Well we had one of those weeks again. They kept talking about a weather bomb hitting our area on Christmas Eve with high winds. So I spent a worried few days watching the weather forecast closely concerned about my roof. Well it happened 84kmh recorded gusts at the local airport and sure enough missing shingles on Christmas day. Well more about this later in the post. First we'll get through the first part of the week. However I promised you some pictures I forgot to take from last week.
First is the flashing to finish the garage door and the second one shows the small roof over the man door.

On Sunday I went into the garage and finished priming the entire garage. I also ran a heavy duty extension cord out there and had a small heater going to try and put some extra heat into the garage for the painting sessions. Here's a picture showing the junk and the primed garage.

On Monday with the nice weather we had I got on the rear porch roof and finished off the south gable end. This included installing flashing, water proof membrane, soffit, facia and board and batten siding. I also installed the flashing for the plumbing vent that comes out this wall. In order to work up there safely I placed two ladders up against the deck facia. I then secured these to the roof with ratchet straps around the roof support beam. I then laid a 4by4 on the roof against the ladder extensions and then laid down a shorter ladder on the roof that I could crawl up and use as support while working on the roof. Hopefully the next pictures help with concept. First picture shows the ladder against the facia with the tie down straps. Second picture is a bigger picture shot showing all the ladders. Third picture shows the job halfway done and the last picture shows the completed gable end. In the third picture you can see the rubber flashing around the vent pipe. On the third and fourth picture you can also see an extra piece of flashing around the pipe. This is a piece of flashing cut out and fitted around the pipe 6in from the wall. It is placed on the vertical and has tar cement around it. This is my first line of defense against any water that might run down the pipe. It will hit this dam and then drip onto the roof below.

On Tuesday I painted the first coat of Semi-gloss white in the garage and then went into the house and ran a few ccts of wire in the basement. At the same time the heating guys were working on installing the furnace and some of the ductwork. 

On Wednesday I painted the second coat of Semi-gloss white in the garage as well as mounted the sub panel for the garage. I also took some pictures of the roof due to the anticipated windstorm we were to receive that night. Here is a picture of the garage with the second coat of paint and the sub panel installed along with the conduit.

Thursday being Christmas I did not do any work. The only thing I did was go out and take pictures of the damaged section of the roofs. Here are before and after pictures of the damage. First two are the west side of the roof and approx 6 shingles damaged. The next two are further down the west roof and it looks like 2-3 shingles are damaged. The next two show the rear porch roof and it took 15 shingles to repair the damage as well I had to re-nail at least 6-8 more shingles around the area. The last two show the garage damage and I estimate another 15 shingles damaged here as well.

On Friday I worked on wiring the lights and one plug cct in the garage. While I did this I had the heater running warming up the spare shingles and a tube of roofing cement. Once the wiring was done and the items were warmed up I went onto the Porch roof and cleared up the mess and removed all the nails that were left. Luckily the sun was shining so hopefully this helped when I repaired the damage. This time the shingles were nailed down with extra nails and dabs of roofing cement to help hold them in place. This is the second time I've had wind damage and I am talking to the company ref getting them to pay for some of the damage. In hindsight I am possibly regretting this shingle purchase. They are really nice looking shingles but the issue with these bent up tabs means installing them anytime but in the middle of the summer means you are taking a chance with them lifting in a storm. If anybody is thinking about these GAF shingles or knows anybody thinking about these shingles tell them to wait at least until summer or even think about a different shingle. I really could not recommend these shingles be installed in cold weather. Here's a picture and you can see the lights on the ceiling and the plugs along the far wall.

Today Saturday went out to the site and decided to work on the front Gable. I went at it the same as the rear setting up the ladders, straps etc. Only issue was the cheap ladder I used on the roof was to long since this roof was smaller than the rear. So out came the sawzall and 2ft were cut off both ladder sections so it would fit on the roof. I also did not have a plumbing vent to contend with so it went much smoother. Once that was finished the brother and his two older sons came out for a look and we also pulled the cable through the conduit for powering up the garage. This is 3 gauge RW90 cable that we pulled through 3in conduit. Now all that remains is to wire it into the panel in the garage and hook up the ground wire to the grounding rod. Then we can fiche the cable into the main house panel and hook it up to a 100amp breaker. Then once inspected we have power in the garage.

Here's a picture showing the front gable end complete and also a picture of the garage panel with the wire pulled through awaiting connection.

Well thats all for now. Next week we'll work on more electrical stuff. I am hoping the electrician will be in the first week of the new year so we can get my insulation in and let the house start to heat itself. As well I will probably start moving stuff from the storage unit into the garage so that I can save the cost of the storage unit. I also hope to hear back from GAF to see what they will do to cover the cost of repairing my roof. So until next week have a safe New Years Eve and remember please don't drink and drive.

Harold

Well it's time to write another dissertation on what happened at the job site this last week. Wasn't the busiest week however we're still plugging away at things. I'm grateful for the mild weather but worrying that we might get some strong wind storms before my roof gets a chance to set up. They're predicting another storm for Christmas with 70kmh winds so we'll see what happens. Anyway took Sunday off from work and went shopping instead. Lowes had a deal on using their credit card and getting 10% off your purchase so bought some OSB for the garage walls, as well as primer and semi gloss white paint for the ceiling and walls. Next time I'll stick with my local lumber yard. Their OSB is much better quality than what Lowes had for sale. It worked for the Garage but I was not impressed with their quality, pieces were flaking off left right and centre.

So back to work on Monday at the house. Today installed the OSB I had bought at Lowes the previous day. When those pieces were done since the weather was warm decided to start applying some primer on the ceiling to see how it went. I had a long pole that I started using with a roller at the end, however found this to tiring so climbed up on the scaffold and rolled it directly with no pole. This was a lot easier and even faster. The Electrician was at the house and hooked up my main panel to the meter base. Inspection will be on Tuesday and hopefully soon thereafter hydro will be live.
The HVAC guys also came down and installed all the black piping for the gas lines. Here are some pictures showing the work in the garage. First two show the work on the garage walls. Third photo shows the Drywall square I use with some pieces of tape to signify where I would nail the plywood so that all the nails were at 12, 24, 36inches in the main field of stud. Of course there would also be a nail at both edges.

On Tuesday picked up some more OSB at Penner's my local lumber yard and installed the majority however some sheets were wet due to the rain so I left those standing to dry and will finish the walls tomorrow on Wednesday. The Electrical inspector came and looked over the main panel installation and approved that all so now we are waiting for hydro to liven up the service. I had a talk with him about wiring my garage and he gave me some pointers as well as telling me the "sub" panel I bought was not correct for my application so will need to buy the correct one instead. Took an early afternoon so that was all the work I did today.

On Wednesday I finished the garage interior walls. I then decided that I should have a little roof over the man door into the garage to allow me a place to stand out of the rain when unlocking the door. So went out to Penner's and picked up some 4by4 and other materials and started to work on building the framework for this little stub roof. First two pictures show the finished walls in the garage. Third photo shows the framework for the little stub roof. Basically 4by4 notched together and then secured with long screws to each other and then into the studs of the garage wall.

On Thursday the Garage door people came and installed the garage door. This is where I found out my door opening was 1" larger on width than the door. So a little extra trim work will be needed to close the gap before the flashing goes on. It took them 3hrs to completely install the door and it looks and works great. During this time I worked on the roof for my man door and have it all done with the exception of the shingles which I'll do at a later time. Unfortunately I accidently deleted the photo I took of these two items so you'll have to wait till a later date to see them.

On Friday the Hydro company and livened up the panel. I now have normal hydro an will no longer need to rely on the generator for power. This also means I should be able to get power into the garage shortly and I'll be able to work at night under the lights. While the hydro was being installed I decided today was a decent day to finish off the small gable end over the side deck. This would also be a practice run before I do the bigger ones on the front and back of the house. Here is a picture showing the final product and unfortunately the picture does not really do it justice, I am really happy with the colour combination and texture combination as well.

Well today was a little bit quieter. I installed the extra trim and trim kit around the garage door. I then installed some flashing on the front garage wall where the brick trim will go. I then quickly went home picked up the Primer paint and finished off the ceiling in the garage with primer. I had initially thought to do the rear gable end however the Sun never did come out and I was looking for the Sun to be shining while working on that south facing gable end, By the time I finished painting the ceiling it was 5pm and to dark to take pictures of the work I did outside. So again you'll have to wait until next week for those pictures.

Next week will be a short week due to the holidays however I hope to prime the walls tomorrow and then work on the gable ends on Monday and Tuesday. I also hope to be able to possibly start moving some stuff from the storage units into the garage next week as well. My Brother and his family are coming down next weekend and possibly those two strapping young lads of his can be coaxed into helping move some of the bulky stuff on Saturday. We'll see what happens.

So to all of you out there Merry Christmas, Joyeux Noel, Felice Navidad, etc etc.

Have a safe and happy holidays.

Harold

Hello from the Winter Wonderland. Earlier this week we had quite a dump of snow for this area at this time of the year. Still not as bad as Buffalo had a few weeks ago but it still created some havoc. It did not affect me all that much other than until it melts I will not be able to finish the rear gable end. And here is a picture that shows why. You can hardly see any of the gable end.

Anyway on to what we did this week. On Sunday with the nice weather we still had I went did more work on the house and garage soffits and facia. I essentially went until I ran out of soffit material. I originally bought one carton of each just to see how far it went. So when it ran out I just stopped and calculated that I would need at least another carton of each and when they are done it will be down to buying the material buy the piece. When I ran out of soffit I went into the house to begin work on placing the the electrical boxes for the plugs, lights and switches. Here are two pictures showing the soffit and facia on the garage.

On Monday I started by working on the rear deck area. I installed two pot lights before I realized I would need to finish strapping the ceiling to install the other four pot lights. This meat moving on to another job until I purchased the required material. I then installed a little bit of facia that could still be done before I moved onto the side porch. I have decided the side porch gable end needed a little more work. I decided to "eyebrow" it by adding a little roof section in line with the rest of the roof. So a couple hours later this is what I ended up with. I believe it makes a world of difference. I then spent a little more time on the electrical rough in before I went into town to pick up the soffit and facia required. As well they also started work on digging trenches for my electrical service and the service next door. They could not finish as the boring crew was not able to come due to complications on an other job.

On Tuesday I finished the garage soffit and facia as well as finished the west wall of the house with soffit and facia also. On Tuesday they also finished installing the electrical service from across the road. The crew initially pushed a pipe through under the road using a small pointed boring device. once it broached into the receiving trench on my side of the road they removed this device and installed a larger boring device that would enlarge the hole as well as pull the three conduits across under the road, two for hydro and one for cable. Here are some pictures showing this process. First picture shows the boring crew starting the bore across the road. Second picture shows the first boring tool. The third picture shows the second boring tool being hooked up on my side of the road and the fourth picture shows them feeding the three conduits into the hole as the larger boring tool pulls them back across underneath the road. The fifth picture shows them pulling the cable across in the conduit and the last picture shows the finalized garage soffit and facia.

On Wednesday I continued on the rear deck area I needed to strap the trusses so that I could later install a pine tongue and groove ceiling. As well this strapping had to be in place so that I could install the remainder of my potlights and plugs in the ceiling at the right height. Once this was done I spent some time working on installing the ceiling in the garage. As well I realized on Monday as I was installing electrical boxes that I would need to install a fake wall in the back entrance. The initial plan was for a door that would open in and to the right allowing for switches on the wall to the left as you entered. Unfortunately the door that I picked up at the flea market for a song and a dance opened in and to the left. So today I quickly built a fake wall to hold the two switches required. The only picture today shows the rear deck strapped with pot lights installed.

Well it "snowed" Wednesday night and all day today on Thursday. So I was relegated to working inside today. I managed to get almost all the electrical boxes roughed in. I was a few short so went to Home Depot on my way home to pick up what was required. I also had a visit from my Electrician who will be back on Monday to install my main service panel. This will then be inspected on Tuesday and then hopefully made live shortly thereafter.  However the bad news he had was that he would not be able to do the rest of my electrical work till after the new year. 

On Friday finished installing the remaining electrical boxes and roughly mapped out all the ccts. I had another little setback today. While installing the electrical boxes I decided to draw out where the cabinets would be so that I could accurately install the boxes for the range and the microwave. While doing this I realized I had installed the breakfast bar wall 3.5inches offset. So spent an hour tearing this apart and installing it in the correct location. Nothing hurt but my pride. I then went and continued installing ceiling panels in the garage. 

On Saturday I finished installing the ceiling in the garage. I also drilled a few holes and pulled a little bit of wire through for two plugs in the living room. I did this because I plan to pick up some drywall for the ceiling and needed a location to store it before it gets installed. Here's a picture showing the finished garage ceiling. Now need to decide whether to finish the walls as well or leave them till later. I do plan on painting the ceiling once the main garage door is installed.

Well that's the story as of now. Since the electrician will slow me up my days of working for 6-8hrs a day will probably start to decrease as we are running out of things to do. However still things to putter around with and once the garage door is installed I can start bringing my stuff there and out of the mini storage.

Until next week Think SUNSHINE please.

Harold

Well another week has gone by and a pretty decent week it was. I had my Framing, Rough HVAC, and Air Barrier inspections and passed them all with only two minor issues on the framing. Both issues fixed within a 1/2 hour. As well the weather stayed reasonably mild which made working easier. Anyway on with the greatest story ever told, well at least in my mind.

On Sunday I went back to work and finished installing the ceiling insulation that we had started on Saturday. The ceiling is now one complete sheet of 2" thick foam. Here you can see what that looks like.

On Monday I went in and picked up 6 sheets of OSB for the garage ceiling. I wanted to get the ceiling done in front of the garage door as it should be installed I hope fairly soon. These sheets are held up with 4" screws. Finding 4" screws at your local hardware store is not an easy task. We found some but they were not cheap. I wanted some with what are called "Pan" heads to hold the wood to the ceiling. Due to cost we bough enough of these for 4 screws per sheet and then bought regular screws with "bugle" heads to do the rest of the fastening. Here is a shot of the OSB installed awaiting garage door installation. I'll finish the rest of the ceiling when the weather precludes working outdoors. I also spent some time downstairs working on framing out the exterior walls. First picture shows some exterior basement walls and the second picture shows the OSB ceiling. The drywall lift I purchased for 80$ is already proving useful.

On Tuesday I worked on the remainder of the basement walls getting as much done prior to the HVAC people coming. I won't be able to finish all the walls until the ductwork is run but I got as much done as possible. I also installed some plywood in the Utility room so that we have a solid surface to secure my two water manifolds to. I am going with a manifold system where every water run is a separate run of PEX pipe from the manifold to the tap. This is on both Hot and Cold water. I also installed a vent pipe in the exterior wall that will connect to the future bathroom vanity. Since the plumber will not be back until after the insulation is installed I needed to run this vent line now before we sprayed in the insulation. Here are some pictures showing what I did.

On Wednesday I did some more wall work however the majority of the day was working with the HVAC people ensuring we had the heating and return lines in the right spot and making sure all the ducting would work with future work as well. We also rearranged some studding to facilitate the installation of the cold air returns. This evening I went to bed as a 54 year old male.

On Thursday I woke up as a 55 year old male. So what does one do on your birthday. You go to the job site and start cleaning. I decided this would be a good day to clean house. There was no more work to be done in the basement until the HVAC  people are done so cleaned it up. I then cleaned up the main floor as well. I looked out around 10am and noticed we had bright sunshine a  positive temp and almost no wind. So up on the roof and finish that garage roof. At 1253pm the ladder came down for the last time in regards to going on the roof. The roof is done. I also spent some time in the house blocking up the west wall soffit area with pieces of cardboard so when they spray foam it does not go into the soffits. Here is the last shot of working on the roof. The ridge cap which was the last piece to be done is done.

On Friday we worked on some Soffit prep outside installing 2by2's for the soffit to be screwed to. As well in installed the two bathroom fans upstairs and finished my cardboard baffles on the East wall. I also had three inspections today as mentioned above. I had my framing inspection which passed with two minor issues involving blocking between a few joists and blocking in the bathroom for hand bars. The last item is a really new requirement that the majority of the builders are just finding out about. I also had my rough HVAC inspection and my Air Barrier inspection and we passed all three inspections. It took me only 30 min to fix up the two framing issues. The next inspection will be the insulation inspection from the Town. The Hydro people will do the rough electrical inspection once we get the rough wiring in. In the photo below you can see the bathroom exhaust fan and in the soffit area you can see the pink soffit baffles to allow air to migrate into the attic and at the base of this baffle you can see the pieces of cardboard I stapled in to close all the big holes.

An today on Saturday I started working on installing the Soffit and Facia. First thing I did was build a small jig to hold the soffit so that I could cut it to length with a Skilsaw. In the skilsaw I installed a plywood finishing blade backwards. This works really well for cutting the thin aluminium soffits. Here are some photos showing the jig and the installation work outside. I essentially did the entire East wall and almost half of the West wall of the house. I probably finish the West wall tomorrow and then work on the garage.

Well it looks like we should have some decent weather this week so I hope to finish almost all of the Soffits and Facia this week. I still need to decide what to install on the two gable ends of the main house and I still need to decide what siding will be installed on the garage. But the list of exterior work is slowly getting smaller. Well until next week, think sunshine and warm temperatures.

Harold

Well we had quite the day today. The brother and his two oldest sons came down to give a hand. So today was "Insulation 101" day. However before we get to that story lets see what we did for the rest of the week.

On Sunday with some pretty decent weather in the morning I managed to get on the garage roof and finish off two cycles (8 rows) of shingles before the wind more or less kicked me off the roof. It was time to come down anyway. My back and legs are not as young and supple as they used to be. I forgot to take a picture of this so nothing to show for the work that was done

On Monday I finished off the stairs by building the two bottom steps that come off the platform. This now made my access into and out of the basement complete. I then went outside and did some work on burying warning tape over the electrical conduit that was beneath the graveled parking area. I also spread around about a yard of gravel that had been left over from leveling the garage and shed area prior to pouring concrete. I then proceeded to work on building a storage area above the staircase up against the exterior wall. I always thought about doing this however did not place it in the plans as I needed to see how the headroom went over the stairs. In the afternoon I had the building inspector come around to look at the garage framing and this passed. That was the only inspection required. So I can now look forward to trying to finish the garage and get all my stuff out of storage and into my own building. As the day continued the wind really started to pick up so I did have to deal with a few things blowing around that needed cleaning up and securing. Little did I know that I would be doing a lot more cleanup the next day.

On Tuesday I showed up at the house only to see multiple shingles lying on the ground. I walked around the house and up on the west side where the wind had come from there were some pretty big empty spots. So I cleaned up 28 shingles. Called the roofer and asked him to come soon as possible to repair the damage. Here you can see the damage. I am glad that I had the roofing deck armour installed under the shingles as this would have protected the house had we had any rain.

There had been reported up to 100km/hr wind gusts in the area. Since the roof was only a week old we did not have enough sun to seal the roof. As it is unless we get some really sunny days I don't think the roof will seal until next year. To make matter worse I believe we also have a problem with the shingles. When the shingles were installed the roofers complained and commented that 10% of them were lying with tabs that were bent upwards. They were coming right out of the bundle this way. These bent tabs would be like sails in the wind, especially with the strength of the wind we had had the previous night. I had noticed this problem on my garage roof however most of them had settled down on Nov 11 when we had lots of sunshine and temperatures that reached close to 20C. These shingles are a GAF Woodland Castlewood grey series and are not cheap, They are also warranted to remain on the roof at winds up to 130km/hr. However again that would be once they were sealed which these were not. I've emailed GAF and we'll see what they say. The two pictures below show them right out of the package and you can see the bend on the shingles. One will bend into the roof but the one underneath will bend up into the wind.

 The only good thing was that the roofer came out late Tuesday afternoon and fixed all the shingles at no charge to me for which I am really grateful. However as he said if this happens again it will be on your bill which I totally understand. So thanks to Dykstra Brothers roofing for some great customer service. Well after cleaning this up and sending the email to the roofers I went inside and did some work in the house. I continued work on the storage area above the staircase. This also extended into the one wall that would form the back wall of the office area. I also took some time to build the knee wall in the kitchen area that would form the back wall of the peninsula cabinets and allow me to add an eat at bar in the kitchen. Here are some photos showing this. First picture shows the storage area above staircase. This will also have storage access for the master bathroom and book shelves in the living area. The lower have will be complete storage accessed from living room side. The second photo shows the knee wall in the kitchen area.

On Wednesday I got to work expecting to see the roofer later that morning to fix the roof, since this was when he initially planned to fix my shingles. The plan was to ask him to finish my garage roof as well and just pay him to complete this. While waiting for him to show up I decided that with the mild weather it would be a good time to regrade the fill on the east side of the house to ensure a proper slope away from the house to the driveway area. I was almost finished with this when I realized all the damaged shingles were missing. I initially thought maybe the roofers next door had cleaned them up when they were cleaning up all their debris. No it wasn't them. I then realized that a shingle that had been lying over the ridgecap was no longer there. So I went around to the west side of the house and sure enough all the shingles had been fixed. Evidently they had shown up on Tuesday afternoon after I left for the day. This meant that there would be no roofers showing up to ask to finish the garage roof. So at 10am I started work on the garage and at 3pm I essentially came off the roof due light snow and being sore. However as a result all the shingles were now installed, the ridge cap was installed and about 1/3 of the ridge cap shingles were installed. Some where down the road an hour should finish the job. Here's a picture of the almost complete roof.

On Thursday I was supposed to have the Heating company show up to start work. However I received an email that they would be delayed due to an emergency furnace replacement job. However in preparation for their work I built my washer/dryer platform and started work in the basement laying out the walls for the Utility room. Here is a photo showing the utility room walls started and the lower plate for the basement bathroom as well.

On Friday I spent more time in the basement double plating all the walls under the joists and placing a single plate on the floor where required. All of these floor plates have a layer of sill gasket underneath as well to help protect them from the damp concrete. They were then secured to the floor using Tapcons which are a concrete screw. The photo below shows a little of what was done with the single floor plates and the double plates above them on the joists.

Now we come to Saturday which is where I started this weeks write up. Around 10am the brother with his two oldest sons came by to give me a hand in the garage. We spent about 5 hours there working on insulating the walls and most of the ceiling. We installed the four windows and we installed the normal mandoor along with the door handle. In first picture we have the two nephews working on installing the R20 in the walls. At this time they are approx 3/4 complete. In the second photo yours truly is installing the vapour barrier on the walls. In the third photo the two nephews are installing the rigid foam insulation, I had initially purchased for under the slab, and securing it to the bottom of the trusses. Later I will install OSB sheathing as the final ceiling. In the fourth photo the oldest nephew is installing an R12 fibreglass batt on top of the foam giving me a combined R22. I'll top this up at a later date to R40 with blown in cellulose. The final picture was taken at the end of the day. All I have left to do is install some R12 on the last row of rigid and then fill in the last row of rigid as well as finish off the vapour barrier. 

Well that was the week. Some bad news and some good news and some great help from the Brother and his two suns. Next week I hope to finish the interior of the garage, get a garage door installed, and I hope to finish off all the framing in the basement so we can get our framing/HVAC inspection and can then wire up the house. If all goes well I hope to be able to get the Spray foam people there mid December so we can heat the house prior to Christmas.

Well until next week take care and keep warm.

Harold