not quite a timber frame

[ljmathias]

Live Edge Siding

I thought it might be useful for those who have thought about making this type of siding to see how one person does it.  What I'll describe today is just the conversion of SYP logs into green siding.  Later on as we continue the house building effort we'll get to applying sealer and finish, cutting and installing, and putting on final protective coat.  Timing for this first step is crucial, and falls into the category of "When's the best time to plant a tree?" question; answer: "40 years ago..."  When's the next best time?  Now, of course, so now it is since I didn't have the foresight to get this done last year for two reasons: didn't know I'd be building a house this year, and certainly didn't know which trees would be prematurely terminated by the power company in their quest to sell us electricity.

First step, of course, is the right logs.  Best for me are those around 10" or more in diameter.  We're going to use minimum of 8" boards with 6" reveal, so even with variations of an inch or so, we get nice coverage and an acceptable "view" of the finished house.  Picture below shows a new batch of bucked logs ready to be sacrificed on the alter of sawmilling.  Notice that some of these are considerably bigger than 10" which is alright.  This just means more careful slabbing to remove bark and a board or two that gets trimmed down to 8" or so later in a separate step.  The goal is to end up with a cant that has three clean cut sides and one with bark still on it (picture below).  There are two competing characteristics which depend on log diameter.  If the log is pretty big, then the cant you get will have nice straight live edges with little curve to them.  This kind of cant is easier to cut and gives more uniform boards but they are much more "boring" to look at when finally put on the house.  Much more visually appealing are cants from smaller diameter logs (more curve in the live edge that results) or better yet, cants from the upper portion of the log where lots of branches have been trimmed.  Leaving a little of the "branch stump" on the rough side of the cant makes for really interesting live edges on the boards- lots of things to attract your attention and break up the symmetry of board after board flat and straight.  If you want that symmetrical look, cut all four sides of your cant square and flat, make all your boards exactly the same width and you have a nice lap siding that is uniform- not for me, however.




Ooops, something wrong with the picture inserter- I'll see what I can figure out or may have to ask Jeff for help.  Got the pictures to my gallery but can't get them in using the two-click method... put them in above using the copy-and-paste method; let's see if that works....

Lj

[ljmathias]

Ok, I'll pick up this topic of making live edge siding again... hope the picture inserter works better but if not, I'll go ahead and use the cut and paste method.

I should back up and give an overview of the process I use:
-First, find "interesting" logs of about 10-12" in diameter; interesting meaning with some branch stubs left on
-Second, buck to length: I vary this to give the siding a more unsymmetrical look, with some logs 8' or so and others up to 20' in length.  Depends in part on how long a piece of siding I'm willing to man-handle and what distances there are between windows, doors or along a wall: if you can stretch a single piece of siding from one corner of the house to the other, this is ideal- no board-to-board edges for thermal expansion and water ingress
-Third, make a three sided cant with one side bark-on, set for even multiples of desired lumber thickness in the flat-to-flat dimension (I use 4/4 scale) and about 8-9" across (this will be the width of your siding)
-Fourth, cut boards to thickness (4/4), scrape off sawdust from both sides, trim off bark so beetles don't infest while it dries
-Stack lumber on FIL, move to drying pile, sticker and cover
-Let air dry for a year or so (won't happen here) or kiln dry; I see no reason to kiln dry lumber for exterior use that is free of bugs (this is all fresh cut, no beetles and kept clean and covered and away from termites)
-Trim each board as you install, seal coat both sides and put up wet
-Finish house, wait a month and apply top-coat to all exposed siding and sealed wood

Ok, now back to steps with pictures.  We've got the cant squared up, and then cut the first board off: it's got sawdust on both sides (bad for fungus growth) plus bark on one edge: picture below shows a typical board slanted off the mill with sawdust being removed by scraping with a piece of busted sawblade (I used to break a lot of blades on my LT30 manual; none so far on my LT40: why?).  Next picture shows bark removal with a kaiser blade: it peels right off, takes about 30 seconds for a board, then load clean board onto FIL (picture in a previous post).

 


 



Great!  The double-click inserter is working again...
Shown below are a couple of pictures of stickered and stacked siding getting ready to do nothing while it dries some before we put it up.  Ideally, it should be equilibrated to the humidity of the house location, and here in the Deep South, that's about 100% most of the year, most days.  Major concern is ability for wood surface AND edges to soak up sealer just before install.  As long as it's "some dry" the sealer works fine but drier is better.  You may notice some of the boards have more branch stubs left on which makes the siding much more interesting: this is one application of rough sawn lumber where you (or at least I) don't want all board edges straight, and actually provides a use for the upper part of a SYP that has most of the branches on it.  Our pines tend to grow very straight and tall, with most of the trunk self-pruned and free of branches- boring  but makes for great boards and beams.  The upper third or fourth is where the branches are, and it's easy to just leave that part for the burn pile... except when you want (or can sell) live-edge siding: do I smell money here? Oh, well, man does not live by bread alone... although having money to buy bread is sure nice.







More about siding later when we start sealing and putting it up.  I realized the other day, though, that I don't have nearly enough siding cut.  Did a rough calculation (best kind for rough cut lumber) and came up needing about 1200-1400 sq ft of siding.  For a 6" reveal, a 12' board cut at 8" (roughly) will cover about 6 sq ft.  So... I need about 200 12' boards or the equivalent.  My stack in the picture is about 12' long and 4' wide.  With space between boards, that's about 3' of board surface wide times 12' long or 36 sq ft per layer: that means about 32-40 layers.  Doing it based on number of boards per layer (5) I come up with 40 layers.  My stack of siding only has about 20 layers in it: URGH!  This means over the next week I have to take down a half dozen trees in addition to the ones that the power company "gave" me.   I hate cutting down my own trees in such small lots, but can't justify buying a whole truck load right now (can't find a logger willing to bring me just one anyway so it's a moot point).  So the point of this part: more work to do, which I guess is pretty much a constant state of affairs till the house is done.

Lj

[ljmathias]

footings and foundation walls

Ok, so in between digging trenches and getting weather I could count on to pour footings and get blocks laid, I did the tree-to-lumber conversion.  Now it's back to the trenches and finish the footings.  Most of a day forming up a couple of spots where the ground dipped a little too low and I needed form boards to hold the concrete in plus lay rebar, wire it together and put it on saddles for the pour.  Upstart of all this was a couple of rough nights trying to sleep with a really sore, aching back... and did I say it hurt, too?  I hate drugs (all kinds) but ended up taking aspirin- helped enough to sleep.  Sadly, I lost the pictures of the rebar and the concrete trucks working their way close to the trenches for the pour.  Also had a pain with that- my eldest son was home for a visit from Maryland where he captains our 1939 wooden sail boat for charters of up to 16 people.  Anyway, my other son (the plumber) got tied up and couldn't help till later so it was just the two of us plus a little help from the driver.  Got the first 8 yards in and more or less smooth and at the level of the grade stakes (carefully hammered into the sub-soil to a depth where their tops at right at where the top of the footings should be so that an even number of layers of blocks brings the height up to the right level). I foolishly calculated the amount of concrete I'd need: came up with 14 yards and foolishly told the concrete super that was what I'd need.  Should have said "let us finish the first load and we'll call in amount for the second" which would have given us time to smooth what we'd poured, put in rebar to anchor the block wall and estimate how much more concrete we'd need... so there we were, just finishing up the first pour when in roars the second truck all hot and bothered to dump his load.  Wow, did we scramble then!  Concrete, like time, waits for no man: pour it in your forms or it gets dumped somewhere.  Can't leave it in the truck too long or you have a very expensive specialized piece of equipment that isn't much good for anything anymore.

Well, we did it, although we were a little low in a couple places (only an inch) but NOT high anywhere which block layers absolutely hate- you have to cut every block in the bottom layer when that happens.  Other problem was we had to hurry and shove in our tie bars (rebar spanning from the footing up inside the soon-to-be block wall that when filled with concrete will form a solid structure that will resist motion in any of the three directions that we're normally concerned with).  Since we didn't have time to re-string the batter boards, we missed the inside of the about-to-be-laid block wall in a few sections and made it real difficult in others since the rebar was actually where part of a block should be, meaning more work for the block layer.  Such is life and the joy of being a general contractor doing too much of the grunt work...    

Sorry to be so slow with the pictures- I know, "we like pictures..."  but had to get all that off my chest first.   First picture below shows pallets of blocks we had delivered and the second, more stacks plus some of the poured footing.  Not shown is the pallet of cement for the mortor.  All told, about $900 for the blocks, $1300 for the concrete and almost $2000 for the rebar, rebar grade stakes, three rolls of remesh for the slab to be, and wire ties, saddles for the rebar to sit on and thick polyethlene to put down below the slab to keep moisture out.







Not easily seen in the pictures are the step-downs for the footings.  Because of the grade slope from no blocks at the highest point of the porch slab down to six blocks at the edge of the house, there were lots of step-downs.  These are where you put in a wooden "dam" to hold the concrete in the upper level from continuing to pour down hill into a lower level exactly 8" below the upper one.  The idea is, a layer of blocks laid on the bottom level will have a layer on top that lines up perfectly with the upper level footing... obvious once someone explains it to you.  These steps make forming a lot easier, since almost all of your footing concrete is just below grade and no wooden forms or stakes to hold them in place are needed.  These also save a fair amount of concrete since you don't have to form above grade and back fill with concrete.  

So anyway, we did get the footings pretty near to where they needed to be and a couple days later, the block layer and his crew show up at 7 am (first picture below).  Almost had a major delay: he thought I was ordering the sand for morter and I thought he was... luckily I checked in with him day before the job, and the gravel and sand trucker was able to squeeze in a load first thing in the morning.  He got his equipment unloaded and set up (pics below) while I waited for sand back at the other side of the creek.  Dumped the load where we were making a playground for the grandkids, and then I hauled FIL loads over for them to mix with- worked out great: no extra sand laying around at the worksite (not good for future grass and scaffolding support) and the grandkids got a great new place to play.  

The series of pictures that follow show the first blocks laid at the corners of the deepest (tallest) wall- these are used to set strings for rows in between the corners that are built up in rapid succession.  They built the walls at 90 degrees to this first, tallest wall, then connected the ends at the shallowest part, then finished up with the partial walls that will help frame in the back porch slab.







 


 







 



 






 



Six hours after they started, with time in the day still for a late lunch, the foundation walls were up.  Below is one picture showing the finished walls, followed by one of me thinking about the days and days of back-breaking labor I'd missed by having professionals do the job for $840- best money I'd spent yet on the house, though certainly not the last.  Oh, and the last picture shows me and two of my work-horses: my tractor with FEL and backhoe and the old F250 I'm using to haul supplies.  My "good" truck is 4 years newer than this one, a '95 F150 long bed, which my son is driving right now because we can't figure out the problem with getting fuel to his diesel F250 work truck which is also a '95.  One thing about a Ford truck: you have to work hard to kill one, although they can be frustrating and occasionally expensive to keep running... at least ours are paid for.

 







Well, the foundation walls are up.  Now to brace them and fill the new "hole" we've made with good red southern clay to support the slab.  Then we'll put down the plastic sheeting, rebar and remesh, and bring in concrete and finishers to pour the slab.  The fun never stops!

Lj

[pineywoods]

DanG, LJ, you building right in the middle of a pine thicket.  I see all them tall skinny pine saplings and thin..ice storm, look out roof 

[ljmathias]

Good eyes, Piney, but the trees aren't as close to the house as they look (mostly) and they're pretty small.  Problem is that trees, like grandkids, grow up and get big.  It's such a beautiful location, with the house nestled into the pine grove that we can't bring ourselves to clear it off for safety in the next hurricane (oh, one will come, it's just a matter of time).  We will be thinning the grove, though, to free up canopy for better growth.  The shade is wonderful, though, especially with summer coming on- I'll be framing and roofing and all the other stuff in the heat of the day- temps are hovering in the 80's right now and our hope is that summer waits just a few more weeks.   

Lj

[BAR]

HI LJ,
How do you find time to do such a great presentation with all the work you are doing?

Real Question:  Do you have any problem with sticker stain on your live edge siding?  Do you use stickers from the logs as you saw....or what?  I assume they go up as sawn, unplaned.
BAR

[ljmathias]

Thanks for the questions- forgot to put those details in.  On my son's house, I cut Katrina logs that had been "drying" in the pole barn for 4-5 years.  In fact, I cut them, hauled them over by the house, stained them and put them up wet- no stickering at all.  On the house we're building now, I'm cutting green wood (fresh road kill from the Power line) and stickering that to dry as much as possible before we're ready for it.  I'll do the siding last, since once I have house wrap on and a water-tight roof on, and windows and doors installed, the house is well protected from the elements and I can do all the inside work to completion.  We'll see on sticker stain but I don't think it will be a problem- I use dry stickers and cover with tin.  Good news, though- just "discovered" that I have several layers of pine at one inch or 4/4 that have been air drying for years.  I did a lot of emergency cutting after all the trees were down from Katrina.  Problem is, these all have blue stain, and so far, the new stuff is bright yellow.  We're using pigmented stain, so that may not be a real problem in any event.

You never know though- seems like every aspect of every "new" house I build is an experiment.  I learn so much from hands-on experience that I change things as I go based on new information.  Each house seems better built, tighter and more energy efficient than the last, but at my age, it could just be me mis-remembering or seeing things that aren't really there, who knows?

Was going to order fill dirt today if I can get it.  "Lost" the weekend on a campout with the boy scouts: my eldest grandson is becoming very active in scouts and I'm trying to encourage that as much as possible- broken home and all that.  Anyway, it was "crossover" for the Webelo cub scouts in the troup- neat ceremony that seemed to mean a lot to the younger scouts.  Made the older ones aware again of their responsibility to the new-comers into the troup- a good thing all around.  Good team building all weekend and lots of memories and skill development.  Course, my aging body doesn't appreciate the outdoors like it use to...  and I came home pretty worn out.  Needless to say, slept like a log last night.

Lj

[laffs]

looks like nic work to me LJ

[ljmathias]

Good news and bad news: ordered fill dirt for in the morning and we figure five truck loads should do it.  Built a dirt ramp over concrete filled low section only two blocks high so I can get the backhoe tractor in to spread and help pack.  now the bad news: 80% chance of rain tomorrow night.  I really need to get this done so we can pour the slab or I'd wait till I was sure of dry weather.  So, I've heard horror stories of filled foundations like ours filling up like a swimming pool, causing the clay to swell, and you guessed it: BOOM! Walls blown out all over.  Any one have this experience, or better yet, the opposite: rain falls, water goes away somewhere and all is well.  Going to try and get the dirt in, leveled and packed before the rain so I can spread polyethylene down on top, tape the seam and hope for the best.  Thoughts or suggestions?

Lj

[DouginUtah]

I guess location and soil type makes a difference, but most places require that fill dirt/sand be flooded to make it settle. And settle it does!

[ljmathias]

Thanks, DouginUtah- in my case, it will be flooded whether I want it or not: new forecast is 80% chance of rain tonight and all day tomorrow, which means it's a 100% most places for the next 36 hours...

I'll get pictures of the wood braces that I installed to hold the blocks in place, although it seems like a bit too little to actually do any good.  Talked to my block layer, though, and he definitely recommended it so maybe it really does help.  Only took a couple hours to gather lumber, drive stakes and screw everything together.  Oh, and by the way, I don't nail form boards, batter boards and such any more- much easier to use an impact driver and square bit screws, although it is a little slower setting them up.  You win during dismantle- things unscrew lots faster than taking apart nailed boards, driving the nails back through and pulling them so you can re-use the lumber.  Overall much faster, cleaner and you recover the wood in much better shape.  I'll get pictures this morning of the braces and the dirt going in- probably also have pictures of our new "swimming pool" after it rains, but we'll hope for the best.  As they say, "Time waits for no man," and this case, for no woman: daughter is getting a mite impatient and we really do have to get the slab poured so we can start the fun part: framing!

Another by the way: daughter has started up her blog again, or "blahg" as she calls it.  Latest entry is pretty good, capturing the new attitude and life-style we're moving slowly toward:

http://measureoncecusstwice.blogspot.com/

More later, have a great morning!

Lj

[Raider Bill]

Will you be putting styrofoam down under the plastic? What about compacting the fill?

[Qweaver]

Let me first say that I have absolutely no experience with this kind of construction...but it would scare the heck out of me compacting dirt inside of a freshly laid block frame.  There seems to be very little holding those blocks in column.   And it sures seems like that when your are pushing dirt down, you are also pushing it out.  But what do I know...nothing.

[WDH]

Looking good, LJ.  You do good work!

[fishpharmer]

Looks great.  Lj, could you dig a hole in a low spot and install a float activated sump pump from home depot?

[Raider Bill]

Let me first say that I have absolutely no experience with this kind of construction...but it would scare the heck out of me compacting dirt inside of a freshly laid block frame.  There seems to be very little holding those blocks in column.   And it sures seems like that when your are pushing dirt down, you are also pushing it out.  But what do I know...nothing.

It's done all the time here. I believe it's called a stem wall but not sure. I did the same thing building the ICF house but my bottom course was unfilled styrofoam block, didn't have any trouble. I walked the compactor for 2 days and watered in between. and all night.

Are you going to put pex pipe in the slab for heat?

[ljmathias]

Qweaver: you're absolutely right on pushing out the walls, but it depends on how tall they are.  At the small end- just two blocks high or rather a block and a half with the L-shape for the other half to allow slab concrete to pour right up to and down the columns of the blocks.  Highest wall is 6 blocks high (or 5 1/2) and that's the one to worry about.  I cheated a lot and used double reinforcement to keep it from bowing out or cracking. First, about every third "column" down the stack of blocks, I put in a piece of rebar and then filled with ready-mix concrete.  Some I didn't put the rebar in but just the concrete, mostly these are on the shorter walls although I did fill about half a dozen scattered on the tallest wall and the two that taper to it.







I thought this might be enough support to prevent lateral breakout but my block layer suggested otherwise, so I ended up bracing the walls from the outside with boards as seen in the three pictures below.  You can see the rebar sticking up from the concrete filled columns in the walls. 

 







Seems to have worked ok- next entry will show the dirt truck coming in and the progress of spreading, compacting and smoothing seven loads of good 'ol Southern red clay.

Lj

[ljmathias]

So, this morning at 8, the truck began hauling in fill dirt.  First picture below shows it "sneaking up" on me- hard to do with that huge diesel engine straining under the load of 16 yards of red clay.  Second picture shows the truck after it "surprised" me, starting to turn around so it can back up to the foundation wall.  I first thought to have him slide in to the shortest wall with the least difference from grade, but that didn't work too well- hard to get in and out with a truck this size.  We dumped the first load there and discussed alternatives- made the decision to cut off the temporary water pipe so he could back straight in and up to a slightly higher part of the shortest wall- much easier and he was much happier, although this resulted eventually in a fair amount of dirt getting down the block columns in that wall.  Bummer: this means hand work digging it out so concrete can fill them during the slab pour.  More about how that works later...

 







These are a few pictures of Jessie and River, my daughter and grandson for whom we're building this house.  They fought to be "king of the hill" on load number four, then River said something sassy so Jessie had to chase him down the mound.  River worked hard, though, at least for about half the job- stomping on dirt near the walls to compact it some and spreading it out as needed, or as you see in the last picture in this set, chasing lizards and being "king of the hill" on a stack of leftover blocks.

 
 


 





In order (I hope) are some of loads 1-7 in various stages of just-delivered, spread out or being spread out by me on the tractor... although the tractor took it in his head to try "balancing" on the foundation wall- looks pretty dangerous but he survived.  Last picture shows end of day, last load in and spread after 8 hours of mostly hard work.  We decided to quit at this point: supposed to rain a bunch tonight so we covered with plastic, put some boards on it and just walked away...  Sometimes when you're really tired and worn out, that's the best option- leave the final leveling for another day, hopefully tomorrow but that will depend on the weather.

 













Next entry will show everything survived a horrendous thunder storm (maybe and maybe), and the progress on getting everything flat and at the right height, then with plastic down (no styrofoam insulation, although I thought about it- too expensive) and rebar on top, and then remesh on top of that all ready for the slab... I hope.

Lj

[Jim_Rogers]

Are you going to embed some pipes for waste plumbing?

 

[ljmathias]

Forgot that Raider asked about putting pex tubing in the slab itself- we'll probably do that although it might not be worth it.  The house will be well insulated and sealed everywhere to make it as airtight as possible.  No gas here and didn't want to use propane, so this house will be all-electric except for the wood heater in the living room which should supply all the heat needed in the winter.  Still not sure about the pex though- put it down in my son's house but haven't gotten around to hooking it up to a boiler or hot water heater- not enough time and money...

Also forgot tally on the dirt: $735 total for seven loads, 112 cubic yards.  The fill dirt may or may not support the slab.  Oh, it will during the pour, but I don't have time to do what Raider Bill did: 2 days with a compactor.  That is certainly the best way to go, but as it turns out, this slab will be totally supported by remesh over rebar that is tied into rebar set in concrete in the foundation walls which will be filled completely with concrete (at least mostly, can't reach some of the fill dirt that accidentally got into the blocks).  In fact, there are some builders that use this approach for raised foundations down here: after the slab is poured, they run water through the fill dirt to wash it all out, liberating the crawlspace for plumbing and electrical as needed.  I have no plans to do that- let sleeping dogs lie, I say...

Lj