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  • From: Gene GeRue <genegerue AT ruralize.com>
  • To: <homestead AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [Homestead] Solo building methods
  • Date: Sun, 03 Dec 2006 18:04:45 -0700


Concrete work can easily be done a little at a time with one man.

Absolutely. Although better with one woman, one man. The floor of our shed, about sixteen by twenty, has a concrete floor made in four by four sections. Chris mixed the concrete, I poured it onto tamped and soaked gravel base, screeded and then finished it. One square at a time. It was later backed onto by the concrete block delivery truck. Not one single crack. Twenty years later, still no cracks. TVO, dammit, you hear me?, concrete does NOT have to crack!

By stick-built walls you don't mean one stud at a time, do you?

No, I mean it as putting a wall together on the slab or deck, one stick at a time, then lifting the frame.

Up here they've been 2x6s for a couple decades.

For space that will be conditioned I would always use at least two by sixes. By the way, I have recently been working my way through my old Fine Homebuilding magazines and reread the article by Canadian engineer Joe Lstiburek, the guy who is given credit for air-tight design, and in that article he shows how studs on twenty-four inch spacing plus using a single top plate and single header over doors and windows is sound construction and saves money and time.

Installing said sheathing afterward isn't bad at ground level but on ladders or scaffolding can be a pain in more places than your butt.

Yeah, for solo building lower is far safer and easier. For my next project after the metal shop building I will likely use an Amish crew to frame and sheath the level above the wood shop below. Did I mention that I don't do well with heights? Falling is how I died last time and I have still not worked my way through it.

Roof trusses aren't all that heavy . . . Oh, maybe we have a crane also? Or a backhoe! that's it, we have a backhoe don't we Gene?:)

The backhoe makes me feel like Superbuilder. I haven't used it so far for serious lifting but it won't be long.

Same with drywall, pain in the butt for one man without a jack, especially ceilings.

I sheetrocked one house. It was my first and last.





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