We have quite a few trees on our property. Some of them were growing in the place we’d designated for our house, others blocking the southern exposure we needed for good passive solar and others were where we want our garden to be. I bought a chainsaw back in October and I’ve been putting it to good use, getting used to how it works and taking down trees as I could. I figured I’d get the hang of it on the small ones (4-10 inch diameter trunks) then work my way up to the big ones (30-36 inch diameter trunks)…

My parents were up in the area back in February and my Dad and I were out on the property working on dropping some trees and getting it more cleaned up. We decided to take on one that was bigger than I’d done before - probably 14″ diameter trunk. Well, getting it down involved:

1. chainsaw
2. a plastic wedge when the chainsaw got stuck
3. a hammer and stake when the wedge got stuck
4. a bow saw to finish the cut and free the chainsaw once we got the wedge out

And then, the tree didn’t fall all the way to the ground - it hung up in another tree.

See, when you’re standing on the ground, looking up at those trees, they don’t look that big. I mean, yeah, they look big, but you look up at it, you look at the space around you, and you think Yeah…this will fit, here, no problem. And then, it’s ever so much bigger than you thought…

After that episode, I figured that if I took the time necessary to work myself up to the big trees, we wouldn’t be building for another 5 years or so and it was time to get professional help. We know a contractor in the area and he’s got a lot contacts so I drove up on Friday to meet with some people about dropping the trees.

They were really great guys and agreed to drop them for a really good price. We’re talking more than 2 dozen trees most of them over 18″ diameter trunks and some over 100ft tall. They’d put them on the ground and limb (cut the branches off) and buck them (cut the trunk into chunks) and then I’d just have to clean up the slash ( limbs and trunks that they cut off - no small amount of work). Fortunately, they said that they could do it on Saturday so I got to watch and learn some tricks to felling.

Here we are, just taking a break and discussing the work.

They’ve already made the front cut and now are working on the back cut. Notice the diagonal on the very front bottom of (what will be) the stump? That’s to help it fall better and get a clean break.

Now they’re pounding in wedges to help control the tree’s fall and make it go where they want it to.

And over it goes.

It was truly remarkable how they did it. All these trees perfectly lined up with each other on the ground. They didn’t get moved this way after they were down, this is where they fell.

Once a tree is down, they walk up the tree with the saw to limb it. They’ve got this neat trick where the let the tip of the saw rest on trunk and just “walk” it up so that they don’t have to carry the saw.

Oh, and to drop all these trees and do all this work was about 3 hours. It would have taken me a whole lot longer.

Then we decided that maybe we could pay someone to do the structural drawings, but that I could do the sectionals and electrical drawings.

Now, given the paucity of time around here right now and our desire to start building this year, we’ve decided to work with professionals to get this all done.

I was up in Nevada City again over the weekend and I met with the fine folks at SHS. We went over all the plans that Amber and I have spent months developing and thinking through and they were very positive about the designs and how they’d work with SIPs. After talking with Amber, we signed a contract with them to take care of almost all of the drawings and work that is required to submit to the county including Title 24 Energy Calculations, engineering analysis, plans and sectionals plus a few sessions with their designer to get his input on our plans. The only other thing that will need to be done is the shop drawing, but that can’t happen till everything else is done.

I spoke with their designer Mel on the phone for about 40 minutes today, going over our plans and providing additional information on how we’re envisioning everything. I get the sense that the SIP people are impressed by how thought through and well-formed our plans are and I must say that it’s a very gratifying feeling. All along I’ve felt like we were doing a good job designing it, thinking through all the structural elements and how they’ll go together as well as the plumbing bits and how they can be centralized to make life easier.

I’m sure that Mel will have input on how to improve things and I’m really looking forward to what his input is.

While I was up there, I also put stakes in the ground at the approximate corners of the house and started trying to figure out what additional trees I want to take down to open up space for a garden and create good southern exposure for our passive solar hopes. All in all, everything is progressing well and there’s a good chance that we’ll have a permit and can begin building in May. Very exciting prospects.

Then, this week, I kindah sat back and looked at it and wondered why exactly I’d done it this way. Why exactly do we need a parallel support system on each floor, neither of which line up with the ridge pole? It all goes back to our original plan of building a timber frame structure and trying to keep that manageable. Since we’re not doing that anymore (we’re just going to have timber frame accents), I tweaked the frame a bit to make life easier.

We only had minor changes to the floor plan (rooms just changed dimensions a bit) and I decided that the laundry chute had to go (just too much work to keep it in), but it opened up the downstairs even more and I think it will help us better delineate the spaces.

I’ve created a new site to host our plans and ideas. The plans are interactive after a sort to highlight the areas, our intended use and other notable facts.

Check it out and let me know what you think.

I’ll be posting notes on the blog whenever there’s anything notable added/updated.

Posts
• 8″x8″x8′2″ (2)
• 8″x8″x22′ (1) - rises from floor to roof

First Floor Beams
• 8″x10″x19′ (1) - spans kitchen and dining space
• 8″x10″x10′ (1) - spans hearth room to stairs
• 8″x10″x15′4″ (1) - spans space after entryway
• 4″x10″x14′4″ (1) - parallel to above and supports upstairs walkway

Second Floor Joists
• 4″x8″x10′2″ (6)
• 4″x8″x11′ (7)
• 4″x8″x7′ (1)
• 4″x8″x3′ (3)
• 4″x10″x10′6″ (3)
• 4″x10″x11′4″ (1)
• 4″x10″x7′2″ (1)
• 2″x10″x11′4″ (9)
• 2″x10″x15′ (7)

Perlins
• 8″x10″x15′ (2)
• 8″x10″x11′ (1)

The schedule above assumes a cantilevered roof with no ridge pole and, if my initial math is correct, we can do the big lumber with common structural wood, not select structural.

I’m feeling very good about this process. I think that we’re definitely going in the right direction. It reminds me of a quote:

“Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.” -Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Not that I think we’re really going to achieve perfection, but we’re definitely getting better. We’re definitely working on simplifying our structural implementation:

• the original plan called for 20 posts on the first floor alone - the current one calls for 3 total (using interior walls as load bearing and longer beams in places)
• instead of putting in a finished floor downstairs, we’re just going to stain the slab
• by dropping a post in the kitchen and using a longer beam, we don’t have the same constraints on table and island position

We’re still keeping the same design goals (open floor plan, space for a family, simplified construction) but I think we’re making it better through an iterative process.

We’d been planning on buying a (hopefully used) trailer, living in it for whatever time we need to and then selling it. There’s a few downsides to this:

1. The trailers we’ve heard about are fairly expensive - granted we haven’t exhaustively researched it
2. The primary purpose of a trailer is to provide living space that can be easily moved from one place to another - we just need a shelter to sit in one place for a while
3. Trailers tend to be small - 2 adults, 2 children and 4 cats - you do the math

We’ve priced Yurts a little online and we can get a brand new 24′ diameter one for less than $8000 (Pacific Yurts Inc). That’s 450 square feet of living space plus, we can definitely re-purpose it for something else on the property if we decide to keep it. Yes, it’s still not all that big, but you’d need a 15′ x 30′ trailer to get to 450 sf and that just feels huge.

So, we’re still not sure what we’ll do but we’re definitely giving the yurt idea a close look and don’t anyone be too surprised if we end up in a round temporary shelter while we build our own “forever home”.

First Floor Posts
* 8″ x 8″ x 7′6″ (6)

First Floor Beams
* 8″ x 10″ x 11′ (1)
* 8″ x 10″ x 14′ (2)
* 8″ x 10″ x 9′ (1)
* 8″ x 10″ x 10′ (1)

Second Floor Joists
* 4″ x 8″ x 11′ (13)
* 4″ x 8″ x 7′ (2)
* 4″ x 8″ x 10′ (13)

Second Floor Posts
* 8″ x 8″ x 11′10″ (1)

Perlins
* 8″ x 10″ x 14′ (2)
* 8″ x 10″ x 10′ (1)
* 8″ x 10″ x 9′ (1)
* 8″ x 10″ x 6′ (1)