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Construction Timeline: (Framing)
Follow the progress of our new home construction. (10/1/2002 - 1/6/2003)
NOTE: Newest pictures at the top.
Click on any image for an enlargement.
The Beginning.
This is how it looked on-screen. |

Chief Architect 8.0 produced this diagram after I fudged some
of the roof pitches to make the hip joists a bit easier to
construct. Since the roof really is stick-built, I've been
able to measure projected heights and distances to help Gary with
some of the tricky geometry. Cool !.
For a detailed as-built view, check out my frame-map. |
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Jan 6, 2003 Let
it snow, we don't care. Now that the house is sealed, work can
begin inside. Here are some final shots from inside and out. |

The walls are all up, and the roof is sheeted. All the
windows are in (Marvin Aluminum Clad) but the doors are yet to be
delivered. The house is sealed from the wind, and is keeping
surprisingly warm (relatively speaking) considering the frigid
outside temp., the 6" of snow on the roof, and the howling
wind.
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Lisa and her dad "Bill" inspect the outside of one of
the main retaining walls. This is Bill's first trip up to
the house and he seemed suitably impressed. We were lucky to
make it up the street in my city-slicker car (Saturn SL2). I see a
4x4 in our future.
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Here is the view out the main living room windows (Due
South). There are 4 windows across the front, and one on
either side of the room. There will be a window seat/bench
all the way across the room, with a couple of back-rests dividing
the seat into 3 seating areas. Great for lounging in the
morning sun & reading.
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Here are the master bedroom and sunroom views (South West).
There is a double glass door between the two rooms.
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Lisa and I both scaled
a ladder to get up to the tower. At one time we were
contemplating installing a captains ladder to get up to the
tower. Since then the floor height got raised a couple of
feet, so I'm really glad we opted for a CODE spiral staircase.
It's a LONG way down :)
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Dec 6, 2002
Final Roof Framing One final burst of activity completes
the roof.
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Dec 4, 2002
Roof is nearly complete
We took a day between snow storms and braved
the cold to finally see our house under roof. It was VERY
COOL. Especially the tower. It looks twice as big inside as it
does from the outside (We'll have to call it the TARDIS) |
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Nov 24, 2002
And the roofing continues
In between rain days and snow days, the roof
progresses. |
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Nov 14, 2002
Getting "Under Roof"
Several days of fine weather have enabled the
crew to really make headway on the roof covering. |

As the fall season at Deep Creek comes to an end, our house really
starts to stand out on the hillside, overlooking the lake.
Once complete, the house won't be anywhere as noticeable.
The white Tyvek will be replaced by Sagebrush (green) siding.
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The framing of the rear section of the roof is complete, so the
guys have sheathed it with OSB and are now laying the roofing
felt. Click on the image, and notice the high nailing
density on both the roof and wall sections. That covering is
there to stay :)
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Here we can the underside of the roof section that covers the master
bedroom. This Hip splits into two smaller hips. Only
one hip joist is installed here.
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Nov 9, 2002
Roof Framing leaps ahead.
After more than a week of lousy weather, the
weather-man predicted a streak of sunny days, so Gary got his team together for some
frantic framing. |

Before the lousy weather, Gary had gotten the Tower framed,
sheathed and sealed with Tyvec. This was a requirement for
starting the roof system. When the fine weather returned,
Gary started work on the exterior OSB (Oriented Strand Board) and
the ceiling joists (photo left).
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After the ceiling, then came the Roof Hip Joists. These are
the long structural roof members that support the rafters.
Click on the photo to see the two Hip Joists that span the Garage
and Utility room. These were made from Engineered Lumber for
greater span and strength.
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This is a great shot that shows how all the members fit
together. You can see the ceiling joists running
horizontally, at right angles to the concrete walls. You
also see the rafters spanning from the exterior walls to either a
tower wall or a Hip Joist. The lower level roof is a 4:12
pitch, but the Tower roof will be 6:12
Every other tower wall has a 4'x2' window to take in the
view. You can see the wind depression in the Tyvec wall
facing the camera. |
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October 22, 2002
Main Level almost framed.
Today was pretty exciting. Lisa got to see the walls for the first
time & we also got to watch the installation of the geothermal
ground loop tubing. |
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October 4, 2002
Framing begins in earnest.
Framing is the part that my builder (Gary Young) enjoys the most.
Although (because) each house he works on is very different, he seems to
have a very systematic approach. I'm also starting to learn all
the basic framing terminology (jargon) |

This was my first view of the framing process. Since my
design contains a lot of rooms that intersect at 45°, Gary
decided to lay out ALL the rooms by cutting and placing all the
"Plates". These are the pressure-treated boards
that make up the bottom of walls. This way, he and I could
go over the layout and look for any problem areas. |

Gary had actually gone through and marked the locations of all
the "Studs" (regular vertical timbers) and
"Jacks" (vertical timbers used to hold up the
"Headers"). The plates were just tacked in place
so they could be removed to permit the walls to be constructed
horizontally.
Notice the great selection of Fall Leaves already on the
ground. (click pic to zoom)
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Part of Gary's systematic approach is that he pre-fabricates
all the Jacks and Headers (Horizontal timbers used to span the
tops of doors and windows). See them here, all neatly staked
(off the ground) ready to be used to assemble walls. Jacks
on the left, 6x6 headers in the center and 4x6 headers to the
right. Once the plates are fully marked, he and his crew can
really go to town on the fabrication. |

Here you can see the first few framed rooms. Notice the
three piece laminated 6" headers over the doors, and the
triple studs used to form corners. No problems sheet-rocking
these edges. |

Problems in Phone Land.
To cut a long story short.. while excavating to correct a
problem with passing the electric service under the road, the
backhoe snagged a phone line, and did some major damage.
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I was extremely impressed by the fact that the Verizon field
technician was out within a hour or so, and proceeded to re-splice
the lines, and do a field termination without batting an
eye. You can see the repaired cable at the technician's
foot. It's been spliced and then mounted into a frame that
lets him put a tubular cover around the joint. |

Once the tube had been fully sealed, the technician proceeded to
mix up a batch or "encapuslant" (that looked like
something the local black bears would like to eat), and then he
poured the stuff into the tube.
The encapsulate then sets into a solid block that keeps the
water out of the wiring.
The best thing is that my on-site WebCam is back up and running
again, so I can watch progress from my house in Annapolis. |
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Going on at the same time.... the Geothermal Ground Loop.
The next step is internal Mechanical Systems.
© 2000-2018, Phil and Lisa's relaxed lifestyle home.
An exercise in Energy Smart, Not So Big living.
www.OurCoolHouse.com - Ideas @ OurCoolHouse.com
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This site is all about building a cool, energy efficient house,
that makes maximum use of earth sheltered design, passive solar heating and cooling,
geothermal exchange energy management, and right sizing of the house for it's designated use.
The home's placement is on a south-facing hillside in Deep Creek Lake, Maryland.
This site describes the design process, the technologies used and the expected results.
We also have a comprehensive Links Page for anyone who is also interested in designing a
similar project.
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