Re: The Lone Beech Garage Build Thread (60x46)
Thursday - December 3, 2015
If the cat is nervous, things are happening on the building site.
Today the cat was freaking out all day as a lot was accomplished.
I think 3 loads of crushed rock were delivered to the building site.
There was the obligatory Skid-Steer engine repair.
Despite this generally being a pretty good day with quite a bit accomplished, there was a blip that we're still trying to make sure doesn't have pin action that will cause big problems with the various subs doing their work.
The plans have the total width of the building as 46'-11" but that includes 5-1/2" of space - on each side of the building for the brick. This means that measuring from outside foundation wall to outside foundation wall should be 46'. Today the Slab Sub pointed out that the measurement from outside of the north foundation wall to outside of the south foundation wall was 46'-11" instead of 46'.
Initially it was thought that this just meant starting the brick wainscoting on top of the foundation wall vs. on the footer. After some thought we started to realize that this error may have affected the location inside of walls of the plumbing that would be under the slab. Electrical conduit had not been put down yet so that wasn't an issue so far but that would be coming soon and would be referenced to some degree from the plumbing work. Of course there is also the trusses to consider.
One might normally not worry too much about the walls being off a few inches one way or the other due to the plumbing already being done. However, in this project, we have a couple of I-Beams that are already cut to a particular length. Moving the walls out a few inches would mean the I-Beams would be too short.
We did a lot of measuring and we think the walls are OK. Math in public is hard enough without being on a very active building site so I'm not entirely convinced that we're perfect. However, if we have to, the column supporting the Mezzanine I-Beam could protrude a bit into the Wood Shop and the I-Beam supporting the hoist could protrude a bit into the drive-through bay.
So how did this happen? This is a detail on the plans that is a little different. You have to look closely at the plan specification to not make this mistake. At first I thought, as I'm sure the Slab Sub did also since he pointed it out, that it was the result of an error by the Foundation Wall Sub. However, I've been thinking about this this evening and I think the Foundation Wall Sub could have caught the error when they - finally & somewhat hurriedly - poured the north foundation wall had they measured the distance between the walls. However, I'm pretty sure that instead of measuring themselves, they relied on the Slab Sub's batter board strings & boards which had just been placed the day before in anticipation that the Foundation Wall sub was still going to be AWOL. At this particular moment - and I need to run this past the builder to see if I'm missing something - I think the Sub Slab guys missed this and the Foundation Wall guys didn't check their work.
Now in aviation it is said, "When you find yourself in a spin, the question isn't 'How did I get into the spin?' but rather 'How do I get out of the spin?" I think we have determined how to get out of the spin so this analysis is just to make the subs aware of how this happened as a "Lesson Learned".
Again, I may find out that I'm missing a detail but I'm pretty sure that my thinking on this is correct.
Continued in the next post...
Thursday - December 3, 2015
If the cat is nervous, things are happening on the building site.
Today the cat was freaking out all day as a lot was accomplished.
I think 3 loads of crushed rock were delivered to the building site.
There was the obligatory Skid-Steer engine repair.
Despite this generally being a pretty good day with quite a bit accomplished, there was a blip that we're still trying to make sure doesn't have pin action that will cause big problems with the various subs doing their work.
The plans have the total width of the building as 46'-11" but that includes 5-1/2" of space - on each side of the building for the brick. This means that measuring from outside foundation wall to outside foundation wall should be 46'. Today the Slab Sub pointed out that the measurement from outside of the north foundation wall to outside of the south foundation wall was 46'-11" instead of 46'.
Initially it was thought that this just meant starting the brick wainscoting on top of the foundation wall vs. on the footer. After some thought we started to realize that this error may have affected the location inside of walls of the plumbing that would be under the slab. Electrical conduit had not been put down yet so that wasn't an issue so far but that would be coming soon and would be referenced to some degree from the plumbing work. Of course there is also the trusses to consider.
One might normally not worry too much about the walls being off a few inches one way or the other due to the plumbing already being done. However, in this project, we have a couple of I-Beams that are already cut to a particular length. Moving the walls out a few inches would mean the I-Beams would be too short.
We did a lot of measuring and we think the walls are OK. Math in public is hard enough without being on a very active building site so I'm not entirely convinced that we're perfect. However, if we have to, the column supporting the Mezzanine I-Beam could protrude a bit into the Wood Shop and the I-Beam supporting the hoist could protrude a bit into the drive-through bay.
So how did this happen? This is a detail on the plans that is a little different. You have to look closely at the plan specification to not make this mistake. At first I thought, as I'm sure the Slab Sub did also since he pointed it out, that it was the result of an error by the Foundation Wall Sub. However, I've been thinking about this this evening and I think the Foundation Wall Sub could have caught the error when they - finally & somewhat hurriedly - poured the north foundation wall had they measured the distance between the walls. However, I'm pretty sure that instead of measuring themselves, they relied on the Slab Sub's batter board strings & boards which had just been placed the day before in anticipation that the Foundation Wall sub was still going to be AWOL. At this particular moment - and I need to run this past the builder to see if I'm missing something - I think the Sub Slab guys missed this and the Foundation Wall guys didn't check their work.
Now in aviation it is said, "When you find yourself in a spin, the question isn't 'How did I get into the spin?' but rather 'How do I get out of the spin?" I think we have determined how to get out of the spin so this analysis is just to make the subs aware of how this happened as a "Lesson Learned".
Again, I may find out that I'm missing a detail but I'm pretty sure that my thinking on this is correct.
Continued in the next post...
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