Where do we put the house?
Jonathan and Ben the new stars to the movie "Holes".
It's funny the things you think about when someone says we built our house... often times that means that someone went to a builder, chose plans they liked, had the house built for them and did nothing more than choose the color of the tile and what type of heating they wanted. Well in our case we literally BUILT our house! We dug every hole for the supports, we mixed concrete by hand to fill the holes, we placed every board, we screwed every screw, we banged every nail you get the idea. But before we could do all that we had to choose where to put the house on the land. I, being a woman, wanted my kitchen to face East so it would get the morning sun. I wanted the house facing East, period. Well men, being men, couldn't see why it had to be exactly facing East. Hah! This is where we hit a road block and yes all work came to a screeching halt until an agreement could be made on where to put the house. Not only was I looking for morning sun to come into the kitchen/dining room, I wanted the main part of the house to face South to get as much passive solar heating that we could. Lets face it, Maine is cold in the winter and if we can save money by having some heating from the sun then we need to build the house so that we get optimal sun exposure. It may not be Feng shui but right now we weren't looking for cosmic input we had enough opinions just in our own household! OK so in steps logic. And a lengthy discussion on future expansion! That is how you win with builders for husbands ladies... discuss future placement of additions of the house and where the house could be best utilized... in the end our home faces East.
Building materials...Use what is local
First delivery of Tukey Lumber
One of the best resources we have here in Maine, is wood. So when it came time to choose what type of material we wanted to build the house out of, we went with the advice of the old timers. Hemlock. Why use hemlock? It is sturdy and when it dries out it is as hard as iron (or that is what we were told anyways). But from our own experience of "house hunting" we were amazed by how many old homes were built using hemlock as the main structure. We saw many attics were the beams were still exposed and low and behold made of Hemlock. One down fall of Hemlock, it weighs absolutely a ton when it is green! Also it is prone to splintering which for anyone wise in the way of herbalism knows hemlock is poisonous so when you get splinters and do not get them out right away they fester and become infected. We had many a splinter pulling party after a long day of building for sure!
As it just so happened, we had a local sawmill Tukey's about 15 miles away who had plenty of hemlock for us! Now one note about mill wood that we learned the hard way. The wood is cut to order - so literally some of our wood was cut in the morning and hanging by dinner time. Now when you go to one of the DIY stores and buy your wood it is usually 1/2" smaller than the actual size but every board is exactly the same. For instance, when you buy a 2"x4" it will actually be 1 1/2" x 3 1/2". Well in mill wood you get a ball park measurement - what I mean by this is if we ordered a 2"x6"x12' board we may end up with a board that is exactly 12 feet long but can be anywhere from 1 1/2" to 2 1/4" thick and 5 3/4" to 6 1/2" wide. This means we literally had to measure every piece of wood and make piles of wood that were the same size. Very time consuming for sure but this was important as we would either have to recut every piece to match or make sure we used the same size in a wall as if we used what ever size and went to attach the dry wall (sheet rock - plaster board) it would look uneven and wavy. In the end our house is solid - and we have no wavy walls!
OK and for sub-flooring, spend the extra and get AdvanTech! It is a manufactured fiber board that can withstand getting wet without damage! If we hadn't of used it in our house, we would have had some serious damage when a storm came through. I will tell you more on that story later...
As it just so happened, we had a local sawmill Tukey's about 15 miles away who had plenty of hemlock for us! Now one note about mill wood that we learned the hard way. The wood is cut to order - so literally some of our wood was cut in the morning and hanging by dinner time. Now when you go to one of the DIY stores and buy your wood it is usually 1/2" smaller than the actual size but every board is exactly the same. For instance, when you buy a 2"x4" it will actually be 1 1/2" x 3 1/2". Well in mill wood you get a ball park measurement - what I mean by this is if we ordered a 2"x6"x12' board we may end up with a board that is exactly 12 feet long but can be anywhere from 1 1/2" to 2 1/4" thick and 5 3/4" to 6 1/2" wide. This means we literally had to measure every piece of wood and make piles of wood that were the same size. Very time consuming for sure but this was important as we would either have to recut every piece to match or make sure we used the same size in a wall as if we used what ever size and went to attach the dry wall (sheet rock - plaster board) it would look uneven and wavy. In the end our house is solid - and we have no wavy walls!
OK and for sub-flooring, spend the extra and get AdvanTech! It is a manufactured fiber board that can withstand getting wet without damage! If we hadn't of used it in our house, we would have had some serious damage when a storm came through. I will tell you more on that story later...
Use what can be recycled
Picture window we found on Craigslist for $40
We wanted our homestead to not only be inexpensive, we wanted it to be "green". So when we could, we recycled. Many evenings we spent on local classified web pages searching for useable materials. Our windows, doors, kitchen cupboards, toilets, sinks were all recycled materials from other homes. Most were free or at least half the cost of what it is new. Yes the windows aren't the greatest, as you know no one replaces something unless it needs replacing, but as we saved a few thousand dollars it is worth the $20 a winter we pay for the plastic window cling kits. We were also fortunate enough to have family who loved to Yard Sale (Thanks Mom and Bob)! This is another great place to pick up gently used items for the home. We were fortunate to get our kitchen sink from such a yard sale which came not only with the faucet already attached, it had all the under sink piping too! We saved literally $100 or more! We also acquired solid wood cedar doors with all their hardware including antique glass knobs! Again we saved hundreds by getting these for $5.00 a piece! I have to admit, there are times when you opt to buy new like with our gas cook stove as we wanted a stove that had a pilot light so that we didn't have to worry about the power going off and not being able to cook. Also we didn't actually have continuous power to the house for over 8 months so the pilot lit stove worked out very well.
Have an old fashion House raising
Rainbow after our first day of building
What better way to include family and friends then to invite them to a weekend of fun and mayhem! Most times for the cost of food and libations, you can get a group of talented men and women together for a weekend of building. We had such a weekend on Labor Day Weekend September 2010. Unfortunately we were first inundated with a tropical storm named Earl that came in on the Friday. We had prepared the site as much as we could for the possibility of heavy rains and winds. We unfortunately had our insulation delivery on Thursday afternoon and thought that by wrapping it in plastic and putting it under the house, everything would be just fine. Well as luck would not be on our side, the rains came and came and came! Our lot, once a sand filled paradise was now a duck pond! The water flowed like a river under the house and we could only pray that the damage to the insulation would be limited, more on this later. Once the rain cleared on Saturday morning the day our house raising was to start, we had 4 inches of water in the first floor as it was dammed in by all the first floor walls. With a little ingenious cutting of the wood at the bottom of the door openings, our indoor pool was soon a thing of the past. Thank goodness we used AdvanTech for the flooring! As I mentioned above under materials, AdvanTech saved the day as it can withstand even a tropical storm with little or no effect on the board. So after a good drying out we were able to start building by Noon! With the help of 6 people - family, friends, and neighbors, we were able to install the whole second floor! A job that would have been nearly impossible without them. We even had a rainbow over the house when it was all done. We took it as our sign that we were doing everything that had been preordained. Special shout out to Chad, Kristina, Randy, Uncle Heinz, Aunt Carolyn, Mike, Anita, Keith, and Laura for being part of our raising we can't thank you enough!
Now for roofing...
Installing the metal roofing
Now being in a snow belt, choosing a roof was easy for us as we wanted to prevent any snow build up if we could. Best choice for roofing: Metal
Why metal? Well for one you get a serious deduction from homeowner insurance. But for us it was the ease at which the snow naturally falls off by itself. Sometimes a little assistance is needed using a roof rake - and then there are the times when it sounds like a mack truck has entered your living room due to the loud crash from falling snow but in the end it works best for New England. It is also easier to install then asphalt shingle roofing as one panel covers a 4'x10' + area and we did not need a plywood base - strapping was enough. One downfall is - not easy to install when it is windy and you are balancing on a ladder on a slippery roof. Hence Jonathan's nickname that few days was Spiderman! Also helped to have the assistance once again from Uncle Heinz who helped pass the sheets to the roof and screw them down.
Why metal? Well for one you get a serious deduction from homeowner insurance. But for us it was the ease at which the snow naturally falls off by itself. Sometimes a little assistance is needed using a roof rake - and then there are the times when it sounds like a mack truck has entered your living room due to the loud crash from falling snow but in the end it works best for New England. It is also easier to install then asphalt shingle roofing as one panel covers a 4'x10' + area and we did not need a plywood base - strapping was enough. One downfall is - not easy to install when it is windy and you are balancing on a ladder on a slippery roof. Hence Jonathan's nickname that few days was Spiderman! Also helped to have the assistance once again from Uncle Heinz who helped pass the sheets to the roof and screw them down.
Exterior Siding...
That's a Wrap!
The next step in our house construction was Wrap and Strap... Two important steps in making sure our house lasts for a long time. The wrapping acts as a vapor barrier to keep moisture out this is purchased in long rolls and is basically a plastic burlap kind of fabric. As we had decided on Board on Board siding, we needed to strap the house in order to hang the siding boards up. We again stayed with the Hemlock. In hindsight we probably should have went with thinner boards as we have had some issues with the boards cracking and splitting since being hung. Not the end of the world but it has made us have to caulk quite a few gaps to help from the wind getting in and our heating getting out. Once painted you can not see any different but it was a bit more work. Our siding boards are 12" bottom boards overlayed with 10" boards. We also opted to hang the boards vertically instead of horizontally. As again the mill boards are not always consistent this helped us not have to cut boards to match before hanging.
Abracadabra - A house is born!
Our House in the Middle of the Woods!
And just in time too! We definitely had our angels watching over us as the weather stayed unseasonably warm and there was no rain until after we had the house enclosed and the heating ready to go. Blessed and thankful for it!
To continue with Building a House Utilities and Insulation click here