Its the Little Things

Siding the house is not all that time consuming... the amount of time that Ive spent actually putting up siding pales in comparison to the amount of time I've spent prepping to put up siding.

The other day Kelby and I replaced the freeze proof water faucet on the south gable end. It should have taken us maybe twenty minutes. It took us about four hours. We needed to extend the faucet about an inch and a half to accommodate the new siding. Freeze proof faucets come in varying lengths... ten inch, twelve inch, fourteen inch, etc. They also are threaded at the connection point and require no soldered joints to replace. In theory, all we had to do was take out the old one, replace it with one that was slightly longer and voila! I've learned over the past few months that theory and reality rarely match...

The faucet in question sits in what Kelby and I have affectionately nicknamed The Coffin Corner. It is the corner furthest from the crawl space entrance. There is barely enough clearance to lay on one's back without hitting the floor joists with ones forehead. There is not enough room to lay on one's side without hitting the floor joists. Fiberglass insulation hangs mere inches from one's face while one lays on one's back. Inches of powder-like dust that hasn't seen water in fifty years coats the ground. It is truly a hellish place. 

After crawling into the coffin corner to disconnect the old, too-short, faucet I realized that whoever installed it years ago completely rounded off the corners of the hexagon that the wrench grabs onto. Even with my largest set off channel locks I couldn't break the faucet lose from the death grip that the pipes had on it. Picture several trips back and forth, in the dust, on my belly to retrieve larger and larger tools. Picture hanging on a very large set of channel locks with all my body weight suspended off the ground. Picture much cussing and frustration. Picture me shouting to Kelby to bring the sawsall under the house...

Eventually we cut the pipe off, crawled out from the coffin corner, and headed to the hardware store to purchase a new, longer, freeze proof faucet and all the accouterments to repair the pipe we had cut.

Forty-five minutes later we were back under the house with a propane torch, solder, flux, a copper slip joint, and a new section of copper pipe. Remember, there is about eight inch of clearance in the coffin corner. Of course, the pipe that we cut with the sawsall was too rough to accept a new slip joint without leaking, so I planned to sweat it out at the nearest joint and replace it. There was nowhere close to enough clearance to spin a pipe cutter around it to clean up the end. Picture firing the torch up... picture the torch singeing the floor joist next to the pipe... picture lots of smoke in a confined area... picture a thirty foot belly crawl to get a foil pie plate to act as a heat shield. The heat shield protected the joist and saved me from burning down the house. Even so, it was difficult to hold the heat shield with one hand, heat the pipe with the torch in the other, apply solder with my third hand... oh wait, I don't have three hands. Maybe that is why the process was so difficult... that and the fact that I was trying to contort my body in such a way that I wouldn't have molten solder drip onto me despite the fact that I was working directly overhead in a space in which I couldn't even lay on my side.

An hour or so later I shouted to Kelby, who was right on the other side of the foundation the whole time offering words of encouragement and advice, that he could turn the water back on.

Ten seconds later I shouted to Kelby, who was still right on the other side of the foundation, that he better turn the water off because the new joint was leaking. I kinda figured that it would, given that I needed three hands but only had two.

Fifteen minutes later I shouted to Kelby, still right on the other side of the foundation, to turn the water on again.

Ten seconds later I shouted to Kelby to turn the water off... again.

The third time was the charm. I laid back on the ground, checked my watch and tried not breathe in too much dust or smoke while I waited for ten minutes to confirm that there were no leaks while the system was under pressure.

Then I made the thirty foot belly crawl to daylight... Yes, I still had a few minutes of daylight in which to put up siding now that I'd done the prep work.

Pioneer Log Siding

Over the winter, Caren and I waffled back and forth, to and fro on siding. One day we'd like tongue and groove cedar, the next we'd be considering board and batten. As springtime rolled around we began looking at D log. D log is basically 2x material that makes the house appear as if it is constructed using logs. We even went so far as to start collecting quotes. That's when Caren found Pioneer Log Siding.  

Richard Gunst and his wife, Chris, are true artists, turning run of the mill 2x material into beautiful, hand-hewn log siding. Be sure to click on the link above to check out his website. Then check out the pics below to see how Richard's material is turning our little house into a true mountain cabin. Both Richard and Chris have been fantastic thru the whole process, from ordering to staining to shipping to answering a myriad of questions. They have gone above and beyond with customer service... And Caren and I are totally stoked!

We've just about finished installing the siding. Thanks to Richard's tips, it was amazingly easy to put up. The process was a simple one. Install the trim around the doors and windows, install the corner posts, install the courses of siding, alternating with inch and three-quarter strips of plywood...

Well, maybe it wasn't quite so simple. First, Tom, the neighbor, volunteered to help us with his builders level. It took him all of about twenty minutes to "shoot" the house and snap a chalk line on it that would serve as our reference line. I'm so glad that Tom knows what he is doing. His twenty minutes made it super easy to insure that everything was level and plumb.

Then Kelby and I ripped half inch sheets of plywood into one and three-quarter inch strips to serve as spacers between each course of siding. The spacers serve two purposes... they make it easy to make minor adjustments in leveling the courses of siding, and they serve as a backer for the chinking that will go between each course. Each strip of plywood then gets covered by plastic packing tape. Kelby, Zach, and Caren all had a hand in applying the tape. The tape keeps the chinking from sticking to the plywood so that it is only stuck to the actual siding, thus allowing it to move, and stretch as the siding expands and contracts with weather conditions.

With the house "shot" and the plywood spacers taped, the next step involved putting up the trim and corner posts. If you look closely at the photo above, you might notice that the posts and trim sit about three-quarters of an inch proud of the siding. We wanted to add a little depth to the transitions so we furred them out using the original cedar siding that we removed from the house. A simple enough task after one re-mills all the boards to the appropriate size... table saw, planer, miter saw... three easy steps, if you don't count removing the nails, before we could install trim and corner.

And the there are always little problems like this one to deal with. The south gable end was a complete bear. All the electrical, water, and gas enter the house there... never mind the chimney. Someday soon I will document that whole process....

Then we got to install the actual siding. Each piece was screwed into place, top and bottom, every sixteen inches. That is a lot of screws... Upon Richard's recommendation, we used "headless" screws. Phillips makes a headless deck screw that fit the bill perfectly. They even make them in colors that matched our stain. One has to look really close to see that there are any screws holding the siding on at all...

Remember the repurposed corrugated metal we got from Jesse all those months ago? It is now wainscoting under our windows. I was worried about cutting the heavy gauge metal, but it turned out to be a not so difficult process. Just a metal blade for the jig saw and a lot of vibrations... picture Caren standing on the metal to hold it in place as I cut it. My arms were pretty much jello by the time we finished, as were her legs.

We still need to finish the shingles on the north gable and the top course of siding under the eave on the front, as well as around the front door. I simply ran out of time to finish the shingles before taking a much needed vacation... think flyfishing in BC. And we need to get the new covered front porch built before completing the siding on the front of the house. The good news is that the permit for that was issued just before I left for BC, so we are ready to go starting this weekend.

When We Last Left Off...

...we were about halfway through with the shear on the house. That seems like forever ago. I've spent the last month working dawn til dusk on the project. So much has changed that it is hard for me to remember it all.  I'll use photos to help jog my memory.

With help from Alex and Kelby, we finished the shear on the house and passed the inspection. But, not without a few struggles...

Before...

After...

We replaced a small transom window in the bathroom with a large slider. That meant new framing. During the process we also moved the header up an inch and a half so that the tops of all the windows and doors on the rear of the house would be level. Moving the header required creative use of a car jack, but removed the sag in the roof line.

We also replaced the bedroom window with a set of french doors. That required more framing, just not as extensive as the bathroom. The door actually was cut an inch and a half too long, so we had to remove the sole plate from the original framing to accommodate it. It took us most of the day, but we got'r done.

Before...

After...

The south gable end was my biggest fear. That is where the gas and electrical enter the house. I envisioned having to turn the gas off at the meter and the electrical off at the street, but it turned out to be much easier... by notching and sliding the shear we were able to wiggle everything into place without disrupting any services. The siding would not be so easy on the same end, but that is a story for a future post.

It all looks so simple on paper-- just slap up some OSB on the exterior and away you go... In reality, it involved re-routing electrical, re-plumbing exterior faucets, firring out wavy walls, cutting venting, replacing windows and doors, etc, ad infinitum. It took us the better part of a week and a half from start to finish. And I would still be pounding nails if it wasn't for neighbor Tom allowing us to use his framing nailer. With a 6 and 12 nailing schedule (one nail every six inches around the perimeter of each sheet of OSB and one nail every twelve inches in the interior of every sheet) there are somewhere in the neighborhood of three thousand new nails in the house.

But, like I said, the inspector liked our work and gave us the go ahead to start covering the OSB with actual siding...