3 Up, one to go

The third wall is now standing!  Thanks Tim, Mick and Mike, your next beer is on me!  With 4 people, the wall went up in a flash.


My slightly crazy bracing scheme is the two walls are connected at the top, the left wall has a T support going to two trees.  It held the one wall without issue, hopefully the other too.


The last wall is assembled.  I rebuilt it during lunch today so it is much stronger.  It is now ready for siding.


My even crazier tarping solution.  It is more taught in the front than in the back, so that rain will run towards the back.  I also have a steep downward slope at the back, hoping to help with the runoff.  I put it in with a couple hundred staples, so hopefully it holds up.  I also hope we don't get any inclement weather from the north, since that whole side is wide open (the back wall).


Hopefully there aren't too many new holes in the tarp...


The inside is now all blue.


Since the tarp I bought for the door is protecting the generator, I took a tarp I found lying around up there and stapled it to the front.  Since the fourth wall isn't up yet, I can still get in the shed from the backside.


Since we got our bonuses today, and I got backpay from the raise I got this year, I should be able to continue working without financial concerns, though the weather for the next week looks pretty terrible.

Next wall ready to stand.

I picked up a bigger ladder last night.  It fit in my car, though it took me a bit to get it in, considering all the other stuff I had in the car.


Surprisingly my car made it all the way up the hill.


Despite the mud.  I left some ruts, but that is pretty much SOP for getting up there.



The last long wall is complete.


It is ready to stand up, I got the braces in place so that it doesn't fall off when we stand it up.


In addition, I got the back wall fixed with some heavier duty nails.


The sunset today was very pretty, lots of color, even if I didn't get a lot of time to look at it.

The shed survived

Sadly I didn't have my camera today, so no pictures...

We had some rather stout winds (40+mph) coming through today, and thankfully when I went up to the property the walls were all still standing.  I wasn't sure if my bracing would hold, but it did.

Unfortunately I ran short on time this afternoon, but everything is now set up for tomorrow.  The generator is moved up to the construction zone, I got the top plate for the wall cut, and got the site generally prepped for tomorrow.  Tomorrow I will attach the top plate and hopefully get the last long wall sided.

I want to get all the walls up before Friday, since some really nasty stuff is moving in this weekend.  If I get the walls sided and ready to stand up, I can probably grab some people on Thursday to stand them up.

I also got a new ladder, and it somehow managed to fit in my car.  It is an 8' step ladder.  I had to do some shuffling to get it into my car (it doesn't go in nearly as nicely as the boards did), but it fit.

Lazy day

Didn't get much done today.  I was still tired from yesterday, got a late start, and then forgot something, I didn't do anything productive until close to 3PM.

First up was the tarp.  I spread it out to dry, and I patched it.  It had a lot of holes in it.


I did get the other long wall fastened together, but didn't get the sheeting on it.  But since it is naturally going to rain tomorrow, I ended up spending a lot of the afternoon trying to figure out how to tarp it. I tried making a slant roof, but my ladder isn't tall enough to reach the top of the walls.  so I ended up settling for a similar tarping to last time.  Cover everything I can with siding, and put the tarp on it and hope for the best.  Unfortunately it means some of the framing is still exposed, but there isn't much I can do until I buy a bigger ladder.

Pre-tarping:


Post tarping:

2 up, 2 to go.

First off:  happy birthday dad!

So I had some help today (thanks again, Tim), which allowed me to get two of the walls sheathed and standing.  Here is the front wall:


The side wall is standing as well.


I have everything I need for the other two walls, though I am one sheet short.  I cleaned out everything Home Depot had down and available though.  I will pick up another one tomorrow.




One of my coworkers had a generator that he wasn't actively using, so I borrowed it until I get an electrician out there (yes, I am slacking on that, I know).  It is very nice and complete overkill for what I need, it barely blipped when the saw started or my air compressor started up.


All covered up.  I figured it would be safer out there than sitting in the back of my truck.  Plus it saves me from having to lift in and out of my truck.



It may be a cheap one from Harbor Freight, but this was worth every penny on it.  My new framing nailer works quite well.  A couple of hiccups, but no major issues.  It is a bit bulky and unwieldy (it is a cheap one after all), but had no problems driving in the siding nails.  I need to work on my aim with it a bit, I put a lot of nails in at an angle that I thought should have been straight, but that will come with practice.


Since tomorrow is Easter Sunday, I probably won't be able to enlist much help tomorrow, but I can probably get the other long wall sheathed, assembled, and ready.  I will have to come up with an "interesting" tarping solution (it is supposed to rain Monday) but after Monday I might be able to grab some help after work to finish standing up the side wall.  I will need help to stand up the other long wall, but the final back wall I might be crazy/stupid enough to try on my own if help isn't readily available

Truck maintenance weekend.

A little backstory on the truck: since I bought the truck, it hasn't idled well.  Last weekend when I was coming home from the property, it tried really hard to stall on a couple of occasions.  Frequently I would experience loss of power when I stepped on it, to the point of the engine RPM dropping.  This is exactly how my old Chevy truck used to behave when I would let it sit too long and the distributor cap would start to corrode a little.  Since the truck only runs on the weekends, the symptoms seemed to match, so I decided to give it a tune up.  

So Friday I went out to give it a tune up, which unfortunately ended in catastrophic failure.  I ended up rounding the bolt on the air intake, which means that the cap and rotor weren't readily accessible.  In addition, even with a "ratchet handle extension" (aka a big wrench looped on the end of the ratchet handle), two of the first three plugs that I tried to pull out wouldn't budge.  Fearful of breaking the spark plug (which is a very costly repair, plus I would have to tow the truck somewhere), I decided not to crank on them (they are only supposed to be torqued to 30lbs...).  I did replace the one plug that I was able to get out.  It didn't look to be in good shape, though it didn't look like it was the problem.  The gap was still about right (I found out that I don't have a gapper anymore, apparently I didn't snarf dad's), and while there was some slight build up on it, the place where the arcing actually occurs still looked clean.

Today I decided to give it an oil change, since AutoZone had a nice oil change special.  One thing I have noticed that is a concern is that I only got 2.5-3 quarts out of the truck.  It takes 5.  I checked the oil before changing it and the dipstick said it was fine, it was well above the add line.  It is something to monitor going forward for sure. 

The oil was dark, opaque, and thick; it was obviously overdue, but not chunky like mom's old Chrysler.  What a difference it made.  The engine runs nearly silent now, most of the engine noise is gone, and the burning smell when I stop is all but gone now.  In addition, the truck seems to have more power, though it is still too early to tell.  I did put some fuel injector cleaner in as well today, but I definitely didn't expect this kind of a difference.  It still stuttered a little bit; it didn't solve the hesitation problem, but it made it less apparent.  It does idle a lot smoother now.  So finally some good news on the truck front.  I am bringing it in for a tune up Tuesday, and also a power steering fluid flush (the truck groans and squeals when you rail the steering).  Then a transmission servicing (it hasn't been done since the tranny was rebuilt a couple of years ago), and hopefully it will be good for a while.  In case anyone cares, I used the high mileage Castrol.  It is a partial synthetic blend, and the truck really seems to like it.  AutoZone had it on sale for a buck more than their regular oil change special, and it was worth the dollar. 

I decided not to do any construction this weekend because of the big snowstorm coming in on Monday.  While a lot of places are now predicting it will miss us, on Saturday the reports were still mixed, and I didn't want to chance it.  The main issue is that the way it is right now will withstand snow, it is completely tarped and there are no places for the tarp to sag.  The next step in the shed construction though is to stand up the walls.  Once I do that, the shed will be very vulnerable to snow until I get the roof on.  I can put in the support beam, and I have two tarps that can act as a temporary roof, which would work fine for rain, but snow will collect, and the weight will break the tarp, much like the problem I had with water pooling in between the studs a couple of weeks ago.  So I elected not to do any further construction until there is no chance of snow.

Today I went up and picked up another bag of trash, and just walked around up there for a bit.  I actually found a nice step for my shed.  I am intending to use it as a base step for the shed.  It is actually quite nice.  Unfortunately it weighs several hundred pounds and I haven't figured out how to get it up there yet.  I will probably borrow a wheelbarrow or something.

In addition, I moved up some individual bricks lying around up to the shed site so that I can make some nice steps to get into the shed.  These will eventually go on top of the big lump in the prior picture.

The last several days have been nice and dry, the creek is back to normal. 

An early spring they said... It won't stick they claimed...

So I went up to visit the property after work today to see how much of it was snow up there.  Keene and Swanzey were completely clear, but of course there was standing snow.  A little over an inch but still coming down, the bulk of it will be tonight and tomorrow.



I just hope that the rest of the precipitation this week is rain like it is supposed to be, since if it is all snow, I might have to shovel up there again...

Long day, but all walls complete

I got a late start because of daylight savings time, but managed to finish the front wall today.  The first thing I did this morning was lay it all out.  I quickly discovered that I had miscounted on the number of 10 foot studs.  Thankfully it was an easy fix, I just had to move where the short stud was.  

Unfortunately, when I went through and modified all my nominal values to take into account board sizes, I apparently missed a couple.  Grrrr.


The completed wall.  I finished right at sunset.


I decided to do this over top of the door.  Originally I was intending to just ignore the normal supports that go above a doorway, but Tim talked me out of it.  I ended up using some of the 1/2" plywood that I got from dad to connect the cripple studs, and then nailed that into a double 2x6 (which also had some 1/2" plywood in it to make it the right thickness).  I did that to avoid having to nail at weird angles to get things fastened together.  Time will tell whether or not it is strong enough.


My new tarping solution involved just buying some siding that I will eventually use (T111 siding is more expensive that I remember it being...) and use a layer of that on top.  Unfortunately the stack of walls has gotten large enough that my large 15x19 tarp isn't enough to cover my 12x16 shed, but I did the best I could.  Since it was already dark, I didn't have time to patch the holes in the tarp.  The siding should be able to getting a little better than everything else though.  I thought I had another tarp, but it turns out I bought 2 11x17 tarps, not a second 15x19.


Since I got the little strip installed as well, I am ready to raise the walls.  I will probably need help to do that, but first I need to give my truck a tune up.  It is starting to miss and just generally drives like the distributor cap (or Dodge equivalent) is bad.  Kind of a bummer, but thanks to daylight savings time, I might be able to work on it during the week.

Another wall done

First off: happy birthday to me!  I got a cake and ate it too.


On Friday after work I went and picked up all the boards that needed cutting.  I was actually quite surprised that they all fit in my car.




At first it looked like the tarp had held, but then I looked around the side and sure enough it didn't.




The end result (plus the fact that there is apparently a few holes in my tarp and I spilled some when I pulled it off) was that the floor got wet.  Quite wet actually.  Thankfully I found an old squeegee up there and was able to push most of it off.
 

I got the back wall built today, though it is hard to tell from this picture.


I have everything cut and ready for the front wall.  The front wall is the most complex one because of the doors.  Here's to hoping my math was right and I didn't forget anything!




In case I did screw up a measurement, I have some spare lumber now.


I hauled everything up there using Tim's trailer today.  On one hand, it was nice to not have to worry about boards sticking several feet out of the tailgate, and it is easier to tie everything down on it, but it did take a bit longer.  I might use it for longer boards (12+ feet) going forward, but I think it is just easier to use the bed of my truck, even if the boards stick out 4 feet.  I was surprised that I didn't seem to have too much trouble turning the trailer around up there, though I did end up jackknifing the trailer to get to turn sharp enough to be able to turn it around without using my lawn.



The last thing I did today was to start emptying the dirt/sand out of the back of my truck.  I used it to fill in the ruts going up to the shed from the slab.  The ruts in the driveway are more severe, but I am intending to have a load of gravel dumped on that part.  I also used one of the mounds that I drive over to help get some gravel/rock in it as well.





The mound is getting smaller.

No fire, but no power either

I brought my power test kit with me today during lunch.


I also located the the grounding stakes.  There were actually three of them, one a little further away.


When I saw the black wires running across the ground, I got my hopes up, but these are just coax for cable, I found where they end near the pole.


For some reason I thought I had seen a 100A double breaker, but there were only two 20A breakers.  Strangely there is no main on the box either.


If you look at the paper on the door, those are supposedly not hooked up.  The breakers for the outlets on the panel had been removed, which didn't make sense.


The inside of the box was a disaster.  This was taken after cleaning several fistfulls of crap out of it.  I am hoping that the unconnected wires are the ones that run up to the slab, but I didn't have time at lunch today to check.


The meter itself seemed to be in an infinite rebooting loop.  Not sure if it is because there was nothing hooked up or not.

As you might guess, I was unable to make the lamp light up, no combination of breakers seemed to do anything.  I am still debating whether or not I should have an electrician come out and install a new box.  I can't figure out why there was so much crap in the box, the latch on the door worked fine and was closed, and while the seal on the panel cover was crap, it wouldn't have allowed leaves in.  I was also unable to confirm whether or not there was actually power there (my multimeter would probably explode if I probed the 110 lines directly), so I am at a bit of a loss.  Personally I am not sure how much I like the idea of playing around in the box with no main breaker on the box.