BUILDING THE HOUSE

Building the house was a labor of love, but once was enough.  When the Hayman fire occurred, the worst thought was having to rebuild.  Sheila and I did a good deal of the work ourselves, and saved probably 25 to 40 percent of the cost.  I am not sure either one of us had the fortitude to do it again.  Sheila and I would work up to 7 days a week and I would usually put in 10- 12 hours per day on weekdays.  It was great, but once was definitely enough!  The house itself took about 8 months from start to finish.

KEY ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Although we played a major role, there would never be this home if it wasn’t for the following folks:

Josh

Josh is our friend, former landlord and realtor.  He took us under his wing when we first arrived, rented us one of his houses, took us weekly for over a year and quarter looking for land and houses, took us hiking with his wife Audrey and their kids and found us the land where we are now.  He also introduced us to Mike and was instrumental in Mike and I forming a partnership on our house.

Mike

I like to kid Mike and call him the Norm Abrams of Teller County.  Mike, an experienced builder, is also one of most skilled and conscious craftsmen I have ever met.  His attention to detail and knowledge of all things related to home building was invaluable.  I like to say that I worked for Mike in the day time and he worked for me in the evening (that is when I did my planning and general contractor duties).  Even Mike’s wife, Theresa, took part in such things as tile layout (over 1,000 square feet of tile in the house).  The most amazing thing is Mike put up with my Type A, pain in the butt personality.

Teller County Building Department

Now there are those that would not look so kindly on the Building and Permits Department of any city or county.  Maybe because I was a onetime home owner builder or more likely, because Sheila went with me on our visits and charmed them, but they worked with us on our plan submission and even some design anomalies.

The Creators Of Autosketch

The design process was an iterative one.  I never could have designed the house, gone through the many iterations and created the blueprints without this package.

McGuerty & Lester

These guys are former computer geeks that decided to get into home building and wrote a book titled “The Complete Guide To Contracting Your Home”.  I started reading and using this book several years prior to moving west.  It was invaluable.

EVERYBODY HAD A ROLE TO PLAY

Neil

· General contractor

· Architect (minus engineering degree)

· Draftsman

· Carpenter’s Apprentice

· Laborer

Sheila

· Design consultant

· Trim painter and stain person (several thousand linear feet of trim and deck surface)

· Daytime contractor support and subcontractor follow-up

· Laborer

· Photographer

· All around advisor

Mike

· Construction consultant

· Lead builder and carpenter

· Technical interface to several key subcontractors and building inspectors

· MOST IMPORTANT – The guy that was not afraid of heights

Selected Subcontractors

There were many subcontractors that contributed to the completion of the house.  Some are: Engineering, Excavation, Concrete, Electric, Plumbing, HVAC, Fireplace and Stove, Drywall, House Painter, Garage Door, Windows, Crane, Counter Surface Installers, Carpet installer, Roof Truss Manufacturer and Lumberyard.

THE PROCESS

I have been asked many times “how did I know how to build a house?”  Well I didn’t, but I looked at the building process as nothing more or less than building and installing a large computer system.  Just another project.  I even used some of my project management tools to help organize the process.  Mike never knew that.  I think it would have freaked him out.  Below are the major steps of our building project.

Design

To do the design I used software packages that allowed me to present 3 dimensional views of the house to Sheila.  They also were an aid in design and layout of the house.  I use Planix Home Architect and Broderbund’s 3D Home Architect.

Plans

I used the software package, AutoSketch, to make up the blueprints (they were actually black on white).  These were submitted to the county for approval and most important were the detail plans we worked from to build the house and communicate with subcontractors.

Cost Projections:

It is certainly a good idea to accurately project the costs of a project before committing.  I used several books and packages for gross estimates, but finally settled on a homemade spreadsheet coupled with current costs of supplies.  The actual cost of building the house came within one percent of the original estimate.

The Bid Process

Prudent business and programming practices taught me to “never assume.”  So I sought out and received multiple quotes for all aspects of the construction process – suppliers and subcontractors.

Engineering

A local engineer, who had been working for an engineering firm in Woodland Park, and his wife decided to strike out on their own.  Mike had some experience with Ralph and Laurie and as it turned out I was one of if not their first customer.  Ralph was conservative and so was I, so the house was a bit over engineered for safety and stability.  You definitely do not want to cheap out on those things that hold up your house and keep the wind from blowing it over.  Ralph was also very patient with me, although he was a bit curious as to why I insisted that the support columns in the basement be placed at exactly certain spots.  Of course, then I had to tell him that those were the optimal spots to fit into my train layout.  He was very polite and did not laugh.

Permits and Approval

This is the process of having your plans approved by the county and setting up for inspections.  All this is geared to safely.  The county comes out at various stages of construction to make sure you have not cut corners or made mistakes that jeopardize the integrity or safety of the structure.

Excavation

This was a real treat (meant facetiously).  When we purchased the property we did not even have a way of getting vehicles onto it.  So excavation included cutting an access way and driveway from the street to the building site, the well location and the septic tank and leach field.  We also needed to clear a pad where the house would be built.   The problem was when we started to cut into the hill where we wanted to place the house, a “small” rock began to poke its head out.  As we dug the rock became bigger and bigger until we estimated that it occupied about one third of the volume of the house.  And so we had to blast.

Blasting

We were fortunate that we found Rick who ran a local blasting company that boasted they could “make the earth move for you.”  This was an unplanned expense, but luckily for us Rick was a train enthusiast so he gave us a break.  Rick learned his blasting skills while working on the Eisenhower Tunnel and then again as a demolitions’ expert in Viet Nam.  We had to blast 5 times.  The part of the rock we had to get rid of was about 100 feet long, 50 feet wide and ranged in height of about 10 to 20 feet.

Electric Service

Getting electric service to the property (not the house) was a rather simple matter.  We had several electric poles on road adjacent to our property, so the local electric coop had a fairly easy job of placing a pole and wires on our property.  Later we ran wire from the pole to the house under the driveway.

Witching and Water

I like to think of myself as person oriented toward proven science.  However, why take any chances?  Hence, we contacted a local water well witcher and proceeded with voodoo.  What can I say.  It worked!  Even Sheila and I were given the rods and sure enough we all found water in the same place.

We started to hit water within 50 feet , but dug a well 320 feet to get increased output.  We get 2 ¼ gallons per minute which is fine for us.  Most of the drilling was through rock so the water is clean and particle free.

Septic

A septic system (at least here) is made up of a septic tank to hold and decay solid waste and a leach field to evaporate liquid waste.  Next to finding water, getting a good percolating leach field is most important.  We were lucky on both scores.

Footer and Pads

The footer is an engineered reinforced concrete ribbon on which the foundation and entire house rests.  Because of the size of our house footers and the foundation were not enough to support the house.  We also needed support columns holding up steel beams in the center of the house.  The pads are like footers except they are concrete “islands”  that are made to support the posts (columns).  We had slightly under 240 feet of footer.

Foundation

We used a substance called Greenblock for the foundation.  This is a like a giant piece of hollow Lego (approximately 39x10x9 inches).  They are made of two flat Styrofoam pieces connected by plastic support.  They are stacked like Lego and rebar (steel reinforcing rods) are place horizontally and vertically as determined by engineering.  The whole thing is assembled, concrete is poured in and bingo you have a foundation that also has a (30-50) R value (very high insulation factor).  It took Mike and me seven days to do the entire foundation including concrete.

Framing

Framing is the most time consuming part of building a house, but probably the most fun (at least for me.)  You get to literally watch the house grow.  This is also when carpentry skills and some engineering type knowledge are most important.  Thank you Mike!

Roof

Building the roof is really part of framing, but I put it in a class by itself.  Although we purchased the roof trussed pre-built (manufactured), it was still quite a chore getting them on and securing them.

· The smaller trusses

To get the 37 foot trusses onto the lower part of the house we carried each one to behind the house, tossed a rope over the house, attached the rope to my 4 Runner and dragged each truss over the back of the house and onto the roof.  Only broke one. (we had 2 extra).

· The larger trusses

To get the 48 foot trusses to the higher part of the house we used a crane and had 6 friends holding guide wires while we lifted each truss onto the roof.  Mike and I were on top securing each one as they were lowered into place.

· The wind

The wind was a big worry.  We were getting fairly constant and substantial winds from the west and were concerned that the trusses would topple before we could get the roof surface on, which would not be until the next day.  Mike, being fearless as he was, would climb on top of the trusses and place 2x4s for temporary added support.  Fortunately, they held.  Our concern for wind was well founded.  Mike was building a house sometime later and a gust of wind ripped off and splintered most of the trusses on that house.

Electric, Plumbing, HVAC (Forced air heating), Painting

We hired subcontractors to do this work.  Since I was a home owner building my own house, I could have done these things myself without a license (although I would have still been subject to inspection).  However, it was quicker and made more sense to have those more expert in these skill sets than either Mike or me do these jobs.  I did do all the phone and coax (TV) wiring myself – it was easy and I saved money.

Drywall

The house was a drywallers nightmare.  It was so big and high, it became a difficult job – especially the finishing process.  What made it worse was that this was the third large house in a row for these guys and all they wanted to do was finish and leave.  Unfortunately, that made for a less than perfect job.  But we live with it and no one notices the rough areas except us.

Exterior Surfaces

One major objective was to make the house as maintenance free as possible and to deal well in our environment.

· Walls

The exterior walls are vinyl siding.  Besides being inexpensive the siding requires no maintenance.  Wood surfaces, although pretty, require staining every couple of years - the sun’s ultraviolet rays takes its toll.  Stucco, also maintenance free is very expensive and can crack.  There is a concrete based siding that is maintenance free and fire resistant that would have been the best choice, but it is very costly.

· Roof

The roof is 26 gauge steel.  Besides being long lasting and fire resistant, it allows for the snow to slide off easily.  Additionally, the metal surface heats up promoting snow melting.  With that effort to help the snow slide off the roof we installed snow breaks to keep the snow from sliding off the roof over areas where people might be standing or walking.

· Decking and Steps

The decking and steps are stained redwood.  Unfortunately, there are a few sections that have to be stained every year.  The preferred alternative is a compound substance called Eco Deck.  However, when we were building, the company did not make the rail slats, so we would have had a combination of Echo Deck and redwood.  We may someday consider replacing the deck, steps surface and rails with this substance.  It is maintenance free.

Floor Surfaces

We have three types of floor surfaces:

· Concrete

The basement is a concrete slab and has been sealed and painted.  It cleans up well so we have no plans to cover it.

· Ceramic Tile

Ceramic tile is used in the kitchen, dining area, foyers, under the wood and gas burning stoves in the great room and master bedroom and in parts of the bathrooms.  Mike did all the tile work.

· Carpet

Carpet is used everywhere else.

Cabinets

Cabinets for the kitchen and bathrooms were no small issue.  They were all purchased from KraftMaid.  When delivered (in their boxes), they took up the entire great room and master bedroom.  The painter had to move scaffold around and almost over them to do his job.  Mike and I installed all the cabinets and amazingly everything lined up correctly.  When ordering cabinets that wrap three walls in the kitchen, you do not have a lot of margin for error.

Trim

Trim consists of all the door jambs (that space between rooms [two sides of the wall] made out of wood), door outer edges, floor molding, step railings, window sills and our long loft rail.  Sheila did most of the staining – a process which required 2 coats of stain and 2 coats of polyurethane.  Mike installed all the trim – you have to be very precise.

Doors

One also has to be very precise in hanging doors,  so Mike took charge of this as well.

· Interior

There are sixteen 36” hollow core doors, one 30” door, four pair of sliding closet doors and one steel fire door between the garage and the house.

· Exterior

There are three 36” steel insulated regular entry doors, one 36” sliding glass door and an 18 foot wide garage door.  The sliding glass and garage doors were installed by subcontractors.

Windows

The windows are dual pane and coated for ultraviolet protection.  There are 43 windows in the house.  They range in size from 2x3 to 5x7 feet.  The windows were installed by the supplier acting as a subcontractor.

Lightning Protection

The area where we live is the second highest lightning strike area in the country behind Florida.  Although not commonly done, we thought it wise to install lightning rods on the roof and chimney and run them to grounding rods.  This was done by a specialty subcontractor.

Radon Protection

This area has one of the highest Radon gas concentrations in the country.  We did not know before we finished the house if we had a problem (you cannot easily measure until a house is enclosed and sealed).  So I buried 6” perforated tubing on the inside of the basement circumference and vented it through the roof just in case.  After we were in the house for a while I purchased a couple of one time use measuring kits and found we were accumulating high concentrations of radon.  After that I purchased an electronic Radon measurement and monitoring device and started taking steps to mitigate the problem.  We sealed expansion cuts in the concrete floor in the basement and installed a fan in the pipe that ran from the basement through the roof.  The accepted normal is 4 or less particle per cubic liter.  Our Radon level dropped from 97 to 2 and remains constantly low.

Defensible Space

Perhaps worth mentioning is the concept of defensible space.  We knew in advance that living in the woods meant you had to be aware of the possibility of forest fire.  So we cleared trees, grasses, etc. around the house leaving on average 50 feet of decomposed granite that will not burn.  Later, during the Hayman Fire, it became obvious to us how important this was.