Steel Ordered

Well, I managed to get the steel studs ordered this week.  I had to pay the 20% higher price then the previous quote from the other distributor (who ended up unable to get me the MarinoWare studs because they only ship when he has enough orders to fill a truck).  Anyway, this first order of studs for the basement isn’t very large and the difference was really only a few hundred dollars, so I pulled the trigger and ordered.  They said it may be delivered as soon as tomorrow.

Joe is walking down the street and passes a new butcher shop with a sign in the window that says “Sirloin Steak; 5¢ per pound”.  He goes in to buy some stake, but they are all out.  So he heads over to his regular butcher.  “Hey Mac, your competitor down the street is selling steaks for 5¢ per pound.  Can you match it?”   The butcher smiles, “That’s a great price Joe. Did they have any left?”  Joe says, “No, they were all out.”   “Well”, says Mac, “When I am out of steak, I can sell it for 4¢ per pound.”

In the meantime, I ordered the track and metal lath separately (from the cheaper distributor) and will pick that up, with my new trailer, Friday morning.

I am buying my Quonset hut from SteelMaster Buildings.  I heard that June 16^th was the last day to get the 2013 steel prices, so I called and managed to get a great deal.  I had budgeted for the list price of about $10,000, but I managed to get it on “sale” for $7200, including all the nuts and bolts and delivery and the kit to connect it to the ICF end walls.  That is not bad for more than 4000 lbs of galvanized 22 gauge steel.  They will hold it in their warehouse and deliver it when I need it.

This is a construction photo for the same size and type as what I ordered (S-30-15×40).  We will need to have a steel raising party ;^)  I will end up building the end walls out of ICF forms.

Footings are done.

It has been nearly a week since we poured the footings. The forms have been stripped. But the site was a bit of a mess (chunks of concrete, cigarette packets, nails, etc.)   I wanted to return things to the nice soft sand situation I started with, so I took an hour and cleaned things up.  I dumped all the concrete chunks in one section of the footing where no one was likely to walk.  The wood scraps made a very small pile of kindling and I had a bucket of trash dropped by the crew.

I got out my cell phone and made a quick video to show you where we are.

The exposed aggregate finish looks kind of nice, and will give the shotcrete something to grip, but it may be a bit of a bumpy hassle for laying the track.

The bleeder pipes were made of flexible corrugated drain pipe nailed to either side of the forms.  As the heavy concrete was poured, the light weight pipe floated up in the middle, which is probably not ideal at all.  The guys pouring the concrete made brief attempts to hold it down by stepping on it.  Next time, I will bring my own 2ft sections of rigid PVC so I can get the slope I want.

The concrete bulged in a few places and some of the edges were a little rough, but overall, it worked out nicely…

Funny thing is, I am still waiting on a bill.  I have not paid a cent yet.  I actually texted Doug today asking if they would send a bill so I can pay it.  I am more eager than usual to pay because anything I can pay out before we close (next Tuesday) means I don’t have to bring an extra 10% (safety factor) to closing.

Some of you may have noticed a section of the swallows nest collapsing in the rain during the last video, click here to jump to just before the sand collapses.  Did anything bad happen to the swallows?  Well, I didn’t find any dead birds, but I found an egg…  Oh well.

The building inspector said these swallows were great for eating the bugs flying around the site.  I just hope the excavated sand holds up until the little birds are ready to fly.

Steel Shipping Container

Since my construction site is so far from my home, I needed a way to lock up construction equipment (generator, welder, table saw), supplies, etc.  I ended up deciding that a 20’ steel shipping container would be a pretty good idea (thanks to John H. for the tip).  They are pretty cheap ($1300 to $1600), so I was tempted to buy one (and later bury it), but I got such a great price on rental (79$/month, which is less than half of what others were charging) and delivery from MACs Storage Containers in Lansing that I couldn’t justify buying one…

I had leveled the “perfect spot” across the driveway from the rest of the construction site.  But the sand on either side of my driveway is very soft and the heavily loaded tilt truck was just tearing it up.  It was quickly stuck up to its axels.  Eric, the delivery guy from MACs, started “unloading” where he was, on an uneven spot of sand half overlapping the driveway and pretty much in the way of all the future trucks that would be coming thru.  I thought, “Oh well, now I really need to buy a tractor so I can drag this into a proper location.”  But it turned out that Eric was just using the tilt bed like a clams foot to push the truck out of its hole and try again.  He tried a couple other approaches as I looked hopefully on.  Eventually, he asked if I minded him driving on the grass behind the spot, I didn’t.  But to make that work, he would need to turn the container around so the door would be on the right side.  He slipped it off, drove the truck around and scooped it up again with evident expertise, which I always appreciate in anyone I work with.  After that, the delivery was easy and he was out of there quickly.

I will probably need to go and jack up the the front left corner a bit to level it out before I move in.  I will also need to buy a couple locks.   The container has 4 vertical locking bars so it is pretty secure (unless the theif has a tilt bed truck like Eric).  It smelled a bit musty inside, but it has the secure storage space I need.  John also gave me the idea of putting a tarp off the one side for a shady place to work.

Here is a video of the delivery, just because I could.

Next steps

Friday (June 20^th), I plan to put the basement door bucks together and head out there to lay the basement track.   My vertical studs may arrive and so I can start to go vertical on Saturday.  I still need to buy some scaffolding, but I will take my 15 ft ladder for now and start with the shorter pieces.