Refinements

I am now pretty much back to where I was before the move, or at least it appears that way. The roof panels are back on like before but this time I have a safe, easy system to install and remove them when I need to move the house.

The first panel went well, but I knew there were things I could have done to make it work more smoothly. The primary problem was that I used a very cheap hand crank winch which disintegrated on me. I fixed this by buying the smallest electric winch I could find. I ended up with a 12 volt 1500lb winch designed for pulling RTVs out of the mud. It is just the right size and can easily be powered by my solar panel system. As soon as I got home I did what I do with anything new that I get. I took it apart. Everything looked good and I made a new mounting bracket for it so that it would fit with my system.

Another problem that I encountered was some gouging at the bottom of the track. To fix this I cut a slot about 3/4 of an inch up the corner of the track, heated it up with a torch and flared the two flanges. This made a much smoother transition onto the track and fixed the problem.

The final small change I made was to cut a piece of PVC pipe in half and use the halves as a slide on the tracks. It made a big difference by reducing the friction.

Once the panels were outside and we finished installing all of the threaded inserts, it took less than an hour to put them on the house! Thank you Randal, Amanda, Josh, Toper, Pat, Scott, Dave and Ben for your help!

For now the panels are held in place with TimberLocks from the top side. Before I put on the roofing material I need to drill holes and replace the TimberLocks with some bolts that are installed from the inside. Then I will put on some temporary fiberglass roofing until I am ready to do the copper roof.

Photo by Topher

Because the weather looked good I didn't put a tarp on last night. Just to remind me that I'm not in charge though, a big black cloud flew over and a freak rainstorm dumped a bunch of rain on the exposed wood. Luckily the rain was falling sideways instead of down, so it survived with no damage.

Roof bits

Last week I worked on the components for the roof. This picture shows the beginning of the cable guide that will get installed on the top of the ridge beam. I used a piece of 1/2" square tube which I cut then bent by heating it up with a torch to make a smooth path for the cable to slide on.

I finished it off by welding on a piece of 1/4" square stock on both sides of the slot.

Next I cut a mortice in the top of the ridge beam and installed the guide.

I installed all of the threaded inserts for the winch, the track system and the mounts on the panel.

With the help of any free hand at the shop, we moved the panel into place and hooked everything up. Here it is all ready to go! The first trial ended prematurely when one of the guides on the winch started to bend. We stopped while I changed the mounting to fix the problem with the winch. The second time went better, but I did notice that little pieces of scalding metal were falling out of the winch onto my arm the whole way up. Thank you Harbor Freight Tools. I know better every time, but the store is just around the corner an everything is so cheap! The panel made it up with just slivers of metal left on the gears of the winch.

Once the panel was up, it was very easy to make the final adjustments with the winch and fix it down with a few timberlocks. The whole system was broken down within a few extra minutes.

An then of course more rain and snow were on the way so I had to put the tarp back on again. Before the other panels go up, I am going to make a few changes. I have already bought a new winch. This one seems to be much better quality and is battery powered. I want to make a few modifications to the track to make everything slide easier, and I will probably add some nylon slides to the panel also.

While I was working on this, Dave, the shop intern, cleaned and oiled the rafters. I never would have gotten around to that myself and am very appreciative of the help.

T-nuts and threaded inserts

Most of the supplies have arrived to finish the system to install my roof. Last night I found the big box of hardware that I have been waiting for sitting on my doorstep. The threaded inserts will be installed into the frame of the house so that the winch and track system can be bolted on easily without messing up the wood with lots of little screw holes. They will be permanent, so I will need to make some decorative bolts to cover up the holes while they are not being used. The T-nuts get hammered into holes in the roof panels to receive a long bolt from the underside of the rafters. This will allow me to make the roof covering permanent, while still being able to remove the whole panel.

Here is how the system works:

An angle iron track system bolts onto the house through the facia trim. A support bracket keeps it at the same angle as the roof.

A small hand cranked winch will mount on the underside of the ridge beam with the cable running through a steel guide tube installed in the top of the ridge, and will connect to the underside of the roof panel.

It should be an easy job of cranking the winch until the panel lines up with its holes, and then bolting it down from underneath.

Two bolts are removed from the track system, and it is moved over to the next spot.

Concrete color test results

Here are the results of my first test. I am very excited about the colors! I pored ten 4"x 4"x 3/4" tiles. The red and yellow tiles were just for fun because I already had those pigments. The other seven are all variations of the formula that I used when I took the workshop. Hopefully one of them will be the right match to the granite!

Right now I am working on building the form that will create the modified bullnose on the front edge. I bought a piece of 8/4" poplar for that purpose. Poplar has predictable grain and is easy to mill. Hopefully it will take the complicated edge.

More Concrete Counters

Once again, I am posting about another project that I am working on instead of my house. I am making a concrete countertop to go in Dermott's pantry. Eventually I will be making concrete countertops for my house, so this can be considered practice (sorry Dermott!). Most of the kitchen is decked out in a beautiful dark green granite, so I would like to tie the concrete into that look somehow. The main kitchen counter runs along the east wall of the house, then there is a small partition wall that separates the pantry. My plan is to use a small piece of the granite on the pantry countertop were it butts into the partition wall, as if the countertop continued from the kitchen. I will break the other edge of the granite and pour the piece into the countertop casting. It whole piece should have a seamless polished top, with the granite gracefully fading into the concrete. It is an L shaped counter, and the miter will be decorated with an inlayed brass strip.

My SketchUp model

Dermott rendered my model to make it more realistic looking.
Notice the Granite on the leading edge.

As noted in an earlier post, I took a two day workshop with Stone Soup Concrete at the Yestermorrow School back in December. Two days is enough to give you a taste of the craft, but there is so much more to learn! I have been spending my days reading up on the trade, sourcing materials and devising experiments. 

There are several challenges that I am experiencing. First, I need to produce a color that is compatible with the green granite. The color we made at the workshop was a slate gray that would probably look great against the granite on its own, but I would like to work some green into it is possible. To color the concrete, you can use pre-made color mixes which tend to be very expensive and never quite right, or you can mix your own using raw pigments. The pigments are the same that are used for making oil paints. I am using combinations of red, blue, green, yellow, white and black. Some of these are for this countertop, others are just for my records to be used on other projects. Yesterday I mixed up my first batch of tests to try to get a handle on the colors. I am making ten different 4" x 4" x 3/4" tiles.

Pigments weighed out ready to be mixed with concrete

Corwin helped make the samples

I really enjoyed this process because it allowed my scientific side to come out. A small amount of pigment has a huge effect on the color of the concrete, and the pigment is expensive so I was making small samples. This means that often times I would be weighing out less than a half of a gram of each pigment. It was almost like being back in chemistry class. If anyone would like more info on the color formulas or sources for pigments, I would be happy to send along what I learned. Just send me an email.

Once mixed, the samples are plopped in the form and vibrated using a sophisticated mechanical agitation system to work the air bubbles out...

These samples will now have to sit for five days before I can remove them from the forms. Since these are so small, I could remove them after 24 hours, but the 544 pound countertop will definitely need the full five days and the length of time the concrete sits in the form affects the color. Oh well, it is good to practice patients.

I already have several other test lined up to experiment with inlaying metal and stone into the surface, and various methods to form the sides and bullnose profile on the front edge. It seems that I will have several coffee table tops after the experiments are done.

Some photos

Here are some more photos of the new location at the shop.

View from the roof of the shop

Tiny house from the big roof

Compost, wood pile, safe, future patio

New view

Greenhouse!

Tap the Rockies- an old Coors Light billboard serves as a tarp

The COMET project

My friend Mariah  has been working on a really cool project. She has been renovating and old trailer as an example of a sustainable way to live. When she finishes she will tour the country with it talking about the process and teaching as she goes. She says it best in the first paragraph from her about page:

"The COMET (Cost-effective, Off-grid Mobile Eco Trailer) is an exercise in sustainability and small space living. It is an educational tool for children and adults alike. She is a DIY guide for others wanting to pare down and have little to no negative impact on the environment, other humans, and themselves. She is a preservation of incredible design of the past meshed with the essential design of the future."


Mariah  has been working on one of her trailers in the same spot where my house was born, in an old firehouse in Worcester. Check out her site and if you have unused building materials, get in touch. She can use them!

http://cometcamper.wordpress.com/

The Plan

This project has now moved into its fourth year. I absolutely love every part of the project, but am tired of not having the time and money to finish it. I am ready to move on to the next one. So here it is, the new plan:

A: Finish the design

B: Estimate the cost for remaining materials and time needed to finish the project and take out a small loan     to pay my expenses for the time and the materials I need to complete it.

C: With the time and money roadblocks removed, finish the house!

After this, I plan of finishing the design for the improved model and offering one for sale. I am now set up with the space, tools and resources necessary to do this. Let your friends know!

More Photos

Check out Dermott's Flickr page for more photos.

The big news

When I mentioned that there would be big news in my last post, I didn't really know what that would be. I was ready for change and many ideas had been floating around in my head. The most likely were moving the house, running a tiny timberframe house building workshop, or building another one for sale. It was only a matter of time before my impulsivity would take over and one of those things would happen. Well it did. Last friday afternoon I decided it was time to move. In order to get my house out of the woods, I had to wait for the swamp I parked it in to freeze enough to support the truck, but there could be no snow on the ground. The weather provided. We had a good cold week and the outlook appeared to be beautiful and warm. This meant I had to get the house out the next morning before the fifty degree weather thawed the ground. Once this task was complete, I would enjoy the warm weather to work in on the solid ground.

The first step involved spinning the trailer around so that the tongue faced uphill where the truck could get  footing. How do you move a six thousand pound object without power equipment? The notice was too short to get a team of draught horses out here (This almost happened though!) so we used come-alongs. Slowly the house moved backwards and around as Dermott and I winched it off of the trees.

Once it faced the right way we hooked up the truck and started to pull. The house, truck and ourselves moved slowly out of the hole inch by inch. Traction was scarce, so we relied on the come-alongs again. I put the truck in 4WD low, stepped out and worked with Lauren and Dermott to set up a system of pulls off of and available tree or rock. The truck drove itself forward slowly as we clicked away on the come-alongs. Finally we made it to the steep part of the hill which was dry, but too steep for my truck alone to do the work. Unfortunately we ran out of stout trees also. When encountering a problem like this, the best thing to do is have tea and lunch.

As we were finishing up lunch, more overall clad reinforcements arrived. With the addition of Toper's truck, Jack's energy and Mario's supervision, we were able to pull the house up the hill like a freight train  with two engines.

It is out!

Next we went straight for the roof. With the roof on the house, it is nearly eighteen feet tall- way over the legal road limit, and more importantly way over the height of many power lines. Which means up to remove what was done so recently...

Jack and Topher taking a break with stale donuts.

Some of the crew.

Down to the rafters and out of daylight.

DAY TWO


This was a short day. In the evening Lauren and I drove the roof panels back over to the shop, then came back for the house.

The move went well, just needed a quick stop in the CVS parking lot to adjust some loose items.

The new home for my house is outside of my shop. I share this space with many craftspeople including  blacksmiths, a stonemason, sculpters and artists. We also have people making biodiesel and converting cars to run on vegetable oil. And a green house. It is quickly becoming a place where people show up to work on sustainable projects. Having the house here will be a big change. I have traded in the sounds of coyotes at night for a very active freight line about ten feet behind my house. The swamp has been replaces with a level concrete slab. Instead of the walk through the dark woods, I walk through the greenhouse to the common gallery space at the shop. All in all, I am very excited to be in a place with this much creativity and to be back in the city again where I can easily walk to a coffee shop. I now have no excuse not to finish my house since I am so close to the shop.

 See, the house isn't that small...

As the stretch of nice weather started to wane, Topher, Corwin and I cleared off the slab where my house would sit and pondered how the house was going to arrive on that spot. My body was starting to respond to the efforts of the previous days and I was starting to dread the idea of another day with ramps and winches. This is when I remembered the scrap yard next door. After a quick chat with the owner, we agreed on a sum of $50 for his guy with the loader to hep me out. I finished the prep and the next day and George showed up in an ancient piece of equipment that reminds me of a dinosaur to pick the house.

It looks easy, but unfortunately he only had six foot forks on the lift. I had to span the extra distance with two 8"x8" beams. Still, it only took an hour. I was very happy to see it on solid ground after watching it teetering on those forks for so long.

Thank you so much George. I love the benefits of being in an old industrial area.

At this point, I was left alone with a floor jack and a set of movers dollies to position the house properly on the slab. Easy work with the help of two friends in the shop. You will have to use your imagination on the space. It needs some work, but I know it is going to be very comfortable. The house has been rotated ninety degrees so that the door and long edge faces the gallery, greenhouse and shop. It is starting to feel a little more private from the rest of the mess behind me and more a part of the shop complex. A nice old short iron fence (let me know if you see one) will help contain the space, and I have a twenty by twenty foot patio to landscape with as much stone work and garden space as I can manage. It will be a very comfortable space this spring.

For now, it is in position and the rafters are back in place. I had to quickly re-tarp it with an old Coors Light billboard to keep out the storm, but as soon as it clears I am going to perfect the roof installation system and get the roof back on. I was given some used corrugated fiberglass roofing to use until I get the copper, and some salvaged structural insulated panels that I will use to finish the gables. I hope to do this and build my windows soon, so that it will be properly weathertight.

Check back soon for a short video of the move that Lauren and I are editing.