Chuck, don’t send Devon off on another tangent. With all of the side tracks between here and there for him to get hung up on, he may never finish, or even start, building his railroad.
I considered vinyl. They even have a board and batten. But I have not been real impressed with vinyl. I know it has its huge benefits in the maintenance department. But as I look at it over time it fades, gets brittle and breaks, and some of it fades and gets a chalky white look. I know people love it. And it does look nice early on. I would not replace it if I bought a house with it. But to put it up new it just isn’t my cup of tea. I may regret it when I am old and painting the house is a real chore. But for now we, haven’t minded painting every so often. We paint one wall at a time on a rotational bases so its not to bad. But thanks for the suggestion Chuck.
David,
I agree about the fuss and details. But you only have to do it once and then its done. This is our first and last house barring any major live changes requiring a move. So we are putting improvements into it that make it the house we want. The details may slow me down but in the end it will look great and be a house we are proud of. We have lived here 20 years now and have put a lot of blood sweat and tears into making it twice the place it was when we bought it. So the details are a must.
Devon Sinsley said:
… I may regret it when I am old and painting the house is a real chore…
That’s when you enlist your kid in house painting. After all "you live here too: (http://largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-tongue-out.gif)
David,
I agree about the fuss and details. But you only have to do it once and then its done.
Yea, and if you do it right, the same can be said about building a railroad
This is our first and last house barring any major live changes requiring a move.
Same here.
So we are putting improvements into it that make it the house we want. The details may slow me down but in the end it will look great and be a house we are proud of. We have lived here 20 years now and have put a lot of blood sweat and tears into making it twice the place it was when we bought it. So the details are a must.
Same here. I agree.
Hey Devon, I agree with your description of a cheap vinyl siding, but the product we have on our house is “Royal Vinyl Siding”. It’s manufactured in Canada and has a “Life Time Warranty” against fading and getting brittle. It’s a lot thicken then the stuff you get at Ziggy’s and will withstand winds up to 70 mph. But I also understand that you’re 20 years younger then me and have lots of energy to paint. LOL
I’m looking forward to seeing what you get done. BTW I have a set of ladder jacks if you would like to borrow them for the gable end with your shingles. Let me know.
Chuck
I do know that like everything you get what you pay for and I know there are very good vinyls out there. I am just used to seeing all the track homes built in the 90’s and 00’s with cheap vinyl and they don’t look so great anymore. But like you said that’s the cheap stuff.
Well I got all the furing strips cut, I messed up an cut twice as many as I needed. The wall is 44 feet so I cut 44 of them. Well I am spacing them 24" on center so I ended up with a bunch extra. But I needed a few to fur out around the windows and I need some to fill a gap between them at the bottom so I will use many of them and then we will save the rest for the next wall.
I got every thing fured out. I got the 8" middle trim board in place. This goes between the board and Battens and the shingles. Only part of my roof along this wall is a gable end with about 17’ having the gable run parallel with a regular soffet (sp) and eve. So we enclosed the soffet and then nailed the 8" trim board below that. That carried across the gable end and set the height for the panels below. I have 6 of the foil faced foam panels in place. That was enough for me for one day.
That new enclosed soffet sure pissed of the wasps building nests under my eves. Also I now know why I am leery of hiring professionals to do work for me. The guys who built the house couldn’t come close to getting the trusses 24" on center, some are 22 some as much as 27. Not to mention they couldn’t line up the tails either so everything is wavy. But I made it work and nothing a little caulk wont take care of. Also not to long after we moved in we replaced the aluminum windows with inert gas filled vinyl windows. Well we never were happy with the installers. they leaked and were drafty. We were able to use expansion foam and caulk to seal them up. But now that we are removing the trim the windows just fell out. The clowns cut all the mounting tabs off of them basically just glued them in with caulk. There is no nails no screws nothing actually holding them in. Near as we can figure when they were made they thought the wall were 6" think and not 4". Mind you they were custom made not off the shelf. Anyway you can tell now that they wouldn’t have fit, the opening wasn’t deep enough. So instead of having to redo the windows, or take out all of the interior casing and slide them in deeper or furing out something to make the fit right (although with that the trim would have looked funny) they just cut the tabs off of them and glued them in place. They were done by the time I got home form work. I thought the windows looked funny because they stuck out too far but figure that was the way they were made.
Well anyway now I am furing the wall out and around the windows. I had to go inside and put screws through the window frame to hold them. Looks like shit (pardon my language) but that put a solid screw into the new furing strips. After I but the siding up I will use expansion foam and seal them up and then caulk them after the trim is in. I should have well installed windows now.
Anyway, tomorrow is a busy day. I hope to get the rest of the foam up and maybe get some of the sheeting done.
I will update the article when it is complete. Oh and Sean, I have enough extra 2X4s that I should be able to frame the cabinet. WE are going to side it to look like the house.
Looking good! Keep up the fine work you are doing my friend and you will soon be laying track. (http://largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-wink.gif)
Looking good there Devon, it’s good to see a construction tool belt on you. BTW the reason your windows have the tabs cut off of them and inset into the framing is because you went from aluminum frame windows to vinyl windows. Who ever quoted to replace your windows should have given you the option of having the openings reframed but it would have cost more money. We replaced a lot of aluminum windows when I had my construction company and we always gave the customer both options. You could still order vinyl windows to fit your openings and attach them to the outside with the tabs, you only have 2 windows on that side of your house, but you still would have had to remove the interior trim.
Chuck
OK so that is a normal way, well I guess I better be nice then. I assumed when you order windows that they come ready for the old opening. Anyway I have more than just the two windows. . . thats just on that side. I can see cutting the tabs off if they don’t make a direct replacement for the aluminum. They were sold to me as direct replacements but in the world of sales I can see that they did fit in the hole. I just figured the tab would have ben located in a place that would have matched the aluminum. Really that isn’t what irked me. What irked me is that they were just glued in. Is that normal also? The way I put them in with the new furing strips was to screw through the frame. Well I have no idea whats right but now they are actually attached to the house.
I got all the foam up and four sheets of the sheeting. I had church and a party to go to so thats all the further I got. But it is coming together.
Joe,
It not as exciting as RR construction but it is necessary to the success of the overall project.
When we had the old steel casement windows replaced with new vinyl windows, they screwed them in, through the sides of the window casing/frame thing. I didn’t see him cut any tabs off of our windows, but then again, our’s were custom measured, ordered and made.
Mine were supposed to be all custom ordered and made. That’s why I am surprised that they didn’t fit with the normal tabs. But after Chuck’s comments I am thinking the extruded vinyl frame is a standard thing and they just cut and assemble the desired size. So they are custom sized but not custom depth. That would make sense.
Devon, yes it would.
Devon
When I saw this pic it reminded me of a saying " Putty and Paint make the job what it aint "
Nice progress!
Sean, is that like; you can hide a lot of sins with a good coat of paint?
Sort of… A good example : Tammy Faye Bakker
Yeah at this moment there are big yellow blobs everywhere from expansion foam filling in areas where my fitment wasn’t so great. A 55 gallon drum of caulk and I should be good to go. It in no way perfect thats for sure. Partially because of what I had to start with and then add my ineptness to it and there are some areas that need addressed. But it is coming along nicely. I need one more long weekend or maybe two to get it ready for paint.
When I did some termite repair on my Dad’s home, I found foam used as a structural support! I’m glad we sold it.
John
John, its amazing what ends up supporting a structure sometimes. Amazing and scary.
Arghh!!!,
Well I am going to loose at least another week. Almost two years ago we had a lady break her ankle on our front porch due to a deteriorated brick. We replaced the offending brick within days of her falling. She made a claim to our homeowners, as she should have, and as far as we knew she had be taken care of. Well in March, I think, we get a letter from our insurance company saying we need to fix the steps or they would cancel our insurance. They did not tell us anything other than “fix” them. Well we had already done that so we took a picture and sent it to them via our 3rd party agent. We forgot all about it and assumed all was well. We get a letter today in the mail saying that since we didn’t comply by removing the brick and replacing it with concrete that our insurance will be terminated on the 22nd. Our agent further states that since we still have an open claim (we were unaware the claim was still open) and faulty steps that we likely will not get anyone to cover us without spending a fortune. And of course the mortgage company will have problems with that. All over a stupid brick that was replaced over a year and a half ago.
So I called the actual insurance company, which is a small company, and asked them what the deal was. Why they didn’t tell us that the bricks were unacceptable. The guy agreed that “fix” it meant replace the brick from my side of the story. He agreed that nowhere in his companies communication was it stated that they needed to be removed and replaced with poured cement. So he gave me until the 22nd to remove the brick and replace it with poured concrete. Easy enough task but will take some time away from the RR project.
OK I am done venting. At least the guy and the company were very cool and took ownership in there part of the miscommunication. Its nice talking to people directly that can make these decisions. a five minute phone call fixed it. You won’t get that from one of the large companies. So I am a little peeved over the inconvenience of the whole thing but I am very thankful to still have insurance. All in all the company did right by me.
Devon Sinsley said:
So he gave me until the 22nd to remove the brick and replace it with poured concrete.
…All in all the company did right by me.
Boy oh boy, I would sure want that in writing. And in writing the specs and any inspections or permits you have to meet to satisfy the insurance company. Maybe one of their examiners should come out and tell you exactly what you need to do before you get started: “poured concrete” ain’t exactly very specific.
Sounds like you will indeed lose a week. Good luck with all this.
Sean McGillicuddy said:
Sort of… A good example : Tammy Faye Bakker
Wow! Not bad. A Tammy Faye reference. She’s been dead, what, five years? And she still scares me.