Hawaii "Owner-Builder" Construction

📐 First half of July, 2024 🔨
Framing!

finally done with concrete, yay!

Finally it's Framing Time! Yay! It seemed the concrete foundation and walls took forever, although a lot of that time was waiting for the concrete to cure. There's still some concrete waterproofing to be done as well as some more drains, but the bulk of the concrete is now done. Yay!

This picture is from where the kitchen door will be, eventually. The white area at the top of the wall is where the door will be. The concrete slab with the black trench drain in it is the carport slab. So, eventually we hope to be able to park a car under the weatherproof carport roof and then walk directly into the kitchen without an stairs or steps what so ever.

This is the mauka Waipio corner of the lower foundation. The sill plate is installed over waterproofed concrete which also has a layer of foam and 30# tarpaper to isolate the sillplate from the concrete. Hawaii has a lot of humidity so anything that can be done to keep moisture from wicking up into the lumber from the concrete is good.

The tin is really heavy gauge water tank tin, not the thin stuff used on roofs. It's bolted together and really sturdy. I'd suspect that water weighs more than soil, so it should be able to hold back the soil and keep the concrete foundations covered. This may only last a decade or two, at some point it may be replaced by some sort of rock or block wall.

Eventually, this will probably be a bit of garden, with perhaps some foilage cascading over the edge. Sweet potatoes? Thornless roses? Well, we will see what shows up.

There's a lot going on here at the lower Hilo corner although it won't be visible. There's the plumbing drain going along underground here as well as the electrical line in a different trench and at some point, the water supply will come up through this area, too. Probably a trench for cable TV, too. And possibly solar PV cables from panels on the new building to the inverter on the old one. Each of these utilities get their own trench. Each trench gets sand, pipes and inspections and at least we have an excavator handy, since it's a lot of digging!

The wood framing hasn't been topped off yet. Nick put the wall studs in a few inches taller than they need to be. Then Nick & Ethan snap a chalkline at the exact level and proper height and trim them all absolutely even. He says if there's any deviation in the foundation, this will level it out. To me, it seems a "just in case" sort of thing since the foundation looked pretty level to start with, but absolute level is better than pretty much level, don't you think? Nick & Ethan are doing a very good job!

From the top of the wood studs, there's a double top plate (two horizontal boards going along the top of the studs) and that holds up the floor joists. Those are 2x12s, so that will add a foot to the top of this wall before the main floor subfloor is nailed down.

This picture is taken from under the lychee tree, which is a great spot for pictures. I should put in some pictures of how this lumber got here, it looks pretty harmless sitting here by the side of the driveway, doesn't it? However, before it was sitting here looking innocent, it had quite the journey to get there.

One of the basic characteristics of this lot is that it is NOT flat. It's about a 10% slope overall and there's not a lot of flat area to stack lumber. The delivery trucks have trouble getting up the hill and making the various fairly tight turns. The lumber truck from HPM was no exception and they have really long boards to bring us.

The lumber delivery guy was really good. He was always getting off his forklift, setting up "stickers" between the boards (bits of lumber to keep the pile straight and level) and making sure there was room for the lumber before he unloaded it. Since the carport slab was the biggest flat spot we had, the first several loads were set there.

It's only a one car carport so it filled up pretty quickly. All this lumber showed up on only one truck, but it was a pretty big truck!

The first loads that filled up the carport area were brought up the driveway with the forklift. It's much more nimble, light and manueverable. Once the smaller loads were taken off the truck, then the truck was able to try going up the driveway.

The truck got at least half way up the driveway, but there wasn't enough room to turn around to unload the floor joists. So, the forklift took the joists off the truck, then the truck backed down the driveway out of the way. So far, so good!

Things were all well and going along fine until the driver got out to check where the load was going to fit. His weight was what was keeping the machine level. Oooops! Fortunately, the load landed in a good spot. It could have been moved if it hadn't, but it was nice that it didn't have to be moved.

There's a lot of different terms used to measure lumber, board foot, lineal foot, square foot, etc., but nobody seems to measure it by the truck load. This is only One Truck of lumber. This was in June, though, a lot of it has been shifted around out of the way already.

Ethan was organizing the lumber pile as it appeared even though he was there by himself and he seemed outnumbered by the piles of lumber. These two Pauuilo cousins seem to have a heirarchy of who appears during construction. Nick usually shows up with Ethan or more than one side kick. Ethan will occasionally show up by himself. He's generally the one who gets to organize things after concrete pours or does the general site clean up and he's the one who organizes lumber and such before framing, etc. He's quiet but very effective. But then, so's Nick. For a basic crew of two, they get a lot of work done and they're essentially the ones who have built this house so far. A basic crew of two with occasional add ins. Anyway, all this was in June, we're now in July and this is the "July" page, after all, but this is how the lumber got up hill.

The narrow bucket had been on the excavator since things like electrical trenches were being dug. However, we needed to shift a lot of gravel around so the bigger bucket woiuld be much more useful.

This is the crawlspace area and once the floor joists are framing in, we won't be able to reach this area with anything bigger than a shovel and a wheelbarrow, so it's pretty important that we get the gravel there before framing happens. There will only be about four or five feet of headroom in this area and it would be miserable to be moving gravel there once the floor joists are there.

The little tractor puts the gravel over the first foundation wall and the excavator is on the other side of the lower foundation wall and pulls it towards the wall to backfill the lower wall.

There was a small additional wall added to level off the under lanai area so it can be used to store things like lawnmowers and such out of the rain. Once the concrete forms were removed, the new section of wall had to be waterproofed and backfilled, which is what the gravel moving was all about. At least, in this instance, there's been a lot of gravel moving so far on this jobsite.

The red gas can is sitting in what will eventually be the kitchen door. The floor joists will fit in that black ledge over on the top of the tall wall. Those particular floor joists will be for the lanai. It will all start making more sense once a bit more of the framing is finished.

Originally, this was just going to be a crawlspace area, but with the addition of that little wall to flatten the area, it becomes useful space. Most likely lawn mowers will be parked here, but kayaks, and maybe motorcycles will be here, too. There will be some concrete steps up on the wall side to get the the much lower headroom crawlspace area, but that's another project.

This picture is from July 5th. The big concrete wall has been waterproofed and the plastic sheeting is over part of it. Still needs drain rock, perferated pipe and weed mat added, then we can backfill and level off the front lawn.

One pile of lumber is moved off the driveway so now equipment and vehicles can move around better. The lower level is partially framed so the top plate is visible behind the big wall. In another week or two, there should be a big flat platform of the main floor's subflooring.

This is the view from the other side of the job site. The big gravel pile that had been here has been relocated to the crawlspace area. Eventually, there will be some sort of drive way or driving area from up alongside the house to this end of the carport. It will be a drive through carport and accessible from either end.

The back foundation wall, as you remember, is four feet tall under all that gravel built up behind it. If it were a taller wall, we would have had to have waited until the floor framing was in place before backfilling, but since it's just four feet tall as well as ten inches thick, we didn't have to wait.

This is the view from the carport. So far all this is foundation and under house are, although at some point later we may pour a concrete floor inside and use it for something. Not sure what, though, so for now it's just underhouse foundation.

The main floor joists will be supported by the top of these walls, extending from the big concrete wall on the left over to the top of the wood wall on the right. Also extending from the edge of the carport out to the front of the wood and concrete walls in front of it.

July 7th & 8th, 2024
it's been two productive days
( 🌞 with lovely weather, too 🌞 )

It takes awhile before we get to the backfilling stage. First off, Nick & Ethan put in a huge effort to set up the form boards and get the concrete poured. Then all those crazy "snap tie" wires have to be broken off and the little pukas (Hawaiian for "holes") filled with mortor mix. Then the wall gets the black waterproofing painted on. Then a layer of big plastic. Then there's the perforated drain pipe with drain rock and weed mat wrapped around it like a burrito. Then finally we get to backfill the whole thing. Whew! Gets me tired just typing about it.

The backfill starts with drainrock and then goes to basic soil and eventually the best top soil left laying around for the very top layer, although topsoil can be improved with compost and bunny manure after the project is finished. After there's less heavy equipment trundling around, we hope to get some seashore paspalum grass growing there. Some of the big golf courses on the Kona side of the island use it for their golf courses and it does well in our climate. Apparently, they take grass clippings and sow them on bare ground and then water. Since there's some of it growing at the Little House next door (the renovation project from a couple years ago), hopefully we can try the same method. But, that "grow a lawn" project is still some time down the road.

The big stack of floor joists is kinda in the way as well as the junk pile that has been collecting under the mac nut tree. The junk pile can be moved, but there's not anywhere else to stash the floor joists so they will have to stay there and the equipment will have to work around them.

We will install the big plastic sheet first. It's pretty heavy duty, not just thin trashcan liner type of plastic. Dunno as if it's actually necessary, but all waterproofing is a good thing.

Gotta figure out how to get the excavator up the hill to backfill. Hmm, might be better to just move the hill and work from the outside first? At least moving stuff is pretty easy with hydraulics and an audiobook while excavating even makes it pleasant. Soon as I'm done updating the website here, I'll be out there again. Listening to stories and playing with joysticks. I think everyone should have an excavator, they're great fun!

Plastic is installed, yay! We get happy with each step forward. If one has to wait until the very end of the project before getting a 'win', it'd be way too long of a wait so any time anything even vaguely seen as 'progress' is a 'win'.

We had to wait a few days to get the drain rock delivered. We would have been able to use it last Thursday, but that was the Fourth of July, a holiday in the United States and Hawaii is part of the United States although a lot of folks forget it occasionally, (especially if we want to order something from the mainland and then they tell us they "don't deliver to foreign countries" Urgh!). Then there was a weekend, so no rock on weekends. Finally, it's Monday so we can get rock. Yay, Tyrone, "The Bringer of Rocks".

Of course, since it's a tight job site, the only place to put the rock was about forty feet from where it will go and the excavator can only reach eighteen feet, so there was a lot of shifting of stuff out of the way (such as the rubbish pile under the mac nut tree) as well as shifting the rock to where the excavator can reach it and put it in the hole alongside the wall.

Hmm, well, actually, first, the rock was staged at the top edge of the hole while Ross got to use a shovel (eewe! no hydraulics except just arm muscle hydraulics) to place it neatly under the drain pipe so there'd be drain rock around the perforated pipe before the weed mat was wrapped around it. Then, (again, "finally!") we were able to start the actual backfilling.

They are 2x6 walls and not as narrow as a 2x4 wall, but I don't think I would have been able to walk along the top of a wall carrying a long 2x6 board without falling off. Nick made it look easy and it was a lot faster than moving a ladder around.

For a crew of two and a pair of homeowners, this is a productive work day. Some construction crews have a dozen or more workers and they get more done in a day, but we're happy to be slogging along at the "small crew" pace.

July 9th thru 17th, 2024
a week makes a huge difference!

This is the 'lychee tree' viewpoint, which is also the "mauka Waipio" corner. This view is looking at the back corner of the lanai and the bolts sticking up in the corner are for the lanai corner "post". Actual posts aren't to the current building code, so now we have narrow portions of wall instead of posts. There's lots of space for more Simpson fittings which will provide more "hold down force" than one post.

For fairly obvious reasons, we've taken to calling this the 'water tank corner'. The gray tin is a very heavy duty galvanized metal used for large water tanks. It's a much heavier gauge metal than used for tin roofs.

The tin will eventually be level across the top edge, but we have to get the electrical and plumbing lines approved and buried before we can backfill much more.

The crawl space is another space that's turning out bigger than we expected. This only has about four to five feet of headroom, but it's roughly twelve by forty feet so it will be a good space to store long skinny stuff like PVC pipes, fence posts, etc. It will also have most of the house plumbing running along under here and easy to reach for any repairs if they're needed later.

The view from the lychee tree a couple days later than the previous one. The floor joists are beginning to be installed. The 'front' yard has also been put up against the edge of the foundation. Eventually, we hope to have that as a nice lawn. There's some grass growing near our current driveway which stays nice and short, we will try moving some of that and see if it grows.

This is the 'front' lawn from the Avocado Plateau. Technically, it's the 'lawn' area on side of the house and not the 'front', which is usually determined by the side facing the ocean. At least, according to some folks' determinations. But, the front door is facing this side, so because of that, I'm calling it the 'front' lawn. Maybe I should just give it all up and call it the "Waipio" lawn? It is on the Waipio side of the house.

Most of the differences in the pictures from one day to the next is the amount of soil. The lawn are isn't any deeper height wise, it's wider width wise. Which doesn't show up very well in the pictures when they're taken from the Avocado Plateau.

This is the same viewpoint but further back on the "Avocado Plateau". At some point, I hope to have a tea pavilion here. If it ever gets built, it will have a lovely ocean view (although the house will have a nice view, too). With a tea pavilion, the Avocado Plateau will almost seem like an extension of the living room, I hope. To get there, though, one does have to cross the driveway and then go up a small slope so that does sorta chill the whole 'living room extension' vibe but we will see how it is once it's done.