Do It Yourself Home Building

These series of articles will include pictures and email from Chip and Peg. They are embarking on building a new home for their family in northern Wyoming. They will do much of the work themselves with an eye on incorporating sustainable construction. They are building a home, shop and green house. Attached are photos of our our latest project. Monday we poured 42 yards of concrete into Logix Insulated Concrete Forms. Had four concrete trucks lined up along with an aged pumper truck. Luck was with us on the Garage – Greenhouse and House pours – no blowouts, no great “hurry up events”, just a hot day and lots of aerobics circulating around the construction site. First read – the Logix blocks are a fantastic product. Easy to use, and make a strong insulated wall. We are most impressed! -Stay tuned for the next round of “The Miller Family Construction Academy Health Club”.

Layers and layers! The sub grade plumbing – drain – waste – vent pipes (PVC) are in, countless hours of wrist breaking action with the dreaded “Wacker (wacko) Packer” have compacted the soil along the ICF stemwalls (from Canada), a layer of 6 mil plastic on both buildings is in along with 2″ of foam board insulation. Many 4′ x 8′ steel remesh mats lashed together, along with rebar from C H I N A. Some 2000 lineal feet of 3/4″ Pex radiant tubing (from Switzerland) layed down and fastened with over 2000 zip ties (from Austria). Jeez – ya think that we could at least start making some of this stuff here again! We zip tied to a loudly played Science Friday, A Prairie Home Companion, Car Talk, BBC World News, and numerous other Wyoming Public Radio Shows. We remind the kids frequently that this is brain food. (The Libertarian neighbor believes that we are certified, collective, workaholic, family nut cases.) (He is still not quite sure what to make of us and the large piles of dirt we have created.) The concrete flat work guy shows up this week for the finished floor over it all (will eventually be stained – acid etched concrete). We have the lumber package for both buildings arriving later in the week.

Hello All, We are looking down the barrel at 3 weeks to returning to our day jobs.  Boy will that be easy!  Attached are photos of progress to date.  We have both concrete slabs in courtesy of James Shulz construction.  He did a silky smooth finish on the concrete on both buildings.  Trust us – the slabs are major slippery when wet.  This guy is a concrete artist!  Tomorrow he shows up to cut and bevel the house slab.  We will later acid etch stain and grout the cuts to look like marble flooring. Tomorrow the building package shows up for the house.  It has taken us about 6 days to frame and sheath the shop – greenhouse – garage.  We anticipate about the same on the house.  Both buildings will then be awaiting the delivery of the roof trusses.  The greenhouse – shop is about done as far as the framing goes. Wow!  What an interesting summer for the weather – cooler than normal.  The landscape out on the Southfork is ever changing with the rapid changes in the weather, the light and clouds blowing through.  When the wind picks up you learn to quickly put down any sheet materials, less you become a Davinci flying experiment.  We are ever entertained.  The only other place we have seen such dramatic play in color and light has been the Grand Canyon. Cheers! Chip, Peggy, Dan, Katie,

-Greenhouse – Garage – Shop is ready for trusses. Trusses have been delivered for the building, awaiting the crane truck and crew. The garage and master bedroom area of the house right down to the north kitchen wall is framed. We continue to make progress daily. The house slab has been pattern cut with a concrete saw. James Shulz just has to finish chamfering the cut pattern. We have less than two weeks – then back to our day jobs.

Chip. Peggy, Dan, Katie
(The Crew From The Diamond Basin Construction Health Club)

“Work Hard – Never Grown Old – Just Keep Moving”

-Attached a photo of the just completed West wall of the great room.  We did it today.  The ceiling will vault to 19′ on the inside with T & G Aspen.  The upper (3rd tier) of windows will be finished and cut in when the gable truss is set.  Sheep and Jim mountains are framed by the windows.  Lots of wind to the West so the wall will have enhanced 100 mph, “thickened glass”, Energy Star rated, 30% kick back on cost (thanks Barak O.)  We have a big time thermostatically controlled air recirculation system to move the air about in winter and summer months.

-We just keep moving, summers are short.

-Cheers – the Diamond Basin Construction Health Club.

We move to part time this week, as we start our “day jobs” again. The house interior walls are framed up. We have installed the second floor decking. At this point we are starting to get excited. The great room is shaping up. We now have visions of the vast open space being created. James Shulz shows up this week to do the concrete front porch complete with stamped in grizzly tracks (will make a great tale for the grand kids). We will hopefully have him set the garage / greenhouse and house trusses in a week or so. Chip & Peggy, Dan & Kate We are back to the day jobs. Have James Schulz Construction hanging the trusses and sheathing the roof. Photos attached. The weather has been most cooperative so far. Next windows and exterior doors. Brrrrrrrrr……..cold and snow have slowed however not stopped us. Coldest Oct. on record to date. Wed. Chip heads up to the Park with his GPS – GIS – Engineering Surveying class to map out West Thumb Geyser Basin. There will be some good snow up there. We have a semi protected roof cover on the house, and on the greenhouse – shop building. The blue stuff in the photos is an all weather titanium roof paper product. The standing seam, Energy Star rated metal roofing has been ordered for the two buildings. This past weekend Peg and I stood under eaves dripping with snow melt in a foot of mud, hanging the windows and placing the doors in the greenhouse – garage. -This after a howitzer loaded with H1N1 bombed our house over the last two weeks. We have all recovered and are all the better because of the experience. Today our four panel solar hot water system arrived. The truck driver could not locate our address with his GPS so I gave him directions when he stopped in at school. -Good to know that we are still Google incognito for a bit longer. WE have pieces of the solar assisted radiant floor system arriving daily. Soon we will have to sort through and make sense of the boxes of Taco valves, manifolds, electronic controls, valve actuators etc. Our house windows and exterior doors will at long last be delivered on Thursday. Last Friday, Chip drove down to Manderson with the trailer and picked up 9 hefty Spruce timbers to be used to build the front porch on the house. We have also been placing six large sections of channel iron on the West wall of the house as bracing against the potential 150 mph micro bursts that mother nature can send. These are being lag bolted onto the wall to stiffen it. (Thank you Tom for getting us set up with the metal!) -You can bet that wind power will be in our future. This next weekend we will be setting house windows and getting the place dried in. If we get that mystical “indian summer” soon, we will be up on the roof hanging metal. For now, we are just stuck in mud, however continue to be entertained by the ever changing seasons of Carter Mountain and the upper Southfork.

The weather has improved recently. Today our standing seam metal roof arrives – the project for the weekend. Last weekend we started construction on the Timber Frame Front Porch. We used some sweat and the full capacity of the Kubota to hoist into place several green 8 x 12 x 16′ Spruce Timbers. As you can see from the photos, we still have to do the peak beam. -This will have to wait until we rent a squirt boom to place the upper windows.

With winter knocking at our door…………the windows will be next. The kids saw a Grizzley munching on a Buffalo in the Park yesterday.