentuate a similar style cape cod house plan. I am working with a local designer who came up with a first draft last night, seen to the left of this post.

I have to go with a slightly wider 2 car garage plan to meet my county’s 1400 square foot primary structure requirement. I want to build my house and take my time, but I want to get onto the property so I can work on it little by little. It was either choose a 2 car garage plan with apartment or buy a mobile home to put on the property while I build a house. I chose the garage because mobile homes depreciate so quickly. Plus, a 1400 square foot mobile home is huge.

The living area in my garage apartment is not going to be huge, around 650 square feet, but it will give us a place to live while we build and we won’t have to rent. As an owner builder, the whole idea is to save huge amounts of money and get the house you want.

Next step after the plans are completed would be to start grading. I have a bunch of sweet gum trees as well as dirt to move around in order to accommodate the garage.

Thanks for checking out my garage apartment plans. I’ll keep you posted on the progress.

Septic System Owner Builder – DIY

Just came back from closing on the property today, so we’re proud owners of some Georgia dirt. The first step was to find out where the septic tank was to get it pumped and inspected by the county. After 2 hours of digging around, and with the help of the septic tank guy who’s business card read… “The Do Do Doctor”, we finally found the 4″ sewer pipe. We probed around and followed it down 30′ or 40′ to the septic tank.

After the tank was pumped, I needed to take the form given to me by the septic pumping company down to the county. I paid $125 for an inspection by the county and I should find out this week if I will be able to use the existing system. The “Do Do Doctor” said it looked good should pass inspection.

I did some research on septic tanks and wanted to share some info I found for other owner builders out there. Where we live is pretty rural, so there is no public sewer available or I’d be hooking up to it. Being able to use the existing septic system will save me thousands of dollars. The lowest price to install a new system around here was around $3500. I got other quotes close to $5000.

Material costs for a do it yourself owner builder would be somewhere around $1500. The septic tank itself is around $500 or more for a 1000 gallon tank.

Then, unless you’re going to be digging it with a shovel for a couple weeks, you’re going to need to rent a backhoe.

The septic system is pretty simple… Waste comes out of the house, down a main pipe, and into the septic tank. Solid waste will sink to the bottom where bacteria and other organisms will break down the matter. Then, the liquid waste seeps out and down the drain fields to sink down into the earth where the waste is naturally filtered.

A couple tips I got along the way would be… Never flush a lot of bleach or cleaning products down your drains or you will kill the bacteria that breaks down the solid waste which will lead to problems very quickly. Next, have your tank pumped out every 3-5 years. And finally, place your drain fields more than 100′ away from your well, which is for obvious reasons.

I’m hoping I pass inspections so I can move on to the next step in the owner builder process. I will keep you DIY folks informed. Hope this post helps.

3 Acre Lot Homesite for Our Owner Builder Project

I went back out to the site to poke around where we are building our home to get some ideas. I told you in the last post that I would tell you a little about the property so here it goes…

It’s 3 acres of land in North Georgia. There is a creek bordering the whole South side of the property. The home site is approximately 25′ higher than the creek up on a hill. There was a mobile home on the property that was removed, so the electric is already run out to the site, there is a septic system, and there is also a working well on the property. There is public water at the street that we can tap into, but we may do that down the road.

It’s been a year or so since anyone has lived on the property, so as you can imagine there is a lot of underbrush that has come up and totally swallowed any grass that was there. My first job will be to rent a brush hog and take out all the brush and saplings that have grown up before I rent a bobcat and start grading.

I talked to a friend of mine, Charlie, who use to pour foundations and grade property for a living. He is coming out to the lot with me this weekend to go over what we need and has offered to help me grade it for free.

My plan, which I have discussed with the county, is to build a 2 car detached garage with a small apartment and move into it while I complete the rest of the house just 15′-20′ away. I have never built a house before, but I have remodeled several homes from top to bottom. I am confident in my skills and being able to follow a plan. Of course I will hire some help for the framing, plumbing, and electrical, but for the most part, we’ll be building our own home ourselves as owner builders.

Launch of “Building Our Home” Blog

Welcome to our new site. 

After finding an amazing deal on a piece of land in Georgia, my wife and I are embarking on a journey to build our own home as an owner builder. I am kind of a “jack of all trades” and have been heavily involved in internet marketing and graphic design as a hobby of mine, so I figured… Why not turn this into a step by step documentary of our experiences while building our own house.

I also thought it would be interesting to find building materials from alternative sources such as craigslist.com, backpage.com, and maybe some signs, rather than pay retail prices for building supplies at home improvement stores. I know how to get high ranking in search engines using blogs and linking, so I’m hoping for some large companies to want to donate some materials in exchange for permanent links from my blog, which will be a heavily visited owner builder website.

In this owner builder blog, we’ll discuss every step of the building process as we go along, every road block, every victory, any score on building materials at crazy prices, and much more. In my next post, I’ll include some pictures of the land and some rough sketches I’ve made of our house plans and site plan. If you’ve been looking for a step by step guide to building your own home, I am happy to put this website together for you.