December Progress Update

Without much ceremony but in the cold of December Hank installs the Last Rafter, about 3 months after the Building School placed the first pressure treated sill on the concrete foundation.


Here the crew is framing the 2 story "tower" after the first significant snowfall. We were fortunate to have achieved the major milestone of wall and roof sheathing completed just hours before the next significant snowstorm, this time about 12" of fairly heavy snow. The great timing saved a couple of hours of shoveling, thank goodness.


Here is the Rumford fireplace going in along with the firewood box to the right. A winch will be installed above the wood box to raise stored firewood from the basement up to the main level, thus eliminating trekking wood in from the outside or carrying it up stairs a few logs at a time. Safety precautions will be included to prevent any mishaps from happening. Thermalized granite fascia and hearth extension will dress up the fireplace and wood box. A wide screen TV and media center will be installed above the fireplace and wood box area.


The strange looking tubes emanating from the chimney are the forms for creating the insulating flues with the Golden Flue volcanic pumice material. The concrete block chase is built, the collapsible forms are installed and the Golden Flue material slurry is pumped in and sets with several hours. About 3 hours after the slurry is poured the mason, Chad Vaillancourt, carves out excess material to create the smoke chamber. Chimney top dampers, for the fireplace and extra basement flue along with the insulating zero clearance Golden Flue material, help to keep heat within the house. Looks really smooth and cool.


The first layer of insulation, sprayed polyurethane foam shown here in the east wing, will keep the house relatively warm this winter while the interior work of wiring, plumbing and partition framing continues. The horizontal framing over the exterior 2 x 6 studs shown here increases the thickness of the walls and roof for the final layer of dense pack cellulose insulation and significantly reduces thermal bridging in the wood studs. Effective wall and roof R factor is about 42 and 54 respectively. The spray foam dramatically reduces infiltration. The house will not only be very easy to heat but should be comfortable in the cold NH winters.

Veteran's Day Update

Progress has moved along quickly since the last posting. The main part of the house is mostly framed now except for the 2 story, 2 bedroom wing on the right(back filled foundation showing and waiting for the slab to be poured). The students in the high school building program will hop on the framing as soon as the slab cures. The Douglas fir timber frame is installed in the great room and looks beautiful. And north roof sheathing is in place. A tricky framing job was the rafters for the ascending ridge over the entry door and mud room. Every rafter was a different length. The water well has been connected into the basement.


Here is the south wall of the dining room. It will have a sliding door out to a deck. The kitchen to the right faces south southeast to catch the morning sun while the living room to the left faces south southwest to gain afternoon sun and a great view of Mt Monadnock. We plan to have the south roof sheathed in several days. In spite of the warm weather we all know that winter is on it's way. The plan is to have our standing seam metal roof on and windows in during December so we can work inside under cover and out of the cold winter winds and snow.


Here is Hank attaching the gable end rafters to the ridge pole at the southern end of the dining room which will have the best view in the entire house, with views to the east, south and west. The leaves are all off the trees now and the ground will be all white soon. But don't despair the cold weather, remember that in a little over a month the days will be getting longer again. Spring will be on it's way.

Ridge beams and rafters

As the leaves fall off the trees we are all anticipating winter. All the more reason to keep the progress up. The first rafters at the east end are up and we intend to move rapidly west. Once the roof sheathing goes on and the seams are taped we will be out of the rain and snow. Speaking of snow, we had some very wet snow on sunday 18Oct. Monday we arrived to 1/2" of ice on the floor deck. Should have brought our skates. Fortunately it was warm enough to melt most of the ice. Tuesday and wednesday were warm also, almost like Indian summer, so much progress was made as you can see in the following photo. It's starting to feel like a house. The view is really improving with the leaf fall but we know the nice weather won't last. So think snow up north but nice weather down here in Hancock.

We are making progress on the house

The 38' long main carrying beam in the Huber house is on a symbolically north south axis and splits the house roughly in half east and west. The beams shown suggested a heavy timber peace sign which was documented before the floor framing I-joists were installed.

A few days later with most of the joists installed the sub flooring has started. By the time you see this post the sub floor will have been completed. Check the site out soon to see actual walls going up. The students in the Building Program are really coming up to speed as they are starting to see real progress from their efforts.

Work has started on the house!

The past couple days have been spent working on the first wall of the real, actual house. The picture above is a shot of the newly poured house foundation, taken from the second floor of the garage. As I hope you can see, the house is going to be a very interesting shape. Off to the left (east), the foundation tapers off to a walkout. Today we almost finished framing the south wall of the walkout. Due to all of the interesting angles, the framing is much more complicated than the garage, so it's taking more time. We're getting the hang of it though. In a few short weeks the students will be arriving, but we decided to get a start on the east end, just for fun.

I'm still hoping Hank will post some interesting information about the design. *nudge*nudge*

The rafters are up!

It still seems like it rains every day. So working between the waves of showers Josh and I installed the garage rafters and ridge beam this week. We were both very happy to reach this point but realize that much more has to be done. The anti-rain dance we did hasn't taken effect yet but we are hopeful. The roof pitch is 9/12 so there is plenty of room for storage. The roof faces due south so there are enough square feet for about 3 KW of photovoltaic panels. It's been really nice working with Josh and sharing some of my building skills with him, rusty as they are. Steve Riggs, the instructor for the building trades program of the 3 local high schools, showed up today with more pipe staging, planks and the portable privy that will be available during the next school year while they are constructing our house. Footings for the house are going in late next week, weather being more cooperative, and we plan to have a completed foundation ready for early September, the start of the school year. Steve, Josh and I are looking forward to a busy and fun fall at 39 Hayward Rd. And we have ordered good weather to help speed the construction!

Good weather means progress!

I'm back up in New Hampshire for a few days this week working on the garage. Yesterday we raised the west wall, which contains an opening for a doorway. Unfortunately it was sprinkling for much of the day, but at least we were able to get some work done. A mid-afternoon downpour was an excellent opportunity for a trip to the hardware store.

Today the weather was great, and we got a lot of building done. The whole south wall, minus the sheathing was framed and raised. In the picture above, 2/3 of the wall is upright. As you can see, there are going to be 3 large south-facing windows in the wall, which will provide solar heating for the garage. (which will be otherwise unheated.)

I put together a tree-mounted stand for my camera by chopping off the top of a cheap tripod, and attaching it to a block of wood. I'm going to take a bunch of pictures, all from the same position, to create a time-lapse video of the entire building process. This is the first time I've ever tried something timelapsey, but it seemed like such an awesome side-project that I had to do it.

Plans for tomorrow include finishing the south wall and starting (completing?) the north wall.

I hear Hank is going to be posting some information about the house design and floorplan soo, so stay tuned for MORE PURE EXCITEMENT.

We finally started!

After over a week of rainy days, we finally had an opportunity to start working! The first project is the detached two-car garage. The foundation and slab were just finished yesterday, and Hank (my dad) and I started on construction today.

We managed to get the sill bolted on, after returning to the hardware store for more sill sealer. (oops!) As you can see in the above picture, we assembled the east wall and will hopefully be lifting it in to place tomorrow.

Stay tuned for further progress,
The Team.