11-12-10

Ok, so today we set the last 3 sets of rafters, we didn't have the gradall anymore, so Landon came up with a solution, I never would have thought it would have worked, but it did, and actually it worked really well!

lifting one of the 4x12 rafters up with one of the tractors

almost there

both tractors, holding the set of rafters, with Tom getting the carriage bolt in place.

moving the rafters into place

Tom inching up the rafter to get on top of the Ridge Pole.

Setting the Ridge Pole, and rafters

First off, I have to admit that I wasn't on site this day, I was out of town, but we had some great friends lined up to come up and help. Thanks, Larry, Brett, Brent, Landon, and Mitch for being here to help Jason set this up.

Here I would like to answer a few of the most asked questions...
Q- why are there spaces between the logs, and what do you do about them?
A- The spaces are expected, this is not a kit home, they are not milled logs, so they are not going to fit perfectly, we will fill them with a mortor mix called chinking, but this comes at a much later date.

Q- why do the logs all look crooked?
A- we are using logs as our scaffolding, to help us be able to stand where we need to stand. thy are supported by the ends of the logs hanging over (called the overdangles) so they are crooked, which in turn makes it look like the hole house is crooked.

Q- are you going to leave those ends of the logs like that?
A- No, but we are using them to help hold up the scaffolding, so we will leave them that way, until we are ready to cut them (near the end of the project)

Q- How did you learn how to do this?
A- Jason stumbled upon a website www.loghomebuilders.org We attended a class and follow the website, it really isn't rocket science, just alot of hard work, and some creative thinking.

We set up the lifting poles (the tall logs) because our tractor didn't reach far enough to set the center RSPL, or the rafters, but in the end we decided to rent a gradall for a day to get these done.

Woo Hoo, the Ridge Pole is in place!

This was how they lifted most of the rafters up, it worked but they ran out of daylight with 3 sets still on the ground.

lifting.....

most of the rafters in place.

10/22/10 The Ridge Pole

So we got both of the end RSPL's in place, and the Ridge Pole ready to be lifted into place

10/12 - 10/14 Cap logs and RSPL's

The walls are up, and we are setting the Cap logs. (the logs that the rafters will rest on)

Mitch and Landon setting the Cap logs

All the walls up, and the cap logs in place

A view of the inside of the log home, from the top of the wall.

A view looking towards town from the top of the wall.

Landon drilling the hole in the bottom of the RSPL (Ridge Pole Support Log)

Moving the RSPL into place

Our tractor didn't reach far enough, so we had to do some rigging thanks to the ingenuity of Landon, we got them up!

Landon relieved that it is set in place!

9-24-10

Ok, so it has been a while, we had a really rough month of October with family illnesses, hospital visits, funeral, and a kidney stone, so we haven't had as much time to work on the log home as we would have hoped, but we did get alot done.

Here we are still stacking logs, we even got our children to pound a few rebar.

Jason and Brett (aka "uncle Beet") pounding rebar

Landon and Spud pounding rebar



Jason teaching Austin

Our son Tanner is 6'1 so this shows the actual height of the logs at this point.

Thanks to all of our friends who have helped pound the rebar, there were quite a few sore arms!

Wow- First Layer

What a day... I am a little nervous to say it was a good day because we might get a payback tomorrow.

First off, this is the husband posting for the first time; not Penny. Its kind of ironic since Penny and our crew were the ones who did 99% of the work today.

We were able to stack our first layer of logs today. From our class, we were told that this is the hardest part of staking. To give you a quick overview of the process, we had (or I should say they had) to drill holes in our first 4 logs and make sure they aligned with the foundation rebar that runs vertical (perpendicular) to the logs. Its a tight fight and everything has to be about perfect. We have heard stories of the first layer taking 4 complete working days. They were lucky and good I guess and had the first layer completed in 8 hours!!!

We have good help. Mitch and Landon really help me and Penny a lot. We are really pushing to be dried in by winter. We will need luck and a lot of work put in to the process in order to make it happen.

2nd load of logs

We have really had a hard time getting our logs for this home! As mentioned in the the 2nd post, the first guy bailed on us. He was supposed to bring our second load the next week, but we haven't heard from him in 2 weeks, so we scrambled around and found another guy and finally got our second load of logs. These are a Spruce, but they are much straighter and bigger than the 1st load. Plus, as a bonus, 1/2 the bark is already off the logs! We just got this load today, and have started peeling, we have a lift scheduled in a few days to start stacking!

Here are a few pics and videos:

This is the 1St load of logs all peeled

This is the second load of logs

A close up view (look, lots of bark already gone!)

The Ends of the logs

All laid out and ready to start peeling

Peeling the 1st load of Logs

We wanted to try to use a power washer to see how well it worked, we are in a little bit of a rush before it gets cold here (it can get to -30 degrees in the winter) we borrowed a friends power washer to try it out. It was awsome! After checking on a rental price, it was going to cost us $300/week, we decided to buy our own at Home Depot for the same price. we got 46 logs peeled in about 80 hours, so a little under 2 hours each, and we really peeled them clean!
here is a video of how well it worked.

FINALLY we got our logs! (first load anyways)

Well, it has been a long summer, we were supposed to get our logs at the first of June and since my Hubby is a school teacher, we would have all summer to get them peeled and stacked... We had such a wet spring that the logger couldn't get his truck up to the logs to haul them out, so we planned on the first part of July. We talked to the logger about every week and made sure that things were going as planned, and he assured us that we were the first on his list... The first of July comes, and we call him, no answer, we call several more times, with no answer, then the phone is disconnected.
What!
So we scrambled around and were finally able to locate some more logs, but they are about 9 hours away in another state. We hooked up a truck and driver, and on August 25, we finally got our first load of logs. (of course school has now started).
We should be getting our second load of logs next week... hopefully!

Now on to the peeling!

Footings, and Mud

Well, Reality hit today, we are really doing this!

We poured our footings today! We have been having an issue with getting our building permit because the Health Department hasn't sent us the spetic approval yet, and today I found out that they forgot to come do the inspection! Luckily we are building in a small community and the Building inspector gave us the go ahead to pour of foundation, so yippy we got started today.

They were able to get the footings in, but we did have one mishap, it has been raining/snowing (yes in the middle of May) the FULL Cement truck go stuck in the Mud, Luckily we had a backhoe on site and were able to pull him out.