Helping the Foundry Industry

I have spent the better part of 30 years devoting my time and energy to work in the foundry industry.  Starting work in an iron foundry at the age of 22 after graduation, I moved at least four times from various companies to assume roles in a wide range of responsibilities.  During a short stay in Charlotte, NC, I worked for a company that made cast iron plumbing pipe and fittings.  Charlotte Pipe and Foundry is a long-standing family business that has made a name for itself in the manufacture of cast iron and plastic pipe and fittings for residential and commercial plumbing work.

Cast iron was once the mainstay in materials for plumbing fixtures, but the ease of installation and lower cost has made plastic the material of choice in most homes.  The drawback to plastic pipe, however, is the noise that is produced when water runs down the drain.  We had a two-story house in Thomson, GA that had a bathroom directly above the den and every time the toilet was flushed or shower was run, it sounded like a flood coming the wall.  It was then I decided if I ever build another house, I was going to install cast iron plumbing.  Cast iron has the unique property of sound dampening so any drain pipes made from this material will consequently be quieter.

The plumbers who did the work in our house had installed cast iron in the past (many plumbers today do not know the first thing about installing it).  So, the plumbers and I planned the areas of our plumbing system that would consist of cast iron.

I am proud to say that we have done our part to help the foundry industry and Charlotte Pipe and Foundry by specifying cast iron pipe and fittings for portions of our plumbing system.

Trimming Out

As I mentioned in the previous post, some of the finish work on the house has begun.  This certainly heightens our awareness that the end is in sight.  I know, many hours of work remains, but it is good to see the finished product beginning to emerge.  With all the rough carpentry work complete, I enlisted the work of Ben Beatty and two of his carpenters to trim out the eaves all around the house.  I had originally planned to do this work myself but the prospect of doing this job alone at the end of a 30 foot extension ladder was not too appealing and I have been so impressed with Ben's work that I know they would do a great job.  So, the work of applying hundreds of feet of stained cypress trim has begun.

More than one person has remarked that they can't wait for the red, white and black house wrap material to get covered up.  Well, hopefully in the next three weeks, the siding will be going on and the house's personality will start to really show itself.  Of course, I have a small detail to address; how to apply stain to 3,100 linear feet of cypress bevel siding and another 800 square feet of cedar shingles.  This is going to take some ingenuity and I am looking for any suggestions on how this can be done efficiently and effectively.

A Glimpse of the Finished Product

 It has been said that once a house is dried and framing is completed that the project is far from complete.  What looks like a house is really just an empty shell.  With the foundation, walls and roof complete our house has now the basic skeleton in place.  What remains to be done constitutes a great deal of time, effort and money but will ultimately result in a worthwhile finished product.  From this point forward, as steps are completed, it will be evident how the finished product will appear.

It was decided when this house was conceived that we would use natural materials for much of the construction, both inside and out.  For a house set in the woods, it just seems a crime to outfit one any other way.  So, naturally, wood was chosen for the exterior skin.  I have always loved the look and feel of cedar and portions of the siding will be done in cedar shingles.  Other portions will be cypress bevel.  In order to reach some of the areas of the house high up on the roof, I built some temporary scaffolding.

I wanted to get this done before the finished roofing went on so I decided to go ahead and install the cedar shingles on the highest point of the house, the chimney.   Doing this allowed me to get a good look at the finished product.  I have been pleased with the result.  Of course, doing the whole house like this is going to take a great deal of time.  Staining the shingles one at a time and nailing them up, one at a time, is going to take patience and attention to detail.  That is something I hope will bring out the quality of the house and make it that much more special.

Staining cedar shingles

Shingles laid out to dry

 

 Once I got most of the chimney done, I was able to remove the scaffolding I had put up.  The roofing crew started soon after that and by the end of the third week of October, the roof was complete.

Rear shot of finished roof

It is good to see some of the finished product showing through!

Getting Dried In

That ever present phrase that everyone likes to use and pose as a question; "Have you gotten it dried in, yet?"  has been tossed out by many as we near that point in the construction.  After 15 days of building have passed, the roof is almost entirely done.  Except for the front porch roof, which should be complete by the end of the first week of October, the house is basically "dried in".  As I mentioned in an earlier post, we did get a little wet after a couple of soaking rains but now the floors should be sheltered from any further, unwanted, moisture.

To watch the skill of these workers as they took my plans and turned them into a well-constructed roof system was amazing.  I know they have done this many times in the pasts and, I am sure, on bigger and more elaborate houses, but it still is a tribute to their craft to see how they can take a design on paper and make it all come together.

Shed dormer framing

Putting it all in place

A Roof Rises to the Trees

As the walls of a house define the living spaces and serve to provide shelter from the outdoors, the roof gives the final seal against the elements and makes sure there is protection.  In addition to the practical and necessary function of sheltering the rooms of a house from wind, rain and storms, the roof gives a house character and punctuates the design elements that were used in the planning.  An ill-conceived roof line on a house can ruin any look that one may try to achieve.  Not only can it affect the aesthetics of a house but a mislabeled drawing can cause all plans to be thrown out the window, literally.  I would discover the tough reality of this as the roof began to be raised.

Since this house is a classic story-and-a-half, much of the second floor is nestled under the roof-line.  When a roof like this is built, the framing crew will most likely build the gable walls first, raise them into position and add the roof rafters onto them.  It is at this point in time when one can start to see the look of the roof in three dimensions.  It was on that fateful Tuesday a few weeks back that I discovered the error of my mislabeled drawing.  The first gable wall was raised when I noticed that something did not look quite right.

First gable wall

Our builder, Ben Beatty, called me to say that the bathrooms looked like they were not going to have enough room for a full eight foot ceiling.  We agreed that it would be alright if the ceilings sloped a little in these rooms and the framers continued framing the walls that day.  That evening I spent hours reviewing my plans to see what I had done wrong.  It was then that I discovered my mistake.  I had designed the roof over the main body of the house with a 7 over 12 pitch in order to have proper room over head.  However, I labeled the drawing with a 6 over 12 notation.  Consequently, the framers had built the first two gable walls at this reduced pitch line.  The next morning I had to break the news to them that the newly raised walls had to come down.  They couldn't be used.  It is a sickening sight to see a day's worth of work get thrown to the ground.

The consequences of a drawing mistake

But, it was better that this mistake was caught at this point and not later after the entire roof was constructed.  After thoroughly beating myself up that day, I was convinced by wiser counsel in my household to let it go and move on.  Hey, if we didn't have snafus like this, a reader of this blog would think we were building this house in a fantasy world.

Kellye and I continue to praise God as the progress on this house continues and we are reminded of His words to us; "Unless the Lord builds the house, the builders labor in vain.  Unless the Lord watches over the city, the guards stand watch in vain."  Psalm 127:1.  We realize that we have continually been blessed in many ways and we will continue to dedicate the work of our house to the glory of God our Father.

Keeping our Feet Dry

Growing up in Birmingham, we lived in a single story house on Pine Tree Drive that had a full, below ground, basement.  This basement was used for several purposes including a place for two bedrooms for my two older brothers, a laundry room for the tons of clothes that were cleaned there every month and a workshop where my oldest brother built more than a handful of automobiles.  That basement also served another purpose; it was a receptacle for the excess rain water that fell about our house on several occasions.  Over time, the drainage system around the foundation walls failed to perform as it should and on two successive Christmas mornings, after days of hard rain had fallen, we had a flooded basement.  There is nothing like having to mop and squeegee water before and after opening presents on Christmas morning.  But that was our plight in that house in east Birmingham that was ill-prepared to handle the water that collected around it.

That memory is still fresh in my mind and the crisis of dealing with the flooded basement floor and soaked carpeting in my brothers' bedrooms is now just a curiosity.  It was, however, a few years later, upon the planning of their new house in the country, a motivation for my mother to proclaim that she would never again have a house with a basement.  My parents, instead, built a house on a short foundation wall and had a crawl space under their new house.  A crawl space that gave her comfort that she would never again have to mop water on a rainy Christmas morning but one that would give many a repairman great consternation as they crawled on hands and knees over rocks and stumps under that house.  It gave this writer such grief that I vowed to one day have a house that did have a full basement and that puts us where we are today with our house in Through the Woods.

Our decision to build the foundation with concrete blocks meant that we had to do a thorough job with water-proofing and our builder assured us that the system he often used was going to do the job of keeping the water out.  That system started with a well designed drainage system at the exterior footing area so that any ground water that collected there would drain properly away from the house, and not seep into the basement.  The walls would be coated with two layers of a tar-like substance that served to fills any cracks or voids in the block and mortar joints and lastly a layer of plastic material would adhere to the walls.  This plastic mat will serve to shed any large amounts of water that may collect around the foundation during periods of heavy rain when ground water will potentially be the highest.

Front corner of house showing the tar coating

Another shot showing the area around the footing that will have the drainage pipe placed

Drainage mat applied to foundation wall

Mom sweeping out rain

As the house continued its' progress, we have had to deal with some rain.  Just prior to getting the roof put on, we had two good rains that completely soaked the floors and had us out sweeping and vacuuming water.  My mom and I make a good sweeping crew and at least I know that is one thing I can do well.

As the foundation walls are being back-filled with dirt all around and the drainage system is covered up, we are hopeful that we have done all we can to make sure we will always keep our feet dry.