Frank's Workshop Construction Project

[Tim Morton]

Geez Frank....make sure you save some energy to do some woodworking after this is all done!!! You are putting us all to shame with all that manual labor.

[Kelly C. Hanna]

Looks like you have a good pier plan there Frank. What size beams & joists are you going to use?

[Frank Pellow]

Looks like you have a good pier plan there Frank. What size beams & joists are you going to use?

The beams will be 3 laminated 2x8 pressure treated spruce. The joists will be set on top of the beams and will also be 2x8 pressure treated spruce. The joists will be on 16 inch centres.

[Frank Pellow]

I am posting the update early this week because I am leaving to drive to the Ottawa area in about and hour and will have computer contact again until late Tuesday.

This week:

• The holes were dug for the piers (by a sub-contractor), the concrete poured (by the same sub-contractor), and the saddles were installed into the piers (by me). After the sub-contractor left, I spent about 12 hours moving the very very sticky clay that he extracted to a pile that I will eventually have to remove. I should negotiated removal of this material with the sub-contractor when we made the deal.

• I finished digging the trench that will be used next October to install electricity and natural gas.

• With the assistance of several Saw Mill Creek forum members, I came up with a new improved plan for insulating the shop floor. There is a spin-off thread entitled "Question re insulating the floor in my workshop " on this subject.

• I took delivery of a lot of material and stacked it in various corners of my side and back yards. Because of the both the pier sub-contractor and the material, the real costs more than doubled this week. They now stand total a little over $6,000 (Cdn) or about $4,500 (US).

In the 5 days that I will get to work next week, I hope to:

• Remove the grass where the building is going to go, lay down plastic, then cover the whole thing with 5 cubic yards of crushed stone.

• Build an animal and child retardant cover over the trench .

• Laminate then install the beams.

• Install a few joists and a small experimental section of insulated floor.

There are two attachments. One shows me on top of the pile of clay and the other shows the building site (this time, not from above).

[Jim Becker]

My one question, Frank, is why will the electric and gas lines not be installed until October? You could lay the flexible gas lines in and put in conduit for the electric and get the hole covered up and re-landscaped "now" which would give you flexibilty for when the hookups are actually made.

[Kelly C. Hanna]

I thought we were the only ones cursed with black clay....I hate the stuff. Makes digging footings very tedious (and to think I used to do them by hand....

That's a big pile of clay!!

[Rob Russell]

My one question, Frank, is why will the electric and gas lines not be installed until October? You could lay the flexible gas lines in and put in conduit for the electric and get the hole covered up and re-landscaped "now" which would give you flexibilty for when the hookups are actually made.

Jim,

At least in the USA, Frank would need to lay his conduit and have that inspected before he could fill the trench. I question whether an inspector would approve that sans building. Maybe they would, but I'd check first.

Frank,

Was there some reason you dug the trench now and didn't wait until later? If nothing else, with that clay, I'd guess that you'll have a nice little lap pool for the birds in the near future.

Rob

[Frank Pellow]

Jim, Rob is correct about my reason for not laying the electric and gas lines now. For the electric, I need to wait until it can be inspected in conjunction with the hook up. For the gas, the gas/heater company wants to run their own line and they want to do it when they install the heater.

Rob, I dug the trench now because the clay bakes rock-hard in the summer. I am going to cover the trench with boards, so there will be no problems with birds.

[Jim Becker]

Frank, the concern that I and others eluded to with the open trenches is that no matter how you cover them, rain is going to collect and make them pretty "soupy" from time to time. Be prepared to re-dig some percentage of the material that will settle in the bottom. But your reason for digging them now makes sense...if you don't have a 'hoe, you want to dig when it's soft.

[Kelly C. Hanna]

OK, I gotta ask...what do birds have to do with an open trench?

[Jim Becker]

OK, I gotta ask...what do birds have to do with an open trench?

Rob was eluding to the situation that the trenches might fill up with water being open for so long, providing our feathered friends with an "olympic-sized" birdie bath...

[Kelly C. Hanna]

Thanks, I never woulda thought of that one!

[Frank Pellow]

Frank, the concern that I and others eluded to with the open trenches is that no matter how you cover them, rain is going to collect and make them pretty "soupy" from time to time. Be prepared to re-dig some percentage of the material that will settle in the bottom. But your reason for digging them now makes sense...if you don't have a 'hoe, you want to dig when it's soft.

Jim, I am lucky in that there is good drainage at one end of the trench. Therefore, I do not expect there to be any accumulation of water over the summer. So, I really do not expect there to be very much clean-up to do when I uncover the trench next October.

[Frank Pellow]

This week, I:

• Removed the grass where the building is going to go, laid down plastic, then covered the whole thing with 37 wheelbarrow loads (very full wheelbarrow loads) of crushed stone. I am attaching a picture of me getting started on the stone pile in our driveway.

• Built an animal and child retardant cover over the trench that will be used next October to install electricity and natural gas.

• Laminated, leveled and installed the floor beams. This turned out to be a lot of work (14 hours) because the contractors who installed my piers did a poor job of leveling them (in spite of the fact that I had pre-installed absolutely level batter boards for their use). Of the 13 piers, 4 were OK, 3 needed shims below the beams and 6 required a notch in the beam. See attached photo. A 33 foot triple-laminated 2x8 beam is heavy and I am working alone; so I built 2/3 of each beam on the sawhorse, put the beam in place, then nailed the third width of 2x8s into place on the piers.

• Determined exactly how I am going to instal the insulation and animal prevention under the floor. A major part of this is a galvanized steel mesh with 1/4 openings screwed and stapled under the joists. There is not much room to operate under the joists, so installing this mesh is proving to be very tedious and slow. This task has not been helped by the cold wet weather we had this weekend. I am attaching a photo that shows the site as it is right now. Note that only the first 3 joists with the mesh are in place.


Next week, I hope to have the sub-floor finished.

[Kelly C. Hanna]

Lookin' good Frank! You are definitely doing a good job with the foundation. Wonder why the contractor couldn't level all the post bases when you did all the work to show him where you wanted them?