5.6.2015

One of the big things I love about Jim is his perseverance - yesterday seemed to be full of issues and problems, but he gets up in the morning with a new plan and a positive attitude. 

Jim headed to the storage unit this morning to pick up the rebar bender and a few things he needed.

Then it was back to a little shoring - these connections go from the beam to the curb on the pour stop.

Then it was back to deck details.  Here's a picture of how the stubs of electric conduit pass through the holes in the end caps.

After mulling it over last night, Jim came up with a plan to use some electric conduit to put the Pex through to make the circuit connections.  In the bottom half of this picture, you can see that he drilled holes in the decking and put conduit through.  In the top half, he'll put the Pex through the U shaped conduit to avoid the shear pins.

After buying more bits and a couple different sized hole saws, he started working on drilling more holes in the decking for the utility pass throughs.

Here Jim is making a pipe that will be used for bathroom plumbing. 

I got to bend hooks in some 1/2" rebar that Jim will use to extend horizontally into the pour stop area to provide more strength for the concrete.

Back up on the roof, Jim had to cut some of the side pieces of rebar because he will bend them to extend into the pour stop area.

He heated up the rebar with the torch...

 

...and then bent it over.  Later, there will be one more bend on these side pieces.  Jim knew he didn't have much oxygen left in the tank but continued heading and bending the rebar pieces until he ran out.  Getting a new tank will be on the agenda in the morning.

Since the saw was already up on the deck, he finished cutting the excess rebar off the other side pieces.

Jim was in a bit of a quandary about the plumbing.  This is such a different situation than just normal construction with wood.  Now, all of these pipes that he puts in the deck now will be cast in concrete.  That will make it difficult later to connect two fixed pipes together.  He will have to probably build some of the plumbing below to make that easier.

 

Here's the utility pass throughs so far...

 

 

Plumbing is tough - there are so many intricacies to the codes and they are interpreted differently, so it's not one of Jim's favorite tasks.  He was trying to decide what size stack to use.   He decided to put in a 6" stack - that way he can always use a smaller size pipe later on and it won't cause any issue.

 

 

However, drilling a 6" hole through corrugated metal is not an easy task.  Even though he had been drilling starter holes first and then using the hole saw, it still broke another bit.

He then got out his grinder and cut a hole manually - definitely not an easy task to use a flat grinder to cut a round hole on the corrugated surface of this heavy-gauge steel decking!

But check it out - a beautiful 6" hole with the pipe fit inside!  We've had gorgeous weather lately - cloudless skies and lots of sunshine - however, all that hot sun beating down on the steel deck makes things really hot!  Jim has to kneel on a piece of wood because the surface gets so warm.  And I have to bug him about reapplying sunscreen - the decking reflects all those rays!

The scaffolding was supposed to be delivered today between 2:00 and 5:00.  As time got later and later, Jim hated to start a big project knowing that the driver would probably call from the end of the driveway and Jim would have to scurry down to meet him.  But we needed to keep working, so we decided to cut and bend the rest of the rebar we would need.  Jim figured out the right length and then cut the pieces that I had bent this morning.

We used up all our 1/2" rebar pieces so we had to use 5/8" pieces - it's a huge difference in trying to bend them and Jim had to do that job.

After he got them all cut and bent, we took them back up to the deck and laid them out.  Tomorrow he will weld them into place and that job will be done.

Still no scaffolding in sight, so Jim decided to glue the pipe down so that it would be held in place during the concrete pour.

Then he glued down the electric conduit pass throughs.

He used up the rest of the tube to fill in little holes so that no concrete will drip through the decking.  Later on, that will be one of my jobs.

 

We cleaned up and still no scaffolding.  Jim finally got in touch with someone at the trucking company and they said the guy was delayed and still out on a delivery.  By this time it was after 5:30 so Jim told them they would have to deliver tomorrow.  We had to get home in time to clean up and watch the Cavs beat the Bulls in the playoffs!

High 76/Low 44

 

5.5.2015

Happy Cinco de Mayo! 

Today was kind of one of those days for Jim.  Our neighbors stopped by to see how we are doing which is nice, but kind of eats up a lot of time.  It helps if I'm there to run interference but I was at home dealing with a repairman for a broken postage meter.

Jim also got a call from the trucking company - our new scaffolding is being delivered tomorrow!  So that's good news - that will allow Jim to finish building up all the towers to support the concrete pour.

This is a top view of the temporary decking Jim and Kyle put up to cover the stairwell opening. 

Jim was back figuring out more deck details.  I got a job to mark the center of the pieces of conduit that Jim will put in the holes that he made in the end closures to allow for running electric lines later on.  I know - it's a tough job and requires such skill!

Jim was figuring out where all the openings needed to go to bring utilities into the first floor area.

It was really tough to cut a hole in the decking - these were on the top of the decking so they were slightly easier.

As with the electric conduit, Jim made little sleeves in the openings for when the concrete is poured.  These are just some of the multitudes of decisions that have to be made in advance so that you don't have a big issue later on.

After he broke a bit, Jim got out his heavier-duty tool to try and cut the other holes - however, that bit broke too.  Frustrating.

So he moved on to another issue - trying to figure out how to lay out the Pek tubing.  He's got a beautiful drawing of how it should be laid out but it doesn't always transfer to the real world so easily.  There are things like shear pins in the way.  He spent some time coming up with some alternative plans to make things work.

One of the other jobs looming is to bend all of the rebar that we put in the top of the wall on the last concrete pour.  So Jim got out his acetylene torch to test it out.  He will have to replace the oxygen tank but he wanted to get a plan going.

He used the torch to heat a test piece of rebar...

...and then bent it.

I went home at this point but Jim texted me this picture...he got one whole side done!  Looks amazing! 

 

At the end of the day, Jim had to make a Lowe's run to get more bits for his tools.  Tomorrow is another day!

 

High 74/Low 44

 

5.4.2015

We had to take Kyle & Julia to the bus station this morning.  It was a fun weekend!

After we got back, Jim headed back to the site and got busy.  First, he had to kind of rebuild his work stations and put things back into place from all of the work over the weekend.  He moved the chipper back up to the top of the hill and used tarps to cover the brick and block saw, the chipper and the mower in their new places.

Then he started making these curb supports out of more steel to help support the bottom of the pour stops.  He got the front all done...

...and the back!

Then it was all the little corner pieces.  Jim said it's strong enough now to hang on - and tested it out!

 

High 81/Low 53

 

5.3.2015

Jim and Kyle started the morning by going down to the barn.  Most of the cars that are stored there are gone now, so they were able to access the brick and block saw which Jim wanted to bring back to the site. 

Then it was back to putting up the stringers in the middle bay.

Building up the scaffolding for the other tower in the middle bay.

The front and back stringers overlap and are fastened together in the middle for stability.  Here Jim is measuring and marking where he will screw them together.

After all the stringers were attached, Jim wanted to make a temporary cover over the stairwell opening.  So first, Jim made a wood plate and attached it to the top of the wall.  Yes...he's kneeling and working on top of a 10' wall!

Then Jim moved the decking pieces from the top over to the opening.  Kyle was standing on scaffolding inside and they lifted one side onto the bottom of the beam and the other side rested on the wood plate.  Jim then screwed the decking to the plate.

All closed up again!

Time to rebuild the wall so that Jim can close up and lock the carriage house again.

 

Mission accomplished - everything that Jim had hoped to get done this weekend got finished!  Thanks again to Kyle and Julia - besides being fun to have them here for the weekend, we got lots accomplished!

 

High 76/Low 41

 

5.2.2015

Kyle and Julia got in last night - it was really good to see them! 

Saturday morning, Jim and Kyle headed out to the land - Jim had lots on the agenda for the day.  First, they took down part of the temporary wall between the auto bay and the rest of the carriage house so that they could get the lawn mower and the chipper out of the main area.

Kyle then helped Jim get all of the wire that will go in the concrete up onto the deck.

Then it was time to work scaffolding issues.  Jim's big goal for the day was to get stringers up onto the deck, even though we don't have all the scaffolding to complete the towers that will shore up the concrete.  In order to get the stringers up though, they had to set up scaffolding just as though it was permanent - put the stringer up, and then move the scaffolding to the next section.  Whew!

So to begin we had to move everything out of the first section and Kyle compacted the gravel.

Then they moved scaffolding over and started setting that up.

Julia helps hold up one end of the scaffolding while Kyle & Jim get things set up.

Finishing the scaffolding...

 

Heavy pieces of steel act as secondary girders and go on top of the scaffolding and then the steel stringers are lifted up into place.

They have to be in the middle of the span between beams and each stringer is composed of two separate cold formed steel channel connected by a web stiffener at each end. 

Once the stringer is in place on top of the girder, the feet of the scaffolding have to be turned at the same levels on one side and then the other - over and over until the scaffolding brings the stringer in contact with the deck.

Then the stringer has to be attached to the decking with Tek screws.

Once the first side is done, it's time to move to the next tower in this bay to repeat the entire sequence.

Up goes the cold-formed steel stringers...

Two completed towers with the stringers all attached to the deck.

We celebrated both Mother's Day and Kyle's birthday early - Happy Birthday Kyle!  Hope your wishes come true!

 

High 74/Low 38

 

5.1.2015

Happy May Day!

First thing this morning, Jim went to the concrete place.  They had given him a sample of a riser to use for the septic tank.  The septic inspector said it was fine to use them, so he took back the sample and got two 12" risers.  That way we can put a foot of dirt on top of the tank and still have access to the tank, if necessary.

Then it was back to cutting edge caps, placing them, and welding them on.

 

Unfortunately, it wasn't a great welding day.  Welding to galvanized steel especially puts out a lot of fumes and the air was extremely still today - Jim wasn't comfortable doing too much.

 

Kyle and Julia are coming in tonight to spend the weekend with us - it will be great to see them!  I know Jim is looking forward to having his buddy to work with!

High 63/Low 43