December, 2020 - Disaster Mansion

29/12/202015/01/2021

Window construction

In a previous post I mentioned that we need to make a bunch of windows for the ground floor. We’ve already cut the wood for the window bucks and we’ve now started on the window sashes. For this I’m using the Infinity window sash router kit with our lovely Incra router table.

For my first attempt I made a smallish lower sash out of scrap pine. After milling to size and cutting the stock to length I used the Dowelmax to create the dowel joints. You can see in one of the photos that the dowel holes aren’t centered, this is a ‘feature’ of the Dowelmax and is really only noticeable on thin stock. By the way the Dowelmax is a lovely bit of kit, it is pricey but it will outlast me.

The traditional joint in a window sash is the mortise and tenon and this joint probably allows the pieces of the sash to move slightly when the wood changes shape due to differing weather conditions, but as we’ll be using a wood less effected by the weather this probably doesn’t matter. An added advantage to using the Dowelmax is that Aimee is comfortable using it where as the mortise and tenon would require using the table saw.

[Show slideshow]

From the photos you can see that on the inside of the window the router bit cut an ogee profile and on the other side a rebate for glass and putty. As a first attempt I was pretty pleased, you can tell that the joint isn’t perfect but I’ll dial that in tomorrow.

Today I worked on getting a single sash joint near perfect and repeatable and I’m happy with how it turned. All we need to do now is to run through making the case that holds the sashes, weights and pulleys as this determines the sash size.

Throughout this work I will be relying on experts to guide us including Bob at ARC, friend Derrick and The Window Sash Bible by Steve Jordan.

[Show slideshow]

24/12/202024/12/2020

Miracle or not, Happy Christmas…

Miracle or not, Happy Christmas to you all and we hope 2021 will be a healthier and more loving year for you all.

Happy Birthday Christ, written in concrete

23/12/202023/12/2020

The nights are drawing in

During this winter we’ll start making some sash windows for the ground floor. In total we have eight to make. This is a pretty big job as it’s not just the window sashes that have to be made but also the window bucks and the window cases/sash boxes that contain the pulleys and weights etc. We’ll do a trail run first to see how it goes and if that proves too hard then we’ll save up and pay someone.

We’ll use cheap pine for the first one we make as we’re bound to make mistakes and we don’t want to waste expensive wood. The final windows will be made out of a thermally modified wood. This heat treated wood is rot resistant and dimensionally stable (won’t warp much), it’s permanently resistant to water and it’s looks beautiful (think mahogany). The only downside is the cost, $8 – $10 a board foot but luckily I found Paul on craigslist who was selling some left over project wood for $4 a board foot. This is the second lot we’ve bought from Paul which he kindly delivered.

[Show slideshow]

Initially we had planned to use Accoya, which is another long lasting wood and possibly better than thermally modified wood, for the windows, however, it’s not that easy to get hold of it or as beautiful, that said we will probably use Accoya for the remaining windows in the house.

So the first thing we have do is to make the window bucks out of pressure treated wood. These aren’t visible when the window is complete so they don’t have to be fancy. We’ve cut all the wood to size and now they’re ready to be assembled for which we’ll be using the Dowel Max which looks a lovely bit of kit.

19/12/202019/12/2020

Olympic Snow Plowing

As the Winter Olympics fast approach there’s only a few more suitable seasons for Aimee to practice this newly added Beijing 2022 event. This course is a little shorter than the standard 50 meters but in all other aspects it’s the same course. Aimee admitted she was a little rusty as can be shown by the slight bend in the trench. Not a personal best either but Aimee is hoping to get in a lot of practice this winter and hopes to impress the USA selection committee.

The cold is limiting what we can do at the house, if you’re training for the Olympics then that keeps your body temperature up, but if you’re making a spice rack (a wedding present many years overdue), then your extremities get cold quickly and that’s with wearing three pairs of gloves!!! As you can see from the photos the house is far from being sealed from the elements so trying to heat it is pointless.

[Show slideshow]

07/12/202007/12/2020

Footing fixes before the inevitable touch of frost

One of our plans this winter is to prep the ground floor for a concrete pour early next year and for that I want to address any footing issues as once the pour is done there is no easy way to fix such issues.

This weekend Aimee is at the Wooden Boat School attending the “Build Your Own Adirondack Chair” woodworking course, so look out for some fine Adirondack chairs appearing around DM. The class started at 9am so we both managed an early start this weekend.

As an aside a brief history of the chair (see The History of the Adirondack Chair for more info).

The Adirondack chair originally built by Thomas Lee in Westport, New York (1903), which lies in the Adirondack Mountains. Thomas came up with the design for his summer home in the Adirondacks for seating for his family. His first design was called the ‘Westport plank chair’. Thomas offered the design to a friend (Harry Bunnell) who saw the potential in selling this design to the greater Westport summer residents. The first commercial Westport chairs were manufactured in hemlock plank – painted in green or medium dark brown. He signed every chair sold.

As you can see from the pictures we have a 4′ – 5′ section where the footings aren’t as substantial as I’d like them. Job is pretty straight forward, dig under the existing footing, clean them of dirt and sand, set up the forms, insert rebar into pre-drilled holes and start mixing. We prepped a bit last night so the job today is just mixing the concrete. I did add a kettle of boiling water to each mix to help the cure and when finished I draped a plastic sheet over the concrete and left a fan heater running overnight to keep the temperature up.

[Show slideshow]

I also underpinned the front door section and when that has cured I’ll do a similar underpinning on the right hand side – for this I made the form out of spare foam, which will be left in place.

When I returned on Sunday, I found the plastic sheet had been removed and someone had tagged it, the cheek!!! The only Chris I know that reads these posts is my good friend Chris Williams from Dinas who probably holds the Guinness book of records for the most ‘O’ levels in maths, but that’s another story.

[Show slideshow]

05/12/202008/12/2020

Frost lines

… like a tan line but for colder climates, probably…

So the frost line is how deep water will form ice crystals in the soil during periods of freezing and in this area of the Hudson Valley ice will form down to maybe three or four feet. Why this is important is because water expands when frozen and if your footings are above the frost line they will shift and cracks may appear in the above dwelling.

When our right hand wall collapsed it was replaced with a wall with shallow footings. This wasn’t a building error but due to the fact the architect didn’t want to destabilize the front right hand corner wall, which was still standing, by digging a trench in the very sandy soil next to it. To fix the issue of having the footings above the frost line we laid down foam insulation slabs which is part of the building code for Frost-Protected Shallow Foundations.

[Show slideshow]

From the last picture you can see that you lay down a vertical and horizontal insulation. The calculations for how tall and wide the insulation need to be are pretty complicated so in the end I guessed, one foot deep and two foot horizontally. I’m pretty sure that these should be deeper and wider, but considering the house had none of this for over a hundred years it will be better than nothing, plus next year we can fill in all the trenches, making the footings at least 2 – 4′ deep. We can’t fill them until Derrick applies a lime mortar parge to the walls which will happen next summer.

[Show slideshow]

We cut the foam with our track saw, bonding the pieces with an extra strength Gorilla construction glue (based off this review) and now it seems a shame to bury them!!

Where there were gaps between the foam and the footings, due to irregularities in the footings, I sprayed in expanding foam. Once that sets I’ll run some flashing over the foam /concrete bond. Those spray cans of foam don’t go far, they last for about 30 seconds and I think I used 12 cans, still pretty handy.

As you can see by the following weekend the ditches had started to collapse on the insulation, but that’s fine as they will be underground anyway, main thing is that they are in place and sealed with the foam. It was wet today so the flashing will have to wait, possibly to next year.

[Show slideshow]

I could of started this job a few weeks earlier, but I wasn’t sure how deep or wide the insulation had to be and whether digging too deep might destabilize the footings again etc., etc. so I like the fact that I was up against a deadline (winter), so I made some decisions and got on with it. Possibly similar to a scrum sprint.