The boys have had a blast with their Tonka trucks in the sandy soil where I've altered the terrain for erosion control.



Our grandson Caden, with one of the million or so lizards that occupy our homestead. Haha. Caden caught this one over and over today. It even posed for a pic. Haha.



Fritz, our miniature Dachund crawls inside his pillow case to sleep. Funny as heck. He just goes off to bed when he wants to. We check to see if the "lump" is occupying his box as we close up.

I have a bunch of other pics. Maybe tomorrow I'll download them. Much easier then the phone/photobucket route.

Gary



Edited 4 time(s). Last edit at 11/14/2012 02:43PM by barnespneumatic.

very nice pitures

Hi Gary,

I'm glad to see you and your grandkids enjoying your new house. It's great to have a family meeting.

I hope that you all enjoy your weekend.

Julio

Thank you Julio,

I'm trying. I hope yours is good too.

I sure hope you didn't catch the cold or plague I've had. I felt better for several days before you came ... (felt I must be nearly over it) ... and then began feeling worse again afterwards. Since then, it's been a parade of chest/sinus/headaches. Seems this stuff never ends. Just drags you down thru shear duration - like a pack of hyeanas. So; beautiful day here - for a headache. haha. ouch.

I did force myself to visit the lake this morning. It was very pretty. Got a few pics. Have to load some later.

Gary

Remember when all it took to make you happy was a Tonka toy and some good dirt? That's the age to be, I tell you.

Of course, we've also got some nice wet dirt we've playing with this weekend. Unfortunately, it's what's left of the subfloor underneath the dishwasher and the kitchen cabinets. Maybe if I used a Tonka loader to scoop it up instead of a shovel it would be more fun.

Never had a Tonka toy. (Probably explains a lot

Now I have a Kubota. I find that to be theraputic to play in the dirt with.

Hi Gary,

Don't you worry there are no cold issues on our side. We are doing well. You certainly found a great property on an excellent location. If in the future you find yourself overwhelmed by the daily situations, a walk by the lake is the correct prescription to relieve the stress.

Julio

I think every man should have the opportunity to own a tractor, whether he had Tonka toys as a kid or not.

Perhaps not terribly convenient if you live in a Manhattan apartment, but still...

Thanks Julio,

I need to get to the lake more often. You know - there is a paralysis caused by long term stress. It's harder to go relax then to just keep beating my head on the list of things I need to complete. I "know" this .... but still fail to act upon it enough.

I just cannot WAIT until there is such a thing as a "normal routine" around here.

Until then ...

And maybe a few trips to the lake.

Gary

Hey Sean,
Some extra ceiling supports, knock out an outside wall, then get a backhoe in to scrape it all out & your 'Good To Go' ! hahaha

I'm with you Rick ...

Rip it out by the roots!!

With your weather producing nice balmy temps all winter .... can you even have a functing sump pump system up there Sean? Have you gotten to the stage where you just pour concrete?

GAry

Oddly enough, there isn't enough water to pump...at least, so far.

In fact, we don't even see damp spots on the concrete slab now that the wooden floor is gone. It's ugly, but so far it seems dry. Obviously it's been quite wet in the past, the compost we shoveled out was literally dripping wet and soaking. The plywood on top of that was damaged on the bottom, but mostly dry on the top. The laminate on top of that had been water damaged in the past, but it was almost all bone-dry even though some of it had fungal hyphae growing along the bottom.

While it's certainly possible that we just haven't seen the REALLY wet season, I'm currently thinking that the moisture problem is more like a seasonally damp slab with periods of heavier water infiltration through the concrete. With the old floor, that water had nowhere to go once it got in, and created a perfect environment for fungal growth down below the plywood. Time may prove me wrong, of course.

In any case, we're sticking to the bare slab until we figure out just how wet it gets and until we can correct some of the more egregious exterior drainage problems. We're still puzzling out what we can use for the new floor that won't just repeat the problem. Until we do that, the cabinets and such will be sitting up on pressure-treated blocking or scraps of pergo that's left over. It looks a bit...rustic...I suppose you could say.

Ok. This is just speculation. Could it be a "sweating" or "condensation" issue brought about by a warm interior space and cold ground? In this theory, the water doesn't leak in but it's condensed from the atmosphere. You'll follow along and see if it has merit.
So far at new flooring material .... how about a tile as that would have a similar density to concrete. Probably expand and contract with the concrete.
Now; you could put an electric mat in the thin-set below the tile. BUT here's a good idea. Consider a hot water tube grid under the floor. Multiple ways to do that too. Of course it can be plumbed in to the hot water furnace. HOWEVER: you can also use just a simple electric hot water heater as a source and a simple pump on a thermostat to circulate. IF you have height room ... another neat floor is brick laid dry and tight against each other. This sits on a sand base ( where the heat tubes are in the sand layer).
Wow .. Typed this on the phone and thought I lost it!!!
Hope there's a few good thoughts here. Gary

Just a footnote. I saw the brick floor over sand base with hot water tubes below - in Taos, New Mexico. Floor looked great. Clean. Guy used a hot water heater and simple pump. You don't need to work with high temps. This system also used the brick as a thermal mass to absorb sun throughout the day, then curtains were to be closed at night as the thermal mass gave back. I realize you don't have sun in Alaska- so thats out. But the rest is neat, in a hippie sort of prepper way.

Where else can you get threads like this!

and no politics thank you thank you thank you even though 1 of you tried and you know who you are !!!!that's why I like this website so much

Thanks
Kurt

The location makes it sound like a plumbing leak. Any other cause would show consistent intrusion throughout the house, no?

Lon

If it's dry now, it might be the perfect time to coat with that water barrier paint. The you could consider a sub floor with ventilation provisions to let condensate out. Or, that heat tube idea with brick or tile sounds great! A warm floor has GOT to be a comfortable thing!

Stop right here... Are we in the homebuilding forum? Gary you should add a word like pneumatic or air gun or MOA or FPE in your advice. We're loosing it...

Well SHOOT!

Ya need an AIR NAILER Sean if you do any woodworking.

If you need to drill a hole ... I'd suggest .308" diameter - you have a PNEUMATIC HOLE PUNCH in that size!

If water keeps leaking in ... I'd suggest you get a SCUBA tank.

I'd TARGET Christmas as a good final completion date for your kitchen floor.

ooooh, you're a funny one Mr. Barnes, you're slaying me with all these pneumatic puns

All good ideas, and we'd already discussed a brick floor since we have taken out about 2-3" of flooring height already. The in-floor heating is a distinct possibility, though the extremely wet ground around here makes it advisable to put some insulation below the heated layer due to the enormous themal mass of the earth below. Most people use an oil-fired boiler if they go the hydronic heating route, since they're made for continuous duty and it can take a very long time to heat the floor once the house cools down. They even make wood-pellet fired boilers, which are more economical to operate but not quite as dependable. Our current hot-water source is a propane-fired on-demand water heater, which is fine for intermittent use but specifically not intended for space heating according to the manual. We pay a lot for electricity here, so we probably won't go that round unless it's just in the bathroom. Nobody want's cold floors there.

Yesterday we discovered one of the major leak spots when a puddle appeared right under the front door landing. Our snow turned to rain and it melted off about four inches overnight so there was a lot of water on the surface. The area outside is covered by a deck, and although we can't directly see the ground I'm going to assume that the slope is wrong since it is everywhere else on the house. The perimeter foundation of this house was poured years before the slab went in, so it's certain that there isn't a good seal between those. We're going to have some pretty extensive excavating to do in the spring to get the exterior drainage fixed. The ground uphill from the house is so wet in spots right now that the sod is basically floating on quicksand. You actually see waves when you step on one spot, and the grass caves-in ankle-deep if you walk on it. A french drain is definitely in order, along with re-profiling the surrounding terrain to slope it away from the house.

Hmmm.....maybe I need a backhoe tractor of my own...

Sean ... I love ya Dude. But - you need to just blow up that house. There's no other way man. It's over. I'm sorry, wish I didn't have to be the one to tell you. This is an Intervention Sean. We are all here for you. WELL, ACTUALLY .... Kurt is sort of busy. And, Jerry had to take his new car for a ride. But - the rest of us .... WELL ... Neil was called in to his office ... and Rick is out mowing his 300 acres of meadow. But ... DUDE ... the rest of us are here for you. Just vacate and blow it up Sean. Live in your truck. The floor doesn't leak. And, if you keep moving around, you don't have to dig it out!



Gary

There you go, we're back on track.

Trust me...the thought has crossed my mind.

Thanks for the moral support (I think you could call it that) ...and all the previous advice.

For now, I guess I'll just have to keep on keeping on.

Spoken like a true homesteader!