Nektai's New Studio

nektai · Post by **nektai** » Fri Mar 30, 2007 7:08 am

Hello Junkies,

After a very long permitting process I am very happy to report that I broke ground yesterday on my new studio.

The studio will be a single story measuring 1560 square feet. I have a contractor working on the project and he seems to be able to get the subs to show up so I hope that things will proceed at nice clip.

I will post pictures on the progress and beg for help when problems come up

Nico

The studio is in the woods about 160 feet from our house.

crzypete · Post by **crzypete** » Fri Mar 30, 2007 11:26 am

Very exciting. I look forward to the updates and dilemmas, I hope to learn a lot.

Pete

nektai · Post by **nektai** » Sat Mar 31, 2007 4:18 pm

They had finished excavating for the footings by the end of the day on Friday. And then...

The first problem. They did not sit the building far enough into the ground. The contractor came out this morning and agreed that there was a problem. They are going to come out on Sunday to cut the front of the building down another 24". The good news is that no harm has been done and that the masons are coming first thing Monday morning to set the footings.

mystry_tour · Post by **mystry_tour** » Sun Apr 01, 2007 12:52 am

Nice going. Hope it is going smoothly as possable. I wondering if your going to put in floor heat. Man I wish I had but it seems to heat pretty well.
Nice looking area to have a shop.
Tour

nektai · Post by **nektai** » Sun Apr 01, 2007 7:35 am

Mystry

I am not going with in floor radiant. I will be using vent throughout the wall propane heaters. I realize that this flies in the face of the good and sound advice of many people here at the junkie. The reason is a two parter-

First I wanted to keep the cost on the building as low as possible...building is expensive here and they have zero tolerance for a homeowner doing either electric or plumbing so I lost the possibility of the do-it-myself cost savings.

Second I have a bit of experience with sub terrain shop space out here. I have found that mother earth does a nice job of warming and cooling the shop the further you go into the ground. Because of the grade situation I will be sitting deeper than I had anticipated so l think I will get an even better "poor mans radiant" effect.

Well that is my best shot at justifying what I am doing. I am sure that I will also regret not having it.

mystry_tour · Post by **mystry_tour** » Sun Apr 01, 2007 1:45 pm

Well there are a few things I "wish" I had done but at the time it didn't seem important to me. I look back and the reasoning on some of it was economics as well. If I had a lot more money I am sure I would have a much different shop nik but I don't so I willl play the hand I have and really it's a pretty nice hand considering the alturnative, which is no shop at all
mystry

nektai · Post by **nektai** » Mon Apr 02, 2007 3:37 pm

More progress!

Sunday they cut the front of the building 2 feet deeper- you can see the color change in the freshly dug earth

The masons were here first thing in the morning and had the footings poured by lunch time.

Here is a detail of the front of the building where they had to dig deeper to accommodate for the grade

They will be here in the morning to set the walls!!

guzziguy · Post by **guzziguy** » Mon Apr 02, 2007 5:53 pm

Nico how deep are the footings?

nektai · Post by **nektai** » Mon Apr 02, 2007 6:35 pm

The top of the footing has to be more that 3' below the finished grade.

guzziguy · Post by **guzziguy** » Mon Apr 02, 2007 7:39 pm

but how thick does the footing have to be?

mystry_tour · Post by **mystry_tour** » Mon Apr 02, 2007 7:48 pm

Hey Nik,
they are going to cut the center out down to the footers aren't they or am I missing something
Tour

nektai · Post by **nektai** » Mon Apr 02, 2007 8:55 pm

Here it is..

Footings are 16" x 8"

Frost wall sit on them and they are a minimum of 4' high x 8" wide. The 4' of height will allow for 1' of wall above the slab and 3' below (approximately). The extra height of my walls will rise higher above the slab as the building goes back into the grade.

So the interior of the building is high for a few reasons. It will allow plenty of material to back fill the walls from the inside. When that is completed they will remove the excess material until they reach the height of the slab. Since they will be removing material to get to height rather than adding it the ground will be "undisturbed" and very well compacted by mother nature.

If this is not clear I can post some drawings of a "typical" frost wall

Nico

mystry_tour · Post by **mystry_tour** » Mon Apr 02, 2007 9:54 pm

Now I see. I just couldn't understand why the inside was left so highif you wanted it to be below the ground to keep it warm.....
Guess thats why I'm a wood worker rather than a builder
Tour

nektai · Post by **nektai** » Tue Apr 03, 2007 4:18 pm

Tour

This stuff gets very confusing. A few of us worked on a house in North Carolina where a problem or two came up. The big one was that the foundation walls kept getting higher to accommodate the grade. The next thing we knew the basement apartment was 18' tall. Quite an error when you consider that the plans called for a crawl-space.

The poured my walls today and things should be much clearer once the forms are pulled off

dadude · Post by **dadude** » Thu Apr 05, 2007 9:37 am

nektai,

good stuff, great progress shots and keep them coming. your point regarding "poor mans radiant heat" is more reason to install in floor
heat, it will add to the efficency, my most significant regret in both my
home renovation and new shop construction. budgets are for planning,
once you begin... cha ching! poppy knows best, good luck

dadude

dadude · Post by **dadude** » Sat Apr 07, 2007 9:42 am

judging by first weeks progress shots, you must be putting the roof on by now? update?

nektai · Post by **nektai** » Sat Apr 07, 2007 7:26 pm

I wish the roof was on! I have to say I am very happy with the pace of the job. Here is what I know about the schedule

Inspection on Tuesday for the foundation

Backfill towards the end of the week

Framers after that and well int the job by the 17th when the trusses arrive

mystry_tour · Post by **mystry_tour** » Mon Apr 09, 2007 12:04 am

Just a thought Nik, do you think that short of a time gives the concrete time to cure and did you put rebar in the wall
Tour

nektai · Post by **nektai** » Tue Apr 10, 2007 7:48 am

There is rebar in the footings as well as in the top of the walls.

I have always heard the two weeks rule for letting a foundation cure. Something like it reaches 95% of its strength in two weeks and then takes 7 years to get the last 5%.

That being said I have seen that rule pushed by availability of the framing crew and I feel good about going forward if they actually show up as scheduled.

nektai · Post by **nektai** » Tue Apr 10, 2007 6:30 pm

I passed my inspection today. The backfill is scheduled for friday and this leads me to a question.

How difficult is it to drill through an 8" foundation wall?

What would you use drill the hole?

The reason i ask is that I would eventually like to bring water into the building and have a waste line exit the building.

The slab does not get poured until much later so there will be ample time for such adventures but I thought it was time to ask.