New address(es) - UPDATED

We have started using the rural route address at the property and have begun changing our address with all our correspondents. We haven't moved yet, but our Post Office box rental expired last week and could only be renewed for 6 months at a time. Since I am at the site virtually every day, and since we hope to be moved to the site within weeks, changing the address now made sense.

Sadly, we will have to change it again sometime soon. Greene County may be the last place in America that hasn't assigned real street addresses. We are finding some companies, insurance and financial institutions for example, will not accept an RR box as a valid address.

A company is contracted to assign addresses but no one, not the county clerk, the postmaster, nor the company itself, will say when they will announce the new addresses for any particular route. The upshot: we will soon have to change from our RR address to a street address. In the mean time, for those who won't accept the RR box number, we have made up a street address. If they use both in the sequence we have given them, their mail to us will go to our mail box. If they switch the sequence or don't use the box number at all, we have no idea if we'll get their mail or not. Time will tell.

On the topic of addresses, today as I was crawling around on the floor drawing lines, I though I saw Sandy coming in the door. It wasn't her. It was the UPS man looking inside to determine if anyone lived here. I told him "Not yet." Now for sure, UPS and the Green County Daily World have the new address.

By the way, in response to a comment, the address is:

RR 4 Box 262, Bloomfield IN 47424.

See, I do read the comments.

Progress on the heat

Today Sandy and I got the last of the tubing run for the radiant floor heat. Here's what it looks like in the bathroom.



You can also see the base of the shower. The over-stuffed bag contains cellulose that will be poured into the wall behind the shower once the fixtures are mounted inside the wall.

As I have shown earlier, the system has five "layers". The last "layer" is the cement board shown here, partially in place.



The cement boards are 3' X 5' and are placed so that four boards do not intersect at the same point. As each board is placed it is marked to show where the tubing under it is located. (The lines are easily seen if one double clicks the picture.) With these lines one can avoid damaging the tubing when the boards are screwed to the sub floor through the grids. The lonesome grid on the right is being used as a template to get the right curve when drawing the ends of the loops below onto the boards.

I hope to get all the rest of the boards in place tomorrow except where the toilet will be placed. The grid has to be cut out there first and the exact location of the toilet hasn't been determined.

Lookin' for a home

Sandy and I took a long walk around the property on Sunday. The sun was shining and the temperature was about 58. We looked carefully at areas near and at the bottom of the south-facing hill. We discussed the possibility of a larger pond and locations for our house. We decided we might need to arrange for a survey of at least the area near likely spots for the house before deciding on one. Further, since we can see large rocks at the surface at spots on the hillside, we will try to find someone who might be able to survey under the surface so we don't pick a spot where we'll have to dig or blast out huge rocks before we can dig a foundation.

We are certain we will find a great spot that will provide nice views down the hillside, an unobstructed south face for solar heat gain, sound buffering from the state road, and easy access to other areas of the property.

When we finally select the site I'll start sharing pictures from it at different times of the year.

Can't believe it's been over a month

Tonight I realized it's been 36 days since my previous posting. One might get the idea that we haven't been making any progress, but that just isn't so.

Here are a few of the things that have been done since then.

1. We finished blowing insulation into the attic.

Here are two "before" and two "after" pictures:

 

 

2. The first floor walls have been framed.

The first floor is where we will have our clothes washer and dryer (which I hope we will use sparingly in warmer weather), a toilet and a large wash tub. It will also be used for storage of things that need a bit more protection than provided by the heavy shelving on the east wall. The first floor has a concrete slab and can get pretty cold. I built the walls with 2X6's supporting two rows of 2X3's, 24 inches on center. This will allow thicker insulation on the first floor that, for the most part, will not be heated. Since neither wall surface will touch the other side of the wall, the 2X3's will prevent a "thermal bridge" between the inside and outside wall surface.

3. The water manifold has been moved to an inner wall.

If I'd thought enough about it to begin with I would have put it there in the first place. Though all the walls of the utility room will be insulated, putting the water distribution manifold on an inside wall will give it a few extra degrees of buffer on the coldest days.

4. Most of the radiant heat grids have been placed.

There are still some grids to place, but they go pretty quickly. Then comes the metal plates that distribute heat from the PEX to the cement board. Next I'll run the PEX tubing into them. After that they are covered with the 1/2 inch cement board. Here's a picture of the bedroom floor so far.

5. The stairway is installed.

You'd think I'd have taken a picture of the stairs, huh? I'll post one soon.

6. Lots of miscellaneous tasks.

It's amazing how a day can go by and nothing particularly visible gets done. The bathroom has been wired, but without the fan and medicine cabinet and its lights, one can only throw the switches on and off with no results. And they're quiet switches so there's not even a click.

I hung up some bird feeders. Dozens of birds showed up and are there all the time. At one point there were seven male cardinals around the feeder at once.

I made some time to organize the "shop area," currently just a section of the first floor defined by clear plastic walls.

I had to rework the walls behind where the shower will go because the shower base we purchased goes against the studs, not the drywall, and an additional stud was needed on each wall where the glass shower walls abut the solid walls. Lesson learned: buy, or at least decide on, everything as early as possible so dimensions and requirements can be incorporated the first time.

Still more to do, but the end is in sight.

Santa was very good to me!

Among my Christmas gifts, I got two that will get plenty of use at Greene View Springs. The first is a great movable stand for my miter saw. It has two working heights and collapses and stands up for storage with the saw attached.

The other Christmas gift is insulated work overalls. They're being used every day while the temperature is so low. It was 3 degrees Fahrenheit last night.

You don't need to see that picture this early in the year!

I guess they know it's safe

Nearly every day lately one can see a large flock of wild turkeys along State Road 54 just east of Bloomfield. The picture's detail isn't too good, but here they are.

Warm floors

It is getting cold and we're not quite ready to install the radiant floor heating system, but I thought I'd show how the system goes together. Our system is produced by The FloorHeat Company. Their web site explains the system in more detail. It is mostly a do-it-yourself process.

It starts with a thin sheet of foil that goes directly on the OSB floor panels. The foil is covered by 16-inch square plastic grids which snap together to cover the entire floor. Metal pieces are snapped into the grids. These will help transfer the heat from the plastic tubing which will be snapped into all of the grids to the panels which cover the grids. The panels are then covered by the laminate floor panels. The tubes are attached to a panel which contains a tankless water heater and a pump to move the heated water throughout the system.

Here is a grid, a metal piece, and how they fit together. Of course there are hundreds of them in the system.

When all the components are together it will look something like this:


You can see four of the laminate panels snapped together. Under them is a 3'X 5' cement board panel. Under that are the plastic grids. The foil is not shown because I don't want to put it down until we're ready to do the installation. Finally, the OSB panels can be seen.

Notice the piece of 2X4 next to the floor system. It is the same thickness as the system. This allows us to build a wooden grid in closets and under cabinets that will have the same laminate sheets on them but will not be heated.

I forgot to take a picture of the control panel. I'll do that after the plastic tubing (PEX) is installed and the system is ready to go.

Has it been that long?

Once again, time has flown and I haven't posted for over two weeks. I've got a few pictures to share. I'll start with a follow-up on the previous post.

Using a 1" X 4" strip of wood behind the top of the drywall sheets did the trick. The drywall is solidly supported at the top, just as if there had been a full nailer there. It turns out attaching the strip to the drywall before erecting it wasn't necessary. In fact, doing so made it harder to get the drywall in place. It worked a lot better to just slide the wood strip up behind the 2" X 10" board at the top of the wall. The pressure from the packed cellulose behind the tarp section kept it in place while the drywall was screwed to it.

Here's a picture of an installed drywall sheet showing a section of the wood strip to the left of it. You can see the 2" X 10" board that runs the length of the long walls. The white on the board is from raising the ceiling drywall and will wipe off. I plan to sand the board smooth and cover the nails which hold the boards to the barn's main posts.



All the drywall in the apartment has been installed except for a few wall sections that will have water tubes in them. These need not be finished right now, and getting heat in the building is a higher priority. The next post shows what we're doing for heat.

Getting the walls straight

I have been worried that the drywall on the outside walls will eventually bend in toward the room because of the pressure of the cellulose stuffed behind it. The drywall will be screwed into 2x2 "nailers" at the bottom and 2x4 nailers every two feet up the wall as well as into the 4x6's every 8 feet along the wall. But at the top of the east-west-running walls there is a 2x10 that supports the roof trusses. It is nailed inside the 4x6 posts. This means the drywall will come up under, but not behind, the 2x10's.

As an aside, when I first realized the 2x10s were at the top of the east-west-running walls I worried I would have to build those walls inside them. Instead we decided to make them an architectural "feature" and leave them exposed along the entire length of the north and south walls, even in the bedroom and bathroom. I'll sand them down and "spackle" them to hide the seams and nails, just like drywall, so when molding is added and they are painted it will not be apparent they are wood.

Here's what a typical 8-foot wall section looks like, shown with one sheet of drywall attached.

 

Even though there will be a piece of trim under the 2x10 that will help keep the drywall vertical, I am concerned that the trim, only being nailed into the 2x10, will not be strong enough to resist the cellulose pressure against the drywall. I've decided to add a 1x4 behind the drywall and the 2x10 by screwing the drywall to the 1x4 before putting it up on the wall. I don't think it will be necessary to attach it to the 2x10 because the cellulose pressure against the billboard tarp sections should keep it tight. Here's a closer look.

 

Here's the view from inside the wall. Of course the exterior sheets, the cellulose and the billboard tarp sections are not shown.

 

Of course this means the 1x4 attached to the drywall will have to be tucked under the 2x10 first, then screwed to the nailers below. If this works it might actually make it easier to install the drywall. So far, without the 1x4, the first any only drywall sheet I've stood up has been difficult to hold firmly against the wall. I'll write about how it works soon. Tomorrow I've got to go find 64 feet of 1x4's.

Our first snowfall

It wasn't a lot of snow but it shows where one of our sledding runs will be. The area in front of the trees to the left has lots of birds in it most of the day. They eat seeds from the tall grasses and wildflowers. The view is from the large window where the kitchen table and benches will be.

60 degrees at 8:00 PM

Each evening I work at the new apartment, when I drive back to the rented apartment, nearly the last thing I see before I get there is the time and temperature sign on a bank a few blocks away. Tonight, on the 11th of December, the sign showed 60 degrees! Who would have thunk it?

Today we got the insulation finished in the apartment walls (except for one section in the bathroom that still needs a support for the shower). Here's what a typical wall looks like full of cellulose behind sections of billboard tarps:



For those interested in more detail, there's another picture below. For the rest of you who have better things to do, that's all for now.

Since cellulose tends to compress over time, I have left the top of each section of the exterior walls accessible from the attic so more can be added if needed. Each section is covered by the tarp which runs up the wall and is stapled to the outside of the 2X10 which supports the roof trusses. Then it is pulled over the cellulose and held in place by the pressure of a small section of foam insulation board. Here's what that looks like:



From the top, you can see the roof sheets, the insulated board section, the tarp at the top of the wall cavity and the 2X10 that supports the trusses. Also, to the right, you can see one of the plates that are used to construct the trusses.

After the ceiling drywall is installed, the insulated boards will be removed to allow air to flow freely through the eaves and out the top of the attic. Before then I'll staple vent chutes to the roof so that the blown-in cellulose will not flow over the top of the wall to the outside. I don't know how I'll hold the tarp over the top after the insulated board is removed, but we'll figure it out.

Christmas is coming

I can't believe it's been so long since I posted last.

All of the siding is installed except the peak of the walls at the east and west ends. The weather has turned nasty and there's plenty to do on the inside, so the peaks might not be finished until spring.

We are working on insulating the walls now. Since it is a pole barn, the outside walls are 7 inches thick so it takes a lot of insulation. We have chosen cellulose which is a recycled product, made here in Indiana, and also turns out to be the best insulator for the cost.

Normally it is blown into the walls, but we are filling them by hand as we put up the vapor barrier which is old billboard tarps. This picture shows the process and a typical wall section with the 2-foot spaced nailers in place.



Drywall will be installed vertically along the original outside walls and horizontally on the apartment's east wall which is vertical studs, 16 inches on center and not a true outside wall.

We started by breaking up the bales of cellulose ourselves. It was slow going and not all that effective. On Thursday we borrowed the cellulose blower from the store and blew about 30 bales into the bedroom. Sandy fed the machine for about 2 hours outside into the dark. I was inside where the cellulose was coming out of the hose, trying to bag as much as I could while it piled up like a gray snowstorm in the room. It even stuck to the walls like snow would in a blizzard.



I got a bit covered with the stuff.



From there it is bagged and dumped into the walls. The entire process still takes time, but the cellulose is ground up more finely and it was all ground up in a few hours instead of literally days which it would have taken the way we had started.

Tomorrow my son is coming from Indy to help lift and install drywall on the ceilings. Sandy and I got enough of the walls insulated today to make his trip worthwhile.

All the electrical wiring is done except for two lights and switches in the attic which can be added even after the ceiling drywall is installed. The best part of that is no more extension cords everywhere.

Our radiant floor system was delivered, too. It came on two large pallets. One had the tubing, the metal plates and the entire control panel with gauges, valves, and the no-tank water heater. The other pallet contained all the panels that will cover the floor. Stay tuned for pictures of that system.

The north wall is done!

Except, of course for painting it, which will cover the caulked seams, trim on the ends and the windows and building soffets, the north wall is finished. The rest of the work will likely be in the spring. There is plenty to do on the inside after all the outside panels are installed.

Here's a flash picture taken last night after the ladders were removed.



With two more days of warm weather promised, and with our improving skill (and I do use the term loosely) at putting up the second level panels, we just might get them all installed before it turns cold again.

Rustic sidewalk moving along

The rain has stopped, the ground has dried and the temperature has risen, so Sandy has been able to get back to the sidewalk project. Even with constant interruptions from me with requests to help lift wall panels, (or to help me find something I've misplaced for the umpteenth time,) things are looking good.

Armed with a carpenter's square and a tape measure, she is establishing, from east to west, a line that parallels the building's south wall. Then, with a pry bar and stones gathered nearby, she is leveling and aligning the large pieces of stone and concrete that we found scattered near there when we bought the property.

Edging is pieces of fencing purchased at the serve-yourself lumber yard in town.

Here's what it looks like so far. There is a lot of clay near the building, but the soil improves quickly as one moves down the hill to the south (right).



The fate of spindly tree next to walk is still unknown. It's been in the way while installing Tyvek and siding panels, but it won't be after that. The growth of its roots is the major concern.

What am I doing wrong?

Can't understand it. I added 33 bales of cellulose to the building's sliding door and it didn't keep it one bit warmer inside!

Was I supposed to open them?