Speaking of logs

Here is a little logging humor:

A REDNECK DECIDES TO TRAVEL ACROSS THE SOUTH TO SEE GOD'S COUNTRY.

WHEN HE GETS TO VIRGINIA, HE LIKES IT SO MUCH HE DECIDES TO STAY... BUT FIRST HE HAS TO FIND A JOB.

SO HE WALKS INTO THE INTERNATIONAL PAPER COMPANY OFFICE, AND FILLS OUT AN APPLICATION AS AN 'EXPERIENCED LOG INSPECTOR'.

IT'S HIS LUCKY DAY, AS THEY JUST HAPPEN TO BE LOOKING FOR SOMEONE ... BUT FIRST, THE LOG FOREMAN TAKES HIM FOR A RIDE INTO THE FOREST TO SEE HOW MUCH HE KNOWS.

THE FOREMAN STOPS THE TRUCK ON THE SIDE OF THE ROAD, AND POINTS AT A TREE. 'SEE THAT TREE OVER THERE? TELL ME WHAT SPECIES IT IS, AND HOW MANY BOARD FEET OF LUMBER IT CONTAINS.'

THE REDNECK PROMPTLY ANSWERS, 'THAT THAR'S A WHITE PINE, WITH 383 BOARD FEET OF LUMBER IN HER.'

THE FOREMAN IS IMPRESSED! BUT HE STOPS ABOUT A MILE DOWN THE ROAD, AND POINTS AT ANOTHER TREE, AND ASKS THE SAME QUESTION. THIS TIME IT'S A TREE OF A DIFFERENT CLASS. 'THAT'S A LOBLOLLY PINE, AND SHE'S GOT ABOUT 456 CLEAR BOARD FEET,' THE REDNECK REPLIES.

THE FOREMAN IS REALLY IMPRESSED WITH THE GOOD OL' BOY! HE'S BEEN QUICK, AND HAS GOTTEN THE ANSWERS RIGHT WITHOUT USING A CALCULATOR! BUT HE NEEDED ONE MORE TEST TO BE SURE.

THEY DRIVE A LITTLE FURTHER DOWN THE ROAD, AND STOP AGAIN. THIS TIME HE POINTS ACROSS THE ROAD, AND SAYS, 'AND WHAT ABOUT THAT ONE?' THE REDNECK SAYS, 'WHITE OAK, 242 BOARD FEET.'

SO THE FOREMAN HEADS BACK TO THE OFFICE A LITTLE TICKED OFF BECAUSE HE THINKS THE REDNECK IS SMARTER THAN HE IS! AS THEY NEAR THE OFFICE, THE FOREMAN STOPS THE TRUCK, AND ASKS BUBBA TO STEP OUTSIDE. HE HANDS HIM A PIECE OF CHALK, AND SAYS, 'SEE THAT TREE OVER THERE? I WANT YOU TO MARK AN 'X' ON THE FRONT OF THAT TREE.'

THE FOREMAN THINKS TO HIMSELF, 'HOW WOULD HE KNOW WHICH IS THE FRONT OF A TREE?'

BUT WHEN BUBBA REACHES THE TREE, HE GOES AROUND IT IN A CIRCLE,LOOKING AT THE GROUND, AND THEN REACHES UP AND PUTS AN 'X' ON THE TRUNK. THEN HE WALKS BACK TO THE FOREMAN, AND SAYS, 'THAT THAR'S THE FRONT.'

THE FOREMAN LAUGHS TO HIMSELF AND SAYS, SARCASTICALLY, 'HOW THE HELLA DO YOU KNOW THAT'S THE FRONT OF THE TREE?!'

THE GOOD OL' BOY LOOKS DOWN AT HIS FEET (WHILE RUBBING THE TOE OF HIS LEFT BOOT, CLEANING IT OFF IN THE GRAVEL), AND REPLIES,
'CUZ SOMEBODY TOOK A DUMP BEHIND IT!'

HE GOT THE JOB ... AND IS NOW THE FOREMAN!!!

Peelers, Cutters, and Crunchers (Day 36 of 273)

Well, it seems to be easier to sell beets to Russians than timber to mills in the Pacific Northwest right now. Lumber prices have been declining for the past 2 years in parallel with the housing market, but now the Chinese (big-time raw lumber buyers) are cutting back. In late October we sold two loads of logs (30, about 16-24 ft long, mainly fir but a few cedars and alders) to a middle man that remarkets the logs to mills. We got $1230 for the wood, minus $250 for the loading and transport (100 mile roundtrip for Michael Handly trucking). So the net income from the lumber ($980) will defray about 15% of the clearing cost for the lot. Five years ago, our neighbor sold his logs for $3000, which more than paid for the clearing of his slightly smaller lot!

As I mentioned before, there could be three types of logs on our lot : Peelers, cutters and crunchers. Peelers are straight, thick, knotless firs that can be peeled for plywood veneers. Cutters are those knottier and slight crooked trees that will end up as 2x and 4x lumber. Then there are crunchers. These are basically small diameter logs that are headed for firewood or the pulp mill (crunch). We had no peelers, lots of cutters, and a few crunchers--so be it.

The process of selling the logs is interesting and all new to me (a desert guy). The logs ship to a buyers lot and he gets out his "Scribner Log Scale," which is a book of tables used to calculate the amount of board ft of lumber in a lot. Here are a couple of examples. Our biggest best log was 30 ft long and 16" in diameter: this will yield 300 bd ft of lumber. Most of the firs were 20-26 ft long, but ranged from 8-18" in diameter (logs smaller than 6" were left for firewood). Also, logs are prices by diameter and species. Firs >8" in diameter are priced at $375/1000 bd ft. So our biggest fir log came out at $112.50. As you can see, its hard to make money selling timber nowdays. The cedars (western red) are worth $800/1000 bd ft, whereas alders ranged from $100 (<6") to $600/1000 bd ft (>8"). So big cedars and big alders (for furniture) are the trees to have on your house site, if you have a choice.

We sold our better firs for 2x lumber at $375/Mbf, whereas Carls Building Supply in Port Hadlock gets $500-600/Mbf for premium 2x lumber. Not much of a margin considering that our logs still had to get to the mill in Tacoma, be cut and planed, and then shipped to a warehouse and to a lumber yard. The guy we sold our logs to (Tom French, Quilcene, WA) says he may be getting out of the timber business pretty quick. The straw that will probably break his back is the recent decline of the Canadian dollar. With decreasing oil prices, the Canadian dollar is plummeting, partly with the encouragement of the government as a way to increase exports. When I was in Canada racing Hobies last August, the Canadian dollar sold for $1.05 US, but now its around 80 cents. That means Canadian lumber can sell at a 20-25% discount to its price this past summer, when we were exporting lumber north to them. Carls buys most of its wood from Canada (better quality for the price, they say). The bottom line is the global economy effects about everything.

The question for us, as a builder, is how long do these price changes take to make it to the consumer. Inventories at all the lumber yards are high (low sales), so there might be a 3-month supply on hand. We plan to buy a lot of lumber (wood), ABS pipe (oil), PEX tubing (oil), some copper (Cu) tubing, and about 1/2 mile of copper Romex cable (Cu and oil), just to start. We'll just have to wait and see what goes up and what goes down. At least gas prices have come down, currently $1.99/gal in PT and a bit cheaper in Seattle.

And they say that lumber is cheap now (Day 33 of 273)

The newspapers say that lumber prices are down about 15% and I believe it. The only problem is we need to buy a lot of it for this little house. We put the building plans out for estimates with two local lumber yards about 3 weeks ago and got the last of them back on Friday. Our favorite yard (Carls) came in pretty high ($58k), whereas the other local yard (which will go unnamed) was way lower at $30k. You have to take a close look to see what happened and you won't believe it, but the higher estimate was the better one (what are you nuts ? Machette).

Here's what happened. Carls uses a take-off company called "Estimates NW" in Vancouver, WA, whereas the other company didn't specify who prepared the materials list (I suspect they may have done it inhouse). Carls came back first, and after the shock, a couple bourbons, and a few days of ignoring it, I took a close look at their proposal. Their take off list is organized from bottom (basement) up. For example, the "Under Floor" listing included plastic for the crawl space, pressure treated hemlock/fir for the sill plates, some hardware, a Versalam post, and misc. large-dimension wood. So it went for each floor, the exterior, and the roof sheathing. (That's where the framers stop, and the roofers start.) Seven pages of materials, probably about 450 items althogether. From this materials list, Mike at Carls priced each item in the same order for their estimate. So, for example, you could see that the sheathing for the sides of the house (line 340) was going to be $1890 (140 sheets of 19/32" 4x8 OSB). Upgrading to plywood would be an extra $315 (ca. 20%). Pretty easy to understand with a few minutes of study. In addition, since each floor and each type of material (wood, hardware, siding, etc) was broken out you could identify where all the big bucks were going. They even included adhesive for gluing down the plywood flooring. Pretty darn complete.

By comparison, company B split out the estimate by floor but lumped similar lumber items together. Seventy items in all. No Simpson tiedown hardware was listed, nor any of the exterior trim or soffit materials. The truss estimate came as a separate item ($4500). Pretty hard to use, but I managed to identify some functionally equivalent items to compare the two estimates.

In general company B was 5-10% cheaper on some items. However, for studs and joists they would specify 2x and 4x lumber as KD Std&Btr (Kiln dried, standard and better quality). So by this bid they can supply standard lumber and that is what you get. Carls specified KD select (premium), which is better, straighter and less knotty wood. So you get apples and oranges for comparison. Even the floor joists are hard to compare. Our architect prefers Boise Cascade engineered lumber which Carls bid (BCI 5000, 2" x 11 7/8"), whereas the other lumber company bid Georgia Pacific (11 7/8"). The price was comparable, but I have to believe that Richard Berg has a reason to favor the BCI joists.

Terry at Carls re-bid the other lumber company's material list and Carls came out about $500 less (2%), which is surprising since Carls will supply a better quality of lumber. So this analysis is done (thanks Terry). Carls is comparible (or better) for price, quality, and delivery. In the end I may cherry pick a few generic items that are cheaper at the other local yard (like Hardiplank and house wrap) but buy the bulk of the framing package from Carls. Interestingly, the sawn cedar shingles for our siding were $70 a bundle at the other yard (est. 28 bundles), $56 a bundle at Carls (est. 100 bundles), but I can get them delivered from a mill in Forks, WA, for about $45 (a bundle). I figure I need about 95 bundles. There are 4 bundles in a square, which covers 100 square feet (just like roofing materials). So, by using the mill we might save about a $1000.

I normally would have got a third bid, probably from Kingston Lumber, which is about 30 miles away. However, they don't like to deliver in small lots and we don't want all the lumber on site at once (theft, weather, no place to park trucks, etc). I asked a dozen locals and 80% of them preferred Carls, so that's who is going to get the bulk of our lumber purchase.

You know what they say: You get what you pay for, sometimes less.

PS (Nov. 24th) The 64 sheets of Warmboard arrived in perfect condition this morning. They came from Willits, CA (near Redding) by flatbed truck. I was impressed with Carls' yardman (Kevin?) who unloaded the 3 packages. He told everyone that only he and another yardman were allowed to touch or move the Warmboard, and don't even think about getting another forklift near them. At $200 a sheet, they don't want to do any damage to our little radiant-heat bundle while they store it (then deliver it, all for free).

Forms going up (Day 26 of 273)

The wall forms are going up. This process should take about 10 days, only because there are so many panels involved. I've never watched this carefully before, so its been a learning process. First, they nail a 10" wide metal bracket in the footer, centered under the vertical wall. Then 2' x 8' plywood panels (1" thick) are stacked on top of each other to reach the appropriate height (7' 10" for us). The forms are held together by wire stays that have spacers weled in at 8" and 10". After the concrete sets up, the stays are broken off and the forms come off.



We've had to decide where through-wall penetrations will go. That means where does the electrical, phone/cable, and propane come into the crawl spaces, and where does the sh__ (sewer line) get out. All but the sewer were easy. To predict the elevation of the exiting 4" sewer pipe, you have to design the drainage system upstream. Code requires 1/4" of fall per foot, so you need to add up all the linear feet of line for the longest line to the point where it goes into the subfloor joists. This turns out to be in the guest bathroom (The Hart Room for now, but naming rights are up for bid), about 70 ft upstream from the exit point. Simple math shows you need 18" inches of drop, so the blockout for the sewer line as placed at 22" below the joists (18" + 4" extra for safety). If the line falls too little, turds get stranded. If the line falls to much, turds get stranded by the loss of the mobilizing fluid. However, any extra vertical can be accommodated by a short section of 45° drop, which is beyond the angle of repose for a turd (all of this technical jargon is for Tony; enjoy it?). In addition, this drain line crosses two crawl space walls, so they needed to have blockouts marked.



So, Don (the big dog at K&D) left Friday for the Baja 1000 (km) off road race, which is a 24-hour drive to the south. He's in charge of the pit crew for the second of the three legs of the race. If the driver crashes, he'll be back early. If the driver scores well, then he'll have to celebrate for a day and who knows when he'll arrive back in PT. He left the two boys in charge, but they are AOL. My job is to make sure they get the blockouts, window frame (egress from basement), and two crawl access frames in the right places. Hopefully Don won't injure himself and will make it back in time to place all the Simpson tie downs (ca. 60) and other bolts in just the right spots. Concrete will go in at this point, immediately after the County's inspection. Target for the next pour is about Dec. 5th, a week later than I hoped but not too bad. Then again, everything depends on having relatively dry weather, which this area is not know for.

P.S. If you want a hot stock tip, buy Simpson (fasteners, tie downs, joist supports). All the new earthquake codes for the Western U.S. and other EQ prone areas require lots of this expensive stuff. The stock is currently $22.50 (SSD on NYSE), down 40% in the past 6 months, so watch this if the U.S. ever starts building houses again.


Just returned from a trip to Leavenworth (the Bavarian town east of the Cascades, not the prison). Pretty interesting little German-looking town, although no one appars to be from Bavaria. Its just a tourist hook--got us. Also came across Roslyn, a little Alaskan look-alike town that you'll remember from Northern Exposure (1990-1995). Its next to Suncadia, an upscale golf-retirement community that is just starting to build out (3-18 hole courses, Ken). Designed as a weekend getaway for Seattle golfers, but sales are slow and they have lots of unsold, expensive houses.

Warming the boards (Day 22 of 273)

Warmboard, that is. Its an expensive but eloquent radiant floor product (http://warmboard.com). They take 1 1/8" thick, high quality plywood sheets (4' x 8') and route a series of parallel 5/8" channels in it. Then, they place an aluminum sheet with adhesive on the plywood and push the aluminum into all the channels. The result is a giant lego-like radiant heating panel that goes down as a rigid subfloor (see photo below). The sheets have tonque and groove on the narrow ends and get laid out in a hop scotch pattern. The company does the design work ($300 refunded on purchase) for the architect and builder (us). The panels come in three forms: Straight, single-end returns, and double-end returns. We've ordered 64 panels (110 pounds each. ouch!) to be shipped by flatbed truck from Portland: they are about 2/3rd straight and 1/3rd return type.

Yesterday we finalized the heating plan for the Warmboard. We're using Sunshine Propane (http://www.sunshinepropane.com/index.htm), and specifically Levi Ross, because he has done several similar projects in this area. In fact, he just finished up a large home on the bluff above the Port Townsend marina. In addition, we're following the path of Tom & Dinese Christopher's house (see tomanddinesehouse.blogspot.com). They started construction about 3 months in front of us. Their house was designed by Richard Berg (http://richardbergarchitects.com/) and they used the same concrete guy (Don McNees, K&D), and framer (Gary Ellis, Ellis Construction), all by coincidence but encouraging.

We're using a 50 gal Polaris stainless-steel, high-efficiency hot water heater (propane, natural gas isn't available here). This will supply both domestic hot water and radiant hot water. The plan is to have 7 loops (300 ft maximum length) in two, thermostatically controlled zones. There are manifolds that distribute and collect the water and pumps to move it around. One thing I like about Levi's philosophy is to design as simple a system as possible to solve the problem. After being flummoxed for 3 weeks by the security system in our rental house, I'm taking the Warren Buffet approach -- if we don't understand how it works, then we're not going to buy and install it (and eventually fix it).

The piping is 1/2" (ID) Wisbo Aquapex, which is what we'll also use for the domestic hot (red pipe) and cold (blue pipe) water. This way, you'll always know what PEX you've accidentally cut through with the sawsall or punctured with the nail gun.

Levi is doing most of the heating and manifold installation, but encouraging us to take on anything within our skills. That means laying and caulking the PEX in place, doing the custom routering (about a dozen places), and doing some venting, construction, and wiring. Overall, if we do our job we'll save about $2500 (1/2 of the labor) and will be better prepared to tackle the PEX plumbing in a couple of months. Looks like I'll have to buy a few tools--no pain, no gain.

Footers Poured (Day 17 of 273)

Well, it all came together on Friday even though we had a bit of wet weather. The forms for the footers (about 370 linear feet) and rebar were finished up on Friday morning, so the County inspector showed up at 9 am. We passed muster, and the pumper truck (see photos) was on the site by 9:30. Don ordered the concrete in three batches: 9 yds, 9 yds, and a final 4 yards to finish up.






The pour went smoothly with Scotty (on the right in back part of right photo) running the overhead boom by remote control, Don (red hat) directing the pour, and his two slaves (son David) using the vibrator (easy ladies) and Jason doing the finish work. A vibrating probe was used to remote air pockets, especially on the deeper pours (the vertical footers). It took about 3 hours to pour and place 22 yds of concrete, which seems pretty fast but Don has been doing this for 25+ years.

The concrete will set up over the weekend, then on Monday the cement-slaves will strip off all the forms and get ready to lay the wall panels and remaining rebar. They won't finish next week, so we'll have a week off when Don goes to Baja to support the local offroad racing team. Seems like everyone out here as an expensive recreational endeavor--I wonder what mine will be.

Learning from others (Day 14 of 273)

Our radiant heat guy (Levi Ross, Sunshine Propane) introduced us to one of his clients that recently built a house in the Cape George Colony, which is on the west side of the Quimper Pennisula and on the outshirts of metropolitan Port Townsend. They used Warmboard and did a lot of their own work, so Levi thought we'd have lots in common with them (yes, thanks Levi).

Anyway, last night Roger and Kyanne Anderson invited us over for dessert and a little "house talk." Well, that was quite an experience: good apple cobbler and more info on housebuilding than we could absorb. Nevertheless, the most important thing we learned is that everyday people can be their own general contractor and builder.

Roger was a lawyer and law professor; Kyanne is an occupational therapist, and they both are working part time after retiring and moving from Toledo. What was so interesting was the level of involvement that they had with their new house. They hired a local contractor (Little and Little, PT) to build the shell, and then they took over with most of the finishing work and remaining subcontracting (drywall, roof, interior wall painting). They installed cabinets and flooring, the staircase and hand railing (with returns), laid the tile and wood flooring, put up all the molding for the doors and windows, and are currently doing the landscaping. I was blown away to learn that Kyanne, a diminutive women in her 50s, did all the electrical work herself. She was tutored by a local electrican (Gary Estes, Craighead Electric, PT) who then looked in on her periodically. Her wiring passed inspection on the first try, which is better than some "professionals" manage to do. No dollar savings for their project were discussed, but it is obvious that they got way more house than they paid for and were able to upgrade certain features they wouldn't have been able to afford. They said that, in retrospect, they only made two mistakes. I deem that a Complete Success.

We borrowed a few books on electrical and tiling, and threatened to pester them with trival questions during our build out. We learned buckets full and even got dessert. How good can that be.

First Forms In (Day 13 of 273)

On Monday morning, Don and his crew (son David and Jason) started laying the footer forms. The foundation footers carry and distribute the load from the verticals and everything they support, and thus are the real foundation of the house. They must be placed on undisturbed ground, so no settlement occurs. No problem, they are on highly compacted glacial till which is mainly silty sand (verging on a poorly consolidated sandstone). In fact, they needed a sledge hammer to drive the form stakes into the ground. The bigger the load, the wider and thicker the footer. For example, the 8 ft high basement walls are supported by 1' thick footers, from 2' 6" to 16" wide depending on the what is above them. Where the footers step up from the basement (-9 ft) to the crawl space (-5 ft) there are vertical footers to accomodate the change in elevation.


Once the footer forms are in place, they'll start on the rebar. They place vertical rebar every couple of feet, and three layers of horizontal rebar. These are all tied together to create a strong matrix. In addition, the vertical walls are keyed into a 2"x4" slot in each footer.


If the weather holds, they may pour the footers on Friday (Nov. 7th), then start on the vertical walls next week. Notice the little quicky shed they built in the middle of the garage. This is where they'll keep the building plans dry (yeah, sure) during our occasionally moist days (read all day drizzle). Actually, we haven't lost any time to weather, but fully expect too. They got 8" of rain in the Olympic Mountains on Tuesday, but none made it to the infamous blue hole (http://www.komonews.com/weather/faq/4306627.html).

The hole is done (Day 10 of 273)

Because our excavator's schedule freed up last week, Mark Stewart (Stewart Excavating, Port Hadlock) was able to start the foundation excavation on Friday morning. By Saturday noon, he had the basement, one crawl space, and the garage pad ready for footers, and will finish the second crawl space on Monday. It drizzled most of the time, but that just kept the dust down. One problem we have is finding space for all the extra dirt to be retained for backfilling. We moved about 80 yds to the front for a berm, and have mounds scattered around the lot everywhere we can. Once the backfilling is completed (Thanksgiving±), we'll get same space back to maneuver.

The county requires erosion control in the form of silt fences. So we used a row of hay bales and a 30" high plastic mesh screen to hold back any sediment from the berm. (Nancy is standing on the berm in one photo.) We'll place another silt fence just below the garage, when we get some of the dirt repositioned. Sacred ground in this whole exercise is the drain field, which must be placed in undisturbed soil. So there is a patch about 60 ft wide and 30 feet deep between the berm and the garage that is no-mans land.


The basement is rather large, now that we have a hole in the ground. It measures 32 ft by 26 ft. It will have a staircase in one corner, wine cellar (?) in another, a utility room for the radiant heat boiler and tank, whole house vacuum, and electrical panel, and a bunch of storage space for all the extra junk we dragged up from Denver. I can't imagine how much more stuff we would have had if not for 4 garage sales and offloading stuff to neighbors and friends.

The concrete guy, Don (K&D Concrete, Port Townsend), will use a pumper to place most of the concrete. That way the pumper can park near the garage and pump from the delivery truck to the forms. The long (E-W) dimension of the house and garage is 88 ft, so there was no other way to get the concrete in place.

All told, we'll need something like 70 cubic yds of concrete: 12 yds for the footers, 10 yards each for the basement and garage floors, and 38 yds for the basement and stem walls. Concrete is going for about $92/yd delivered. You do the math; its about the same price as a used 2005 Hobie 18 (sorry Tom).