Construction – Page 6

March 26, 2006March 26, 2006

My new toy, the Paslode Cordless Framing Nailer!

Since we never have enough projects going on, and since we never got any bids on refinishing the attic we decided well, we’ll just do it ourselves.

Being that the house is an 1850’s farm house and that there isn’t a straight wall in it, it won’t matter much if when I refinish the attic that the walls aren’t perfect.

I don’t do drywall. Drywall sucks, you either have what it takes to do drywall or you don’t and I don’t have that genome.

Our attic is 40 feet long and already has drywall up to where the walls meet the rafters. The rafters are the original hand honed wood rafters with some additional wood nailed too it from time to time as those rafters have sagged here and there. We’re gong to branch off of that and create a straight surface to mount some paneling or wainscot or something.

We’ll attempt to keep it looking somewhat like it fits, but we’re not going to kill ourselves or spend a ton of money.

Nailing into those old beams is no fun, no sir. So what do you need? A framing nailer, that’s what. We took some measurements today and headed off to the Depot. I looked at a number of framing nailers. Most would require me to get a larger compressor as well. Then the gentlemen pointed to the Paslode Cordless.

He said we seem to sell a lot of these lately, the construction guys love them. They don’t have to use a compressor. It was on sale but it was still about $100 more than the on sale (lowest priced air driven framing nailer). I picked it up, it wasn’t too heavy. A decent compressor was going to run me well more than $100, probably double that. Then I’d have to lug it around deal with the hoses and the noise.
It uses their fuel cells, and it’s totally portable, no compressor needed. Way cool. I decided to give it a try.

We bought a pack of nails, generic not Paslode brand which were twice the price. The sales associate promised me they’d work just as well. I wasn’t keen on buying a gun that had proprietary nails.

We headed home and proceeded to get to work. First order of business was to charge the battery. This thing has a battery good for 4000 or so nails. The battery runs the fan and ignites’ the charge. Small problem, there wasn’t an AC adapter in the package. Grrrr!.

Claudine was kind enough to run back to the store to exchange it while Michael and I got busy.

During the time she was gone, Micheal and I pounded a couple of the 2×4’s into place and it completely sucked. The pounding just shook dust loose from everywhere, mortar from around the chimneys was falling, it all was no good. Those beams are hard as a rock. Not to mention the bent nails.

About an hour and a half later (with the new nail gun) it had enough of a charge to give it a go. I was mighty impressed. I loaded the Paslode, put the fuel in, set it for the deep setting, put the battery in, and WHAM. Nice, 3 inch nail, through the 2×4 properly sunk and into the beam. It couldn’t be better.

I’ll use this with the barn and other things for sure. If you have one of these, or have used one, or have had any experiences good or bad with Paslode please post them in the comments.

March 24, 2006March 24, 2006

Barns, fence and more, oh my

Well, we seem to be making progress.

We finally got to sit down with them and get our first wave at pricing for the 24×30 barn. It was about what we expected. We made some changes to the design which took another couple days.
We changed the sliders to a single door to use less hardware and get two of them so we can drive through. We also opted to go bigger and go with sissor trusses for more head room.

This pricing was also very good. We’re now in the final stages which includes final drawings and pricing for a couple of installation options. Hopefully finding some guys that need work (perhaps from AK Steel since they don’t have a lot to do).

I’m not sure how much of this I want to do myself. I know I don’t want to level the ground or set the initial poles. I want someone that knows what they are doing for that. Maybe Uncle Mike.

March 21, 2006

Can’t get good help these days

It’s Tuesday night, I stopped by the Lumber store on Saturday and layed out the barn.

It’s a pretty simple pole barn. 24×30 with (at that time) 2 man doors and a slider.

I was supposed to have pricing first thing monday morning. As of now I’ve heard nothing.

I left them with two contact numbers. I suppose I’ll have to stop there tomorrow morning on the way into work.

We’ve now rearranged it so that we want two sets of sliders and one man door. I’m sure that will change everything and they’ll have to re-draw it and put it back through the system. Giddy-Up.

March 19, 2006March 21, 2006

Barn and Fencing.

Well once again we’ve started down this path.

I spent Saturday morning laying out and marking the field for our first pasture. After dropping Michael off at work I headed to Lowes and picked up some stakes, some marking paint and string. (You know that highly visible string that you can use once than it just gets itself in a knot?) I had some but, well, it was already in a knot.

On the way home I stopped by Halsey-Meyers Lumber and started the process of putting the Barn Kit together, or at least getting the quote. 24×30, 14″ tall, plain barn, no overhang or eves to save a little. Going with the wrap instead of insulation, we can always put a ceiling in it later.

For starters this will just be a run-in for the horses. We might do temporary stalls, we’ll see. Stalls will come later, or sooner depending upon the budget.
Marria helped me lay it out out the field and mark off the location of where we think we’ll put the barn. We’re in Butler Co., outside of City limits (yeah), this is aggricultrual so no stinkin permits will be needed.

We layed this out to get a number of the posts we’ll need to get a cost for the fencing. We’re talking standard wire/mesh “Horse” Fence something like: RedBrand KeepSafe HorseFence allthough we’ll put a sight board across the top.

Current issues are: (a) I don’t have a tractor really, so fence stretching isn’t going to be any fun. (b) I don’t have a tractor, which to add a post hole digger, so I’m going to have to beg, borrow, or rent something.

This is what we layed out. Rounded corners so the horses will feel safer and cant get trapped. Easy enough and doesn’t really cost anymore.

The 24×30 will give us room for (2) 12×10 stalls, though the horses wil be OUT most of the time, with room for a 3rd smaller stall (feed storage really) and a small tack room. A hallway to expand to another barn if need be later. Again we’re talking 2 horses here.

For those that know the property this is directly behind the house. For those that don’t, well you have no bearing what-so-ever. 😉

Maria was very helpful. We layed out the corner posts, or down one side, strung a line, then created a second line for marking with knots at 0′, 8-feet and 16 feet. She would start at 0 and I’d move and mark at 8 feet and 16 feet, then we’d slide down the line and she’d move to the next spot and we’d mark two more post locations.

It all went really well except for her getting marker paint on her new coat, but that’s what kids do. She’ll grow out of the coat.

We had fun. We Layed out the initial fence run, and then decided where we though we’d put the barn would really ruin the view, so we moved it.

I then created the visio (above).

Again we’re not sure how we’re going to pull this off yet, but it’s the current plan for this summers afairs.

January 15, 2006

Construction update…

Our roof, gutters, and soffits are complete…

One storm and a little rain later, no leaks 😉 That’s all good. I do need to do some chimney repair where they had to chip away some stucco that to re flash the chimneys. However since we’re getting a bid to fix the fireplace the Weller contruction guy said he’d have his mason patch those real quick while he was here. We’ll see.

The two new skylights in the attic are very nice. The velux crank open is sweet. It opens fairly easily too. So it adds a measure of safety to that room.

You can open and remove the window.
We’re still waiting on our doors and windows for the attic. Those should be in in the next week or so.