Homeowner's Blog » Exterior

Building a small, energy efficient barn

Paul — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 00:54:56 +0000

We like living in this house, it is a great area. The kids love running wild in the woods, bears not withstanding. My wife has a good job at the local school district, the commute is less than two miles. All in all, it is a great location.

The house itself is just a bit too small. We also have no general outside storage. The lawn mower, roto tiller and other equipment lives under a tarp when not in use. That is less than ideal. I would also like a separate space for my home office.

To answer all those concerns and more, I decided that a small outbuilding should be constructed. Nothing major, something long the lines of 200 square feet or so. That was the size at the beginning of the planning process. The final size is 640 square feet and I fear that it may be too small.

Floor plan, barn project

The floor plan is pretty simple, the first floor is on a slab and is 20×16 feet, the second floor is also 20×16 including the stairwell. I wanted to get maximum use from this project, therefore, I build in several options not normally found in an outbuilding:

The first floor slab is 8 inches thick, insulated and has PEX embedded for radiant floor heating
The walls are all 2×6 construction, for the added insulation space.
All doors and windows are double glazed.
The walls are to be insulated with spray in foam.
The second floor will have radiant tubing installed under the floor.
The major building face is oriented to true south, solar thermal panels will be mounted on the south facing roof for space heating.
The roof pitch for the south facing roof is 55 degrees, for best winter solar gain.
Under the stairs will be located a 12 KW propane generator for backup power to the house and battery charging.
A large lead acid battery bank will reside next to the north wall on the first floor.

All of these things point toward using solar heating, using the slab as heat storage for energy collected during the day. The theory is, at night time, the floor will release its heat into the structure, thus keeping it warm. The overall floor was just under seven cubic yards of concrete during the pour. The specific heat for concrete is 0.18 BTU/lb/°F. Seven cubic yards equals 27,405 pounds of concrete. Thus, a temperature rise of 1 degree F equals 4932 BTU of energy storage. If the solar panels can raise the temperature of the slab from 40 to 100 degrees F in one sunny day, that represents 295,974 BTU, which is significant.

The plan is to have about 94 square feet of solar collector, which should easily handle this amount of energy collection on all but the cloudiest of days.

The batteries will be primarily charged from the grid, however, they can also be charge by the PV panels in the event of a prolonged power outage. If the solar panels cannot charge the batteries for whatever reason, then the backup generator will kick in and charge them. The backup generator will hopefully be used vary sparingly, it is a four cylinder, air cooled unit. In the winter (which is when most of the power outages occur) the waste heat from the generator will also heat the building.

This project is already underway, but I am going to break up the posts into general topics, like footings, slabs, framing, etc.

Removing the deck, part III

Paul — Sun, 22 Aug 2010 20:34:53 +0000

It is hard to believe that this project started almost two years ago. I started removing the old deck from the front of our house but had to stop for several reasons:

The zoning laws had changed. The deck no longer met the required setback from the road for the front of the house and I wanted to get clarification on what I was allowed to do.
We decided that we were not going to replace the deck in kind, but rather install a covered porch along the front of the house, which will require more money.
Lack of time.

After last fall’s mix up when installing the footings for the solar system, I wanted to be sure that we weren’t going to run afoul of the town code enforcement officer. I reviewed the situation and he said what we were planning was fine, reducing the encroachment into the required setback is always welcome.

removal in progress

So, last Saturday, I got busy and removed the rest of the deck. What I found explained quite a few things. I think it was constructed around 1980 or so. First of all, not all the wood used on the deck was pressure treated. Several supporting members were full of carpenter ants. Secondly, the deck was not properly attached to the house, it was nailed to the siding. Thirdly, no flashing was used, so the ledger board was extensively rotted. In fact, it is so bad under the front door that the rot made its way into the rim joist.

pile of junk

I used the trusty skilsaw, sawsal and 10 pound sledge hammer to get the job done. In the end, I had a pile of mixed wood, some treated, some rotted, some not. I took the stuff to the town transfer station, which charges $0.05 per pound for C&D material. It ended up costing me $64.00 to get rid of everything, which works out to 1,280 pounds.

Front deck removed

Apparently I wasn’t quite tired enough, so I also got out the chain saw and removed the two overgrown rhododendron bushes as well. The front of the house looks a little bare right now, but I kind of like it.

Fortunately, the rotted rim joist is one small section and it doesn’t seem to affect the sill plate. I will examine the sill more closely when we get ready to replace the rim joist.

In the coming weeks, I will get a building permit and put the front porch on before winter time. It will be nice to have this project done.

Building a Boat Dock

Paul — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 21:29:44 +0000

This is what I did on vacation:

I made a new dock for the cottage in Canada. The old dock was built about 20 or more years ago, nobody is really sure. It had a useful life but last winter the ice caused the dock part to become detached from the crib and fall in the water. Since Parks Canada no longer allows crib docks in this part of the lake, I had to construct a combination pole/floating dock.

This is the old dock when it was being taken apart:

Old crib dock being disassembled

Here I am working on one of the sections of the new dock:

New dock sections

They are made from 2×10 fir with heavy duty galvanized corner brackets and gusset plates. I used 3/8 galvanized bolts to secure everything. The decking is 5″ by 1 1/4″ ACQ deck lumber. Treated lumber is only allowed on parts that do not have contact with water. I used 24 inches on center for the decking support, it seems to be very sturdy.

Assembling an eight foot dock section

There are three sections, on 16′ by 4′ section that is attached to the boat house and supported by concrete filled poles.

The next section is an 8′ by 4′ floating section, and at the end is another 4′ by 8′ section forming a T.

This will allow the dock level to change with the water level, which can vary as much as 30 inches over the course of a season.

Since the cottage is on an island, it was easier to build the dock on the main land and tow it into place with the run about:

16 foot dock section underway

Once the dock was secured to the boat house, the poles were driven into the lake bed as far as they will go. This worked out to be about 24 inches before they struck solid rock. Still, these are 10 foot 2 inch schedule 40 poles:

Sixteen foot dock section secured to boat house

The main section is secure, the inspector is here and approves:

Code enforcement officers are a rough bunch

T section underway in the channel:

Towing T section into place

Pumping out the poles and filling them with concrete. This should make them more rigid and better able to resist the ice movements. The floating sections will come out during the winter.

dewatering support poles

filling support poles with concrete to make them more rigid

Construction is completed, now it is time for the test:

Dock under test

Test is successful

Projects, finances and priorities

Paul — Sat, 28 Jun 2008 19:40:43 +0000

Earlier this year I wrote out my project list based on what I thought we could afford to do this year and what the highest priority items where. The first item on the list was the raised beds for the vegetable garden. That project was more labor than money as I used locally available rocks to make the beds and a few yards of crushed stone for the walkways. Not too hard on the bank account.

The next item on the list was to build a shed. With the high cost of gas, food, etc, we have to look closely at the family budget to see what we can afford. The shed may get pushed back to next year in favor of fixing the front of our house.

I started removing the old front deck, basically because the thing was about to fall off of the house. The builders used improper hardware for pressure treated lumber and all of the nails are rusting through. The whole thing will likely collapse under one more heavy snow fall, which we seem to receive quite often around here. Rather than have the “Front door to nowhere” look, I want to replace the deck with a covered porch that runs along the front half of the house. Of course, this is a much bigger project than I initially thought.

I did a couple of really quick drawings using google sketchup. I will have to go back and fix them up for the building permit, basically my idea is something like this:

The porch would be 8-10 feet wide, running about 24 feet along the front of the house. There would be one step on the end. The roof would hip into the house roof about 1/2 way between the edge and the peak. I will have to measure, but I believe that span would be about 14-16 feet long. I believe the porch roof will require 2 x 10 or even 2 x 12 lumber. The porch and roof would be supported by 6×6 posts on 12 inch footing to a depth of 48 inches.

I believe this would greatly improve the front of our house and once this is done, we can get the siding done and all of that will much improve the curb appeal if we decide to sell. This would be the view if one were walking up the path from the drive way, just about to step onto the porch. Of course, I will put shutters on the windows, and perhaps some hanging plants, a bench or some Adirondack Chairs, etc.

The other project for this summer is going to be a photovoltiac system. The cost of electricity just keeps going up and up. While the solar hot water is doing great (our electric bill for May/June is 50% of last year’s bill) I would like to reduce that even further.

The shed will have to wait until next year.

Removing the old deck, Part II

Paul — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 23:11:02 +0000

This has been slow going for a number of reasons:

I am trying to save as much lumber for re-use as possible. There is one 2×8 that cracked in half around a large knot. The rest of it seems to be pretty sound and can be re-used for the decking material on the new porch. This means removing each piece, removing all the nails, then stacking it neatly next to the side of the house, out of sight.
I have been distracted by many other things, such as winter cleanup, the grass growing, the garden rototilling, planting new grass before it gets too warm to name a few.
I have also been very busy at work and at the side job

Regardless of all that, I hope to have the entire deck removed in the next couple of weeks. Here is an updated picture:

And, just in case you are not enjoying all this good weather we are having around here… Last year at this time it looked like this:

Personally, I rather like the 75-80′s vs 6 inches of snow…

Making a Patio

Paul — Sat, 29 Jul 2006 10:04:44 +0000

Even though our house is 40+ years old, little if any landscaping was done around it. The previous owners had used it as a summer home, their permanent home being in Brooklyn, NY. I suppose if you grow up in Brooklyn you are used to asphalt (AKA black top).

The area around the house was paved so that the asphalt was right up to the plywood sheathing. This likely caused many of the rot and infestation problems because the wood wicked up the moisture when it rained.

One of the other problems this house had is the drainage around the foundation. The house had no gutters on it and the ground in the back yard gently sloped right into the foundation. That caused the basement to flood any time we received more than 1/2 inch of rain. Yet another discrepancy on the “Property Disclosure Statement.”

To solve all of this, I started by putting up the gutters. Then I rented an excavator (Cat 303) from the Taylor Rental center here in town. I dug up all of the asphalt path and patio and dug trenches to put drain pipes in for the gutters and surface drains. These pipes empty out in the front yard on the down hill side of the house about 15 feet away from the foundation. That solved the drainage problems, but now I had piles of torn up asphalt and dirt in the back yard. It was a mess. It stayed that way over the winter.

As soon as the ground dried out enough to start digging, I began phase II. The first thing I did was haul away all the asphalt piles. There was a recycling center the accepted construction and demolition debris. They took the asphalt and recycled it by reheating it and adding some more tar and gravel. Now it is somebody’s driveway or road instead of taking up space in a land fill.

Next I began digging out the area from the foundation out to 10 feet away. I tried to dig this so that the ground sloped away from the foundation. To the north of our house in the woods there is a great glacial rock pile (also known as talis). From this pile and from one of the old stone walls I pulled rocks and built a dry fit stone wall about 3 feet high and 45 feet long. I used the dirt that I dug out to back fill the stone wall and create a swale. Now the water runs down the back yard into the swale and away from the house into one of the surface drains I put in last year. I did this in 15 foot sections, planting grass on each section after I graded it out. To get the arc for the curve I used a 12 foot piece of rope staked to the ground. I stretched this out and marked the ground with a sharp stick, then dug along that line.

I built a trellis using Black Locust tree trunks. I have access to a good supply of these trees free for the taking. Black Locust is very dense durable wood. It is rot and insect resistant. I was planning to grow grape vines on the trellis and would rather not use pressure treated lumber since it leaches chemicals into the soil. The trellis is 18 x 20 feet and about 9 feet high. The holes for the support posts were dug 4 feet deep to get below the frost line.

After the trellis was complete I used a roto tiller to loosen up the soil and then graded it out so that is sloped away from the house toward a drain placed in the curve of the stone wall.

Finally I purchased 4 pallets (1 ton per pallet) of “Blue Stone” This was rough cut slate stone quarried nearby. It took two weekends to lay the stone path and 25 x 25 foot patio. We plan to plant some filler plants in between the cracks of the patio stones, so I tried to leave between 1 to 2 inches for the plants to grow.

Before and after pictures. The total cost for us was $300 per ton of blue stone, $40 for the delivery and about $20 for four grape vines, so around $1,260. That and many many hours of digging, hauling, lifting, raking, more digging and did I mention digging?