7.2.2025

Yesterday was another on/off rainy day.  I ran errands in the morning and Jim did some planning and cutting pieces of steel that he will use later on.  Just a few of the pieces he cut...

This is a piece of blocking he made from cold-formed steel that will go in between the trusses to get everything at the same level.



Then this morning, Jim's Nudura rep came from New Hampshire to bring Jim a sample of the foam that we will use for the ground floor concrete and radiant heat system.  This is basically like the Lego boards that the kids used to build their Lego creations.  Obviously, the Nudura system was designed by men who loved their Legos!

But this will be a great system - we will get the floor ready with gravel and then these foam boards (they come in 4' x 4' pieces) lay on top of the gravel and the Pex tubing winds around the little knobs.  So no tying! 

 

But the rep stayed and talked for quite awhile.  Then, for the first time ever, our apartment landlord stopped by to see the building.  It actually worked out nice - he was very impressed and told Jim to let him know if he needed a hand.  Jim will need another man to help with the truss installation so he might help out with that.

So, even though the morning was valuable, we weren't really able to do any work.  So while we ate lunch, we drove to the cold-formed steel place to pick up a few more pieces and some strapping that Jim had ordered at the beginning of the week.

After we got back, our first task was to finish fastening the bottom plates to the concrete all the way around. 

Then, it was time to figure out what we needed to do to fix the unevenness of the concrete.  First, Jim set up the laser level on the work table.  I took the hand-held laser and marked that location on every one of the studs so that we had a level reference all the way around the building.  Then we measured down from the top track to the mark that I made and made a different colored line - that way we knew how high/low the concrete was at every stud point.  We marked each stud either with a check mark that it was okay, an S for too low and needs a shim, or an X and how much we needed to cut off that stud because it was too high.  While this was a very daunting task, once we got going, we came up with what needed to be done and how to fix it.

Jim taking down a stud to trim the top.

Even figuring out the best way to trim just a tiny piece of steel off wasn't real easy.  Jim finally got his abrasive saw blade instead of the actual cutting one and was able to go slow and get a good cut.

Then installing the stud back into place. 

 

I had to run to Lowe's to pick up another couple of saw blades. While I was gone, Jim cut some of the steel strapping to make shims for the areas that were a little low and that worked well.  We will be ready to hit this project full speed tomorrow morning. 

 

We had promised ourselves that once the concrete was poured, we would celebrate with a beer and nachos.  We did go out to eat and celebrate when Kyle and Julia were here, but tonight was nacho night.  It was fun to sit and talk about all we've accomplished and the next steps to come!

 

High 76/Low 50