Serenity Now

Writing this blog definitely makes me think a bit more about how things are going.  I am a bit disappointed that I don’t have much progress…  But it feels a bit worse because I don’t have a good title for this week (or a timelapse video).  Is that strange?

I guess the actual lack of progress will feel much worse when winter arrives.   I had planned on working all the long weekends; but, like the May Two-Four weekend, the 4th of July weekend didn’t give much progress toward the final construction.  But it did let me recover from my cold and have some good family time.

These are some over detailed explanations for those who want to understand the struggle.  If you just want the short version of the updates, you can “like” Home in the Earth on Facebook.

 

 

No Steel for You

I had planned on getting a delivery of steel studs last Wednesday.  These are not the crappy kind you get in fixed lengths from Home Depot…  These are special MarinoWare 20 gauge studs, specially cut for my order, ranging from 9 ft to 26 ft long.   Previously, my work week had been minimized because the order didn’t go thru properly.  This time, I think the problem was more related to too many people taking advantage of the 4th of July long weekend and too many construction crews not ordering steel.  There wasn’t enough of a shipment coming to my distributor to justify sending a truck long enough to carry my 26 ft studs.  No problem for them, they would just send it after the holiday…  Messed up my plans though, and it would have been a beautiful work weekend too.

No Scaffold for You

But I still planned on getting a scaffold delivery on Wednesday.  This is not your regular home depot scaffold either.  This is a proper 26 ft tall made-in-the-USA scaffold tower with lots of extra stability.  I needed it to erect those 26 ft tall steel studs that form the central tower.  They had shipped it out the previous week and emailed me a link to a tracking website (for some shipping company I had never heard of).  I had checked the link a few times but the website wasn’t working.  By Wednesday morning, after the steel order failed, and the tracking link still wasn’t working, I phoned the shipping company directly (SAIA?)  I gave them my tracking number and they told me they had no record of that shipment.   I called the scaffold company and asked them about it.  The email they had sent me on the day it shipped had all the correct information, what she now read me from her computer had all the wrong information, including my address and a shipping date 3 days later and a different shipping company (with a different tracking number).  She looked up the tracking number for me, but it was also a dud, and so she had no idea where the package was.   After all those mistakes, I asked her to please confirm what she shipped.  But she wouldn’t read me what it said on her version of the Bill of Lading, she just said she was sure they had shipped the right thing and she would call me back (she did about 8 hours later, long after I had figured it out).  The third company involved was some sort of middle-man logistics and customer service company that looks after emailing out that original tracking number.  It seems that the SAIA company couldn’t get their trucks in a row, so after 3 days of sitting on a dock, they switched me to FedEx with a new tracking number.  The guy looked it up while we were on the phone and said, “I am sorry sir, but your package was supposed to be delivered today, but it is in Mississippi instead.  Maybe Tuesday”.   Wow.

I was just about to cancel my brother in law who would soon be headed over to help me when I decided to check the new tracking number myself.   It turns out that the guy on the phone doesn’t know his state codes.  It didn’t say Mississippi, it said “MI”, which is for Michigan.  The package had been in town since first thing that morning and would be delivered that day.  I called FedEx, they confirmed that a driver would call me to confirm what time he would deliver because they wouldn’t leave it unless I was there.

My brother-in-law, John, arrived, and we packed up my car.  My younger son was also going to come with us.   We were less than 5 minutes down the road (of the 55 minute trip) when FedEx called to book a time for the following day…  I guess they didn’t have enough drivers on that week due to the holiday.  So we turned around and went home.

Scaffold

Thursday, I went out to meet the FedEx driver and get my 1200 lbs of scaffold.  He got there early, so I found an 18 wheeler waiting for me in the circle at the bottom of my driveway.  As I guessed, he had no way to unload the truck.  Since I had no heavy equipment on site, I had the fun of unloading the truck piece by piece (the FedEx guy handed the pieces down to me) into my trailer.   I used the trailer to make the trip up my driveway and then unloaded it into my shipping container for use next week.  It was tempting, but wouldn’t be wise to try and assemble something like this by myself.

Instead, I focused on prepping the spot where the tower would go.  I had designed things so that the scaffold tower would sit (nice and firmly) on the circular footing.  Even the 30 inch outriggers will fit on the footing, although I will have to leave openings thru the metal lath.  I confirmed this by putting one of the diagonal braces across, but it was a bit close to the edge.  I thought it would be best to fill in the center of the footing with dirt so that there wouldn’t be any problems if it shifted a few inches.

Transit

I had bought a  David White builders transit on Craig’s List Tuesday evening.   I bought it from an old guy (at least in his 60’s) and so I assumed it was his.  I asked about some of the adjustment knobs and he said he didn’t know how to use it because it had been his grandfathers.  I asked how old it was, and he said he didn’t know, but his grandfather retired from being a surveyor for the city of Detroit in the 1940’s.  After I got home, I looked up the serial number and found it was made in 1937.  It clearly still works very well (perhaps it has another 77 years in it).  

using my “new” transit, I confirmed that at least one of the concrete pads is a bit off, but it will still work out. All my other angles (I had been using my marked center stone) were right on.  I had rented a crappy transit from the rental place several times because I didn’t want to buy a new one (too expensive), but this used one will pay its self off in a few uses.  Having the right angle is just too important in a home as unusual as mine.

Skid Steer

Well, now it was still pretty early in the afternoon and there wasn’t much left for me to do on site…  But I had come prepared with a list of Craig’s List skid steers with in an hour of my property, so it was time for a few hours of driving around.    I ended up with a John Deere 260 Skid Steer.

This post is already too long, I put more more details on why I chose a Skid Steer in another post.  (or just like us on Facebook to see the post from last week).

Window bucks and welders…

Saturday, I had a couple friends come over to hang out, which was nice, but too rare.  We ended up seeing a movie, but first, they helped me cut out some window bucks in preparation for next weeks framing.

I didn’t end up finding the welder that I wanted.  I have a couple possible options on Craig’s List to consider, but first I want to chat with my welding-expert uncle.  He was busy all weekend, but I will call him tonight.  Basically, I want the most economical MIG/MAG setup I can get, I don’t want to spend thousands on an industrial scale rig.  That can also be another post.