We heard the freight train...

just like people say it sounds as a tornado goes by. It was followed by a loud crashing sound. I got Sandy up and we went to the first floor for safety. That was about midnight.

When the storm was mostly over I went outside in the rain to see how bad it had been. Up to that point I thought it was just a really nasty storm.

That's when I noticed a large metal locker at the end of the walk and a trashcan on top of a whiskey barrel planter. Both had been about 20 feet away under our carport. Obviously something was wrong with that picture.

I looked around the corner to find our carport crashed on top of the Buick. It had been lifted right out of the ground. The carport contents were strewn all over creation.

Part of the white tarp that was on top of it is in the top of a tree about 100 yards away looking like a giant ghost.

We called 911 to report the damage. About 1:30am a sheriff's deputy came by to be sure no one had been hurt.

He reported the tornado had moved two cars parked at a nearby house and damage had been done to the house across the county road from the new house. Also power lines are down on the road by the new house. We lost power at the apartment for about an hour.

There doesn't appear to be any damage to the apartment though it did suck open the bathroom window and then closed it again on the curtains which were then hanging out in the rain.

In the morning I took lots of pictures both at the apartment and then down at the new house. There was no damage there except the entire floor of the building was covered with muddy water at least an eighth of an inch deep. A door had blown open and apparently the wind had roared through the building.

Many trees were down, both on our property and across the county road. Two fell all the way onto the front of the house but incredibly did no damage. The very tops of the trees were leaning against our new windows without even a scratch on the frames.

Two of the panels on the rafter extensions were missing and one was damaged. I found one of the panels had just flipped over onto the roof, still connected by the flashing. The other was found behind the house about 70 yards from where it started.

Here's a link to the pictures.

Rock walls

Now that the trencher, the last heavy vehicle that needs to get behind the house, is finished and gone, we can start getting the east-side hill they way we want it to stay. Sandy got a shot of me moving a large rock for the retaining wall. There are lots of rocks on the property much, much larger than this one.


The wall should look lots better when we get some plants started on it. The rocks on the right are steps to get onto the hill. The wall will be about eight feet longer.

More progress

All of the interior doors are now in place. Here's a look at two of them through a framed wall in the second bedroom. The left one is in the third bedroom. They both lead to the half bath.


And I finally have electricity where it should be: at the breaker box in the utility room.


Here's the meter box awaiting it's hookup by the power company. They came the next day.


The nearly level area behind the house is a result of hours of work by Sandy after the power line was buried.

Before the contractor filled in the trench I was able to drop in another drainage line to take runoff down the hill to the east toward the driveway.

Letting in the light

Above the master bedroom and the bathroom walls on the hallway we are installing windows so light from the clerestory windows can brighten them too. There's not a lot to see yet since the windows haven't been stained or painted, but here are two pictures.

The first is showing one window's wall being framed. It will go in the top part of the bedroom wall.


And here's a look at the bedroom walls from inside the bedroom. The two sliding doors on the right are to the left side of the closet. The pocket door looks into the hallway.

The bituthene stomp

Over the last week the "roofing crew" has developed a new dance. Its purpose is rather mundane - tamping down seams between strips of the roof membrane to get a good seal, but its implementation can be entertaining.

We used a product called bituthene which comes in 66-foot rolls that are 36 inches wide. They require an overlap on the edges and ends as they are laid down in shingle fashion from bottom to top. Lines on the edges of the strips aided in alignment, but it took a number of strips before we found a placement method that produced the best results.

We learned that it was counter-productive to try to run a single length of the material all the way across the roof. Unless we started out precisely straight with the roof and with the previous strip, the slightest angle off caused the line to veer further as we went along. This would cause an insufficient overlap which had to be corrected with a short overlay, and this is not best since the shingle effect is lost where the overlay covers both strips. Consequently, we chose to limit each strip length to no more than about 12 feet.

We had to put the membrane down carefully to be sure we got the required overlap and to prevent creases from forming. This took a crew of three: one to hold the whole strip off the surface and let it down slowly and evenly, one to wrangle the paper backing and one to press the membrane down smoothly. Near the end of each strip the first two shared their duties as the remainder shortened.

On each side of the membrane roll there is a very narrow strip that is not covered and is very sticky, like the bottom surface. Once a strip was in place, and while the next was being cut to length, two people were free to stomp the seams. This was done using the backing paper that had been removed since one side of it does not stick to the membrane.

Weather was a factor. It rained a number of times before we were finished. Each threat of rain required us to recover the roof with our trusty billboard tarps. And after each rainfall we uncovered the roof again and found something else to work on until we were sure it was dry. Fortunately, the rainy weather also brought windy days so the drying off time was shortened. Overall it took about eight days to finish the job, though few of them were full ones.

Surprisingly, after all the miserable weather we've had the last month or so, I found myself hoping for cold weather to place the membrane since it was far less sticky when it was cold. Cloudy days were welcome.

The pictures below show the process, the "dance" and the roof covered with the membrane.