Sill Board Installation

Well section 1 is READY for LOGS!  This morning John and Lisa went out and put several types of insulation in place and put the sill boards down.  This section is now water tight in case of rain, which is a possibility in the forecast for the next 5 days.

The first step was putting down the foam sill insulation.  This insulation is 5.5 inches wide and we had to cut open a slot for it to fit around the all-thread rods. It didn't want to stay in place for anything, so finally we put down a thin bead of caulk to help hold it in place while we moved on to the next steps.








Secondly where the plywood subfloor and the block wall meet we had a small gap, so we lifted the sill insulation and we used low fill spray insulation (from a can) to fill in this gap. We are trying our best to make sure that there is no way for moisture to get down under the floor during construction, and hopefully this will all help keep drafts out of the picture.




Lastly we put down 2x8 sill boards which had to have holes drilled in them for the all-thread rod to come up through. By design there is a gap under the sill board that will eventually allow us to slide the finished flooring under the sill and the log, but until then we didn't want rain water to have a place to hide. After much discussion it was decided that we would buy cheap 1/2 inch foam pipe insulation and cut in it half lengthwise to form a gasket of sorts. We shoved it under the sill board and then put in a few nails to hold it down. This can all be pulled out much later when we are ready to install the hardwood flooring.

OK...now to finish sections 2 and 3 and let's get to the logs!

Section 1 Subfloor

While on our jobsite we refer to the different areas of the house by sections not by individual rooms.  We have 3 sections; Section 1 is the Great Room, Section 2 is the Kitchen/Dinning/and Office, Section 3 is John's Bedroom/Bathroom and the Laundry/Mechanical rooms. 

We also refer to each wall by a specific letter (A-L).  This may seem strange to some, but for us it cuts down on the confusion.

 

So in section 1 we now have the subfloor down, we used 3/4" plywood, and we screwed the sheets down to the joists.









 After all of the plywood was down we went back and put silicone caulk on all of the joints to help seal out any water. 




 Then to protect the plywood from moisture and undue wear and tear of us walking on it we painted the entire floor with outdoor latex paint.  Since our main objective is to keep water out and not decorating we went to our local hardware store and bought "woops paint" from them.  ("woops paint" is a paint that is mixed the wrong color) 

 It is a little difficult to see in the picture, but the floor in Section 1 is cream, dark grey and baby blue.

 Buying "woops paint" is fun, not only do you get a variety of colors but it is also half price.  As needed we will go back and repaint areas where the plywood shows wear.  Just make sure that it is outdoor paint so that it will withstand the rain and dirt better.

As you can see, John is having way too much fun finishing up the painting, he is using 2 rollers at the same time.

Now we have to repeat the plastic, rock, subfloor, caulking and painting in the other 2 sections.

Moisture Control

Here in Louisiana moisture control is VERY important.  Anyone who knows anything about log homes will tell you that moisture is not your friend. So we are doing everything that we can to control the amount of moisture under the house. 

We are painting the lower blocks with a rubberized coating to prevent moisture from coming in. Later on we will post about the French drain as we install it. We have to be cautious not to get the coating too high up on the wall, eventually we will be making and installing faux rock and it will not adhere to the waterproof coating.

Our prints call for 6mil plastic to be put down under the house as a vapor barrier, we decided to take it one step further and put a thin layer of   washed smooth rocks on top of the plastic, this will help keep the plastic in place and also provide a layer of natural insulation.

Now let's get that subfloor down to keep water off of the rocks.

More Beams and Joists

 Getting the main beam under the center of the house took a little extra engineering on our part.  As before our engineered prints said that we should be nailing 2x4's together to make these beams; but since we have a sawmill we have decided to make these beams out of solid log.  The entire span of the center area is 46 feet, and the prints call for 2 different size beams. Each end of the main beam is 4 inches wide and 1 foot thick.  The center section of the beam is 8 inches wide by 1 foot thick.  If we were making this beam with 2x4's nailed together it would be easy enough to just add the extra boards where they were needed.

 However, buy using solid beams we had to get creative with how we jointed them together.  We finally decided that we were going to use the chainsaw to cut out a groove that would fit the smaller beam into the larger one.  For extra reinforcement we drilled holes through in 2 places and put 3/4" all thread rod through and bolted it down.  You will also note in the picture that we had our friends at Caddo Sheet Metal make us a cap for the concrete block piers so that our beams are not sitting directly on the concrete.






Once the beams were in place we started installing the remaining floor joists. 



This brings us one step closer to putting down that first log.