Capping the foundation

I headed up to the site last Monday and pitched my tent in the basement.

My lumber was delivered Monday morning. I bolted down the sill plates and measured and marked on the sills where each joist should be set. Next I put on the rim joists. Setting the floor joists was straightforward but time consuming. I had to walk from one side of the foundation to the other to put the joists in place and then walk back and forth to align them. Working alone slows things down.

The tricky part was framing the opening for the trap door to the cellar. I made jigs to hold various beams in place, while I nailed in the joist hangers. I'm glad I only needed to use a few hangers.

It rained Monday night and most of Tuesday. After the rain, I slid the well cover back to check the water level. It had gone up from 6" to about a foot with all the rain. This bodes well because there had been no rain for several weeks and there was still 6" of water in the well. I believe the water is flowing out of the well at the same rate that it flows in.

I have a new pet: Mr Daddy Long Legs. He kept following me around all week.

Here is a view of the basement with most of the plywood floor put down.

Here is the official picture of the decking in place.

I hope to head back in a few weeks and start the walls.

Preparing for a week of work banging nails

I am on vacation next week and plan to head up and build the floor platform and hopefully a couple of walls. I ordered some lumber from the local lumberyard. They will deliver it Monday morning; I'll be heading up late Sunday.

I'm packing all my tools and supplies. I bought some 2x3 x 8 to use for window header spacers. I cut up some 2x10's to 14.5" length to use as joist blocking. This week will be a good test to see if my electrical power ideas work out. I have a 110 amp marine battery that I'm bringing up with me. I have a battery charger for the 18 V Ryobi batteries which runs off a 12 V battery. I'll use the marine battery to recharge the Ryobi batteries for the circular saw and drill. When the marine battery voltage drops, I'll hook some jumper cables to the car battery and start up the Jeep to recharge it. Hopefully this will work well enough so I don't have to get a generator.

In addition to tools, I need to get my camping gear in order. First was setting up a screen house / tent, which I bought a few weeks ago. It sets up in 5 minutes with one person. This will be vital for sleeping and my sanity by keeping the mosquitoes at bay. I'll set up the screen house in the cellar under the floor platform initially. That way I'll stay reasonably dry if it rains.  I bought a cot today to sleep on; I still need to test it out and see if it is easy to set up. I have to remember my sleeping bag and a pillow - it is starting to get cool at night now; good sleeping weather.  I got a bucket loo cover for a potty. I need to get my LED lantern and all it's pieces together next.

I keep thinking through things in my mind. Today I was thinking about what pattern to lay down the plywood decking to minimize waste. Tonight I was researching the correct size nails to use with joist hangers. I'll only have a couple of joist hangers around my trap door to the cellar. I still have to decide on window sizes and add the correct rough openings to my wall framing sketches.