Building a Custom Home

I'm going to contact dealers and select one for the central vacuum. This week I'm taking my final exam for MCSD. I hope I pass. Then I'll be able to concentrate fully on the house. I plan to lay out all of my low-voltage wiring runs and determine how much wire I need to purchase.

Still waiting to contact central vacuum dealers. I had to take an extra week to study for the exam again but I finally passed but I'm all done with studying. I'm devoting all of my time to the house.

The dirt is still piled in mounds on the lot. We picked up lots of trash on the site today.

• Note the location of the clean-out outlets in your sewer pipe. Otherwise you get whatever the plumber feels like plumbing.
• Be sure to get covers over the shut-off valve to the main water inlet and the water meter.
• Walk the plumbing yourself.

All of that dirt was what the concrete people used to level out the area and shore up the forms. They used probably 2/3rds of it. The rest will be spread out to smooth out the driveway to the garage and maybe some of the front steps. Monday is supposed to be the day now.

Trucks are heavy. They left deep ruts coming across the land delivering and pouring next to the foundation. One burst its hydraulic hose that controls the spout. They had to dump it and pull it around by hand. Which led to an observation: None of the concrete workers were fat. All lean and wiry.

The first truck arrived at 8:45. The last one left about 5:45. The workers left around 8:00 that night. Longs days I don't envy.

• Follow the carpenter's rule: Measure twice. Make sure the forms are square and properly sized before the day of pouring.

The dirt guy delivered the base for the driveway. It should be mostly in and ready to let the rest of the workers get up to the house without getting all muddy.

Projected completion is 5 months. Let's see .... That would be May of 1999. Looks like I'll have to pay for the storage locker again.

Brick molds, jamb wood, different types of mahogany.  Be sure to talk to your builder to see that you get what's needed.  We're not having any side lights so our door selection was easier, in my opinion.  We're having it pre-hung and double-bored by the manufacture.   It should be easier to install that way.  It also comes with a "throw away" door to use during the construction period.

I got the sales pitch for HomeSeal.  Basically it's like making the exterior walls and the attic a Styrofoam cooler.  It's a spray-on product that expands 120:1 that's supposed to drastically reduce drafts (eliminate is the claim), help to sound proof the house and add rigidity to the walls (although how is beyond me).  They also spray it on the bath tubs to help them retain a warm bath.  And on all of the cooling ducts and vents to seal any air leaks.  It looks like a pretty good idea and it may even help pay for itself in lower utility bills.

• Turn the water off at the meter during freezing weather construction periods.
• Insulate the copper piping exposed above the slab.
• Have a meter wrench (or a large crescent wrench) or a valve installed that lets you easily turn off the water.

The front door has been ordered and should be on the way in. I'll be staining and finishing it when it's available.

The first casualty of the design is the window in the utility room. It seems the stairs don't get up high enough soon enough to completely clear it.

The decking for the roof has also been delivered. And I had to get some money from the bank. It's finally debt time. We need to pick out the vinyl siding color for the small areas that won't be bricked so it can be ordered. And they're supposed to be installing the windows. If we can get the plumbing fixed, we'll be in good shape.

I'm taking tomorrow off to get bids on central vacuum systems, looking for wiring deals and determining how many J-boxes I'll need for my low-voltage wiring needs.

The plumber has been back and installed all of the exhaust tubing (for noxious odors :) through the roof. He was kind enough to leave a little rubber boot for each one as it's roofed over.

The HVAC guys have installed the attic units, three of them in all. All of the pluming lines for that have been pushed through to where the outside condensor units will set. They framed out the return air ducts for the units. The ceiling vents have mostly been placed and are just waiting to be connected to the ducting.

Shingles have been delivered. They're darker than I would have liked but I'm not going to fuss about them.

The roof has the black felt paper covering it and has the Tyvek house wrap all around. It's now considered "dried in."

Anyway, we discuss the wiring stuff I have for the house. I don't have any additions except adding some stairway landing lights. I ask to omit some lights that we don't think we'll use over the hutch area. And I moved to dining room light switches to the kitchen. They otherwise would have been behind the doors all the time and hard to get to.

The HVAC guys come to finish up their stuff for the rest of the house. It seems to have taken them some time to get all of the ducting, vents and return air stuff working.

The plumber is there and I make sure he knows about the two hot water outlets to the one tub. He said he fixed it weeks ago when he first heard about it. We'll see. He also runs the LP gas line inside the house. I told him about the gas cooktop and the moved oven location. Be sure to get one for the dryer, even though we don't need it right now. And I'm having a stubout for a gas grill. Should be nice when we get around to it.

And I think the roofers showed up to finish their job.

The electrician has been busy. Whoever cleaned up, cleaned inside the house, too. We can walk around almost carefree now.

The builder is trying to find an inexpensive window for the utility room. It will need to be octagonal and he's trying to avoid getting something wood framed. Hope he's able to do that before they brick!

I started out by marking each inlet location in the top plate so I would know where to drill the tubing holes. The dealer where I purchased my Vacuflo 560 was generous enough to loan me a Milwaukee right-angle drill and a 2 9/16" wood boring bit. This worked out well except that the bit was a little dull. This made drilling quite slow. I ended up using my drill bit that was shiny and new. It was smaller but large enough that I could fit the pipe through the opening.

After a couple of holes, I ran into one where the right-angle drill wouldn't let me reach the spot. So I got out my trusty DeWalt 14.4V cordless drill and went to town on it. Drilling the holes went much quicker after that since I didn't have to worry about dragging the electrical extension cord around. In all, I drilled 10 holes. The battery pack was good for about 6 holes so it's good I had both of them charged before I started.

Once everything was drilled, I started in the upstairs location and dropped some PVC through to the garage. This inlet tub aligned almost perfectly with the inlet in the garage so I joined these two tubes and ran them to the power unit location. I used some steel plumbers tape to secure the tubing to the trusses in the garage. I suspended the tubing below the floor but above the garage ceiling to help avoid any nail hits.

From there, I made a rough layout of the "main" run where everything branched into. Then, I worked from the farthest end toward the unit. In all, it took about two days to run all of the PVC.

For the switch wiring, I used 20 ga. 2-wire thermostat wire to each inlet. I drilled a 5/16" hole near each tubing location and threaded the switch wire through it and attached it to the tubing. I used electrical tape and some clips made from left over PVC to fasten the wire along the tubing. And each spliced I made sure to loop the wire around both ends to avoid any possible pulling of the wires.

This was a fairly easy, if tedious task. Tools required are a hacksaw, wire cutters, powerful drill, ladders, extension cords, screwdrivers and large, sharp bits. A 2 9/16" bit is plenty large for the 2" vacuum tubing.

PVC is easy to work with. I used my gloves to de-burr the sawed ends of it. It seemed to work well. Be sure to get and read the installation instructions for the unit. Layout the runs in advance and be sure that every tube that joins the main does so either by dropping into it or by making a 45 degree level turn in the direction of the air flow. I made one mistake but was able to correct it by cutting the joint out, using an inline coupler and reversing it. After that, I was very careful to look before gluing.

I worked all day Saturday, Sunday morning and Monday to do this. Tommy helped me on Saturday and Sunday. I worked by myself on Monday.

I would probably run the wire at the same time as the tubing next time and it would have gone faster.

Since the electrician were still pulling wire, I did my security wiring first. The wire I used to each exterior door and window was cat-3 2-pair (4-wire) phone wire. I started with 2000 feet and used most of it. Basically, I put each room on a separate zone so when I install my security system, that's how it will be monitored.

Once we got all of the wire pulled to each location, we drilled holes for the magnetic sensors at all of the doors and windows. I spliced in the sensors to make completed electrical circuits and tested all of the with the magnets in place. Amazingly, they all worked.

I drilled holes in the steel trim of each window and smeared on some silicon caulk to affix the sensor to the window. It makes a nice clean installation. I used the short 3/8" stubby sensors so I wouldn't need such deep holes in my windows. Got 'em from HAS for about $4 each, a little pricey but got them when I needed them.

The other security wire I pulled was for motion sensors in the hall, bedrooms and some other places and some glass break detectors at strategic locations. All of this type of wire is for security applications so it should be easy to find it when I'm ready to hook it up. I labeled each end with a Sharpie. Every zone is home run to my wiring closet.

The closet has an opening to the attic that I cut about a 2 inch hole to pass all of the wires through. That was plenty big for about 25 wires of this size. This was a full day's work.

We finished up the security stuff and stapled all of the wires to the middle of the studs to keep them out of harms way (the drywallers). The brick people showed up to install the brick tabs before inspection. So they were all done poking holes from the outside. Hopefully, everything will work when I need it to later.

Since their still pulling wires, we located all of the J-boxes for phone, computer, TV and speakers. Then we drilled all of the holes through the plate so we'd be ready to drop wires. We finished this and knocked off early.

I had some trouble finding my RG6 cable. I ended up calling Belden to find a local RETAIL distributor. I found Interstate wire and Cable Co. in Dallas and they had all I wanted for $90/1000' spool. My calculations called for 3000' so I made my purchase. It turns out I forgot I was running 2 coax to each drop so this was only half of what I needed. See Saturday for what that meant.

I stopped by the home entertainment store and picked up two boxes of speaker wire. I got 500' each of 2-wire 14 gauge and 4-wire 14 gauge wire. I pulled the 4-wire to my volume control and to each of the living room speaker locations. I'm planning on either having 2 pair for each terminal or having a pair and a spare at each location there. I haven't made up my mind yet so I went for flexibility.

In the game room, I pulled the single pair to each location. I figure the kids may just have to put up with less fidelity (as if they would ever be able to tell).

Finally, I pulled a 4-wire to the eaves out near the patio for that party sound. In all, I used about 350' of the 2-wire and 460' of the 4-wire.

This day ended with a trip to Home Depot to order the bath tub that we're going to get. They were offering 10% off your first purchase if you opened up a charge account. We bit to save the bucks.

I snaked the wire bundles up over some of the rafters and suspended them using some of the ladder hooks fixed to the joists and rafters. This made it pretty easy to put cable ties around everything when I got done. The first 4000' of wire all ran out within a foot of each other. I guess Belden is pretty good measuring their stuff. The problem here is that I figured my length pretty closely but forgot I was pulling two of each wire to each location. So I ended up running out of wire by 12:30. All of the cable shops were closed. I had to go to Home Depot and pay nearly twice the price for 2000' of Carol RG6 cable. We came back on Sunday and finished up.

For anyone curious about wiring a security system, it's really pretty simple. In a pair of wires, I did my sensors like this cheesey text picture:

The great news is that the insulators arrived and began their job. This spray-on insulation is really cool. It's water-based and sprays on like a wet layer of water at 150 degrees F temperature. It dries nearly instantly and expands 120 times its "wet" size into an insulating layer that fills all gaps and nooks and crannies. Pretty neat stuff. It's sprayed on all of the exterior walls to form, in essence, an upside down styrofoam ice chest around the exterior of the house.

It's trimmed where it exceeds the depth of the studs. These left over pieces are chipped and right now are stored up in the attic. They will be added to the insulation in the attic at the appropriate time.

This stuff was sprayed around the tubs so a hot bath will stay hot longer. All of the pipes in the walls have this extra layer of insulation. And every HVAC outlet has it sprayed around so all of the air reaches the room. And every HVAC ducting joint is sprayed as well as the air units themselves. I won't be losing any air in the ducting.

It's a good thing all of the wiring is done, too, because there's no way a wire could be easily threaded through. This stuff looks like it will be a true barrier to air flow. And walking around the still incomplete house was noticeably quieter with the insulation.

The brickers came and bricked the garage, too. The part of the garage that was bricked is away from where all of the insulation was done. It's really looking like a house now.

We visited Sherwin Williams and got lots of "free" painting advice. We'll be ready to paint in about 2 weeks. Filling nail holes, sanding and priming the trim, 2 coats of enamel, masking everything else then priming the walls and 2 coats of paint over about 16,000 sq. ft. of wall and ceiling area. Tons-o-fun in my future.

The vanity for Patrice was too low so it's being rebuilt as we requested.

The dining room base board trim was installed without considering that we're having wood floors. It had to be removed and rehung.

We visited a tile dealer and Patrice picked out a nice mural to go over the gas cooktop and under the vent-a-hood. It looks nice. Also looks like I'll be putting up some vertical tile.

One door collision had to be solved. One bedroom had a door collision with the closet door. No matter how much we tried, we couldn't avoid this somehow. We made a compromise and settled for half doors on the closet. It's still a problem but less of one. We couldn't just reverse the bedroom door because that would have left the switch behind the door and impossible to use without closing the door. And the closet door has a pocket switch so moving it would be out of the question!

Now our only problem is the bathroom light switch is behind the door. It's going to be hard to use. I'll see if we can't get it moved.

In the kitchen, there's some kind of outlet or switch right where I want to hang the mural over the cooktop. That'll have to be moved too.

• Triple check all door swings for collisions.
• Quadruple check all switch placements so they're not hidden behind a door.

After lunch we spent several hours filling holes in the trim and cabinets. Every little bit ahead we can do makes our time off be that much more productive. Patrice brought home several drawers to stain as well.

Somewhere along the line, we also acquired a microwave oven and trash compactor. Our already-small apartment is now even more crowded. Also here are five ceiling fans, various borrowed tools, several drawers that are being stained, left over wiring supplies and more I'm afraid to list.

Patrice and I went ahead and stained the kitchen cabinets. This turned out to be a week-long job in itself for the two of us. We used one coat of natural stain, followed by 3 coats of clear polyurethane. It's truly amazing how big something becomes when you're going over it with a three-inch brush. We stained inside and out, one coat of urethane inside and 3 outside on everything. Even with all the cramps and strains, it's worth it to say we did it ourselves.

The painters swooped in and got nearly done in just 3 days. Now it's just the touch-up stuff left. The office door finally came and they promptly took it off so it wouldn't get painted.

In addition to cabinets, we did the stair way handrail, both mantles, the office door, the crown moulding in the kitchen, the pantry door and both door frames from the kitchen to adjoing rooms. It took 2 gallons of stain and more than 3 gallons of urethane.

In addition, we put spar varnish on the kitchen window sills.

The front door has been stained. The bricks leaked some of the concrete and mortar onto the brick mould and stained it. Sanding still left visible marks on it. After a coat of the natural stain, they were only more pronounced than before. So we asked the painters to put some darker stain on that. They swooped on that one too.

As far as painting, all that remains is 2 coats on the kitchen crown moulding and spar varnishing the front door. The spar varnish is slower drying so it's likely to take more than a week to get 3 coats on it.

While we were chased out of the house for the painters, we picked out some more ceiling fans. Lowe's had several last-year's model on clearance prices and we picked up some Harbor Breeze fans that were usually $50-$80 for $20-$30. There were such bargains that we went ahead and bought most of the fans for the house. Too bad they didn't have any all-weather fans for the porch.

We also delivered our mailbox and got the specs for installing it. No more than 18" from the pavement, bottom of box 42-48" high. We gave it to our bricklayer along with our tiled numerals to install. He fills the mailbox tower with bricks so if anyone ever hits it, their car will still be there to see who damaged it.

I'm picking up the central vacuum unit on Thursday.

I'll be hauling the wood planking to the house this weekend in preparation for installing it. I'm going to put down 9 mil plastic, treated 3/4" plywood, more plastic, roofing felt and my flooring in the office and dining room. That's the first project for next week. I'll be renting a nailer for that from Taylor rent-all. My dad is custom making the thresholds for all of the rooms.

Once I finish nailing, I'm going to trade for a wet saw and lay tile in the bathrooms, utility, around fireplaces, down the hall, in the kitchen and entry way, and some near the back door. Before that, I'll clean the floor with muriatic acid and get all of the gobs of gunk off so it'll be nice and level.

Somewhere in there, I'll be ordering tile, installing garage door openers and someone will be urethaning the crown molding and varnishing the front door. I also ordered a third Medeco double cylinder deadbolt lock. I already had two from my prior house so that saved me $300 for them.

I'm also nearing the end of the lease on my storage closet so every trip will be loading something from storage to garage.

The marble people have come and gone. Somehow they got the wrong measurement for the shower and the pan they brought is incorrect. So, one mess later, they'll be back in a week.

I spent the day looking out lights, picking out some more fans, some shopping and other odds and ends. Not really what I would have preferred but at least I made small progress. I installed a few vacuum inlets and started hanging one of the garage door openers. My dad showed up about 3:00 or so and ready to work. The subfloor should be here tomorrow.

The brickers finished everything up, including the mailbox. They'll be back tomorrow to take down scaffolding and carry everything off. The only thing left is that pile of sand.

The electricians came today and started wiring switches and outlets. They also hung the lights in the hall and some of the closets.

I was hoping to get 16 feet of floor laid but it didn't work out. We got about 8 feet laid (about 80 sq. ft.) the first day of work. My hand is tired from holding the mallet to strike the nailer and my arm from swinging it. Ow.

Despite our best efforts at counting, we're short some light fixtures. Another trip to Lowe's.

It's not quitting time so we went to the dining room and started laying it out. We got about the first 3 rows installed and ready to use the nailer.

Lunch today was at Home Depot to get concrete anchors and brass screws. This was how we secured the thresholds in place. The office took 3, 7 for the long door in the dining room and 3 to the kitchen. Drilling holes with a masonry bit, install the anchors, then insert the screws.

The electricians assembled and installed several fans today.

Somehow, I'm short several downrods for fans. Patrice is able to make an emergency visit to Lowe's and save me a 45 minute round trip to keep the electricians busy. We keep banging away. Almost all of the room is finished today.

Patrice and Holly join us. Now we officially have too much help. But we persevere and finish. The closets prove to be a challenge from a close quarters point of view. We ended up having to rip a 1 inch board to make it come out close enough for the trim to cover all of it. We ran the flooring under the buffet area 90 degrees to the rest of the room because it was easier to nail. It'll be covered so noone will ever notice.

The carpet guy came and measured for carpet (or was that yesterday?).

To celebrate finishing, we go to Tanner's catfish cafe. From there, we go to several places and pick out a front door light, towel rings and TP holders. We spent way too much.

My dad used some wood filler and filled in the long threshhold. It looks pretty neat. I deliver the microwave and trash compactor to the garage. We're getting some serious space back in our apartment now. Space that will soon be filled with packed boxes. I load up some left over pieces of wood for my day and say goodbye to him.

The decision has been made to have someone else do the tiling. I get the number of a good person from a church member.

I should have called the tile guy yesterday. It's going to be a week before they can get to me. Sigh.

It's a good thing I called the appliance people. They have totally botched my order. I get it straightened out before they actually order anything. But everything is back ordered. Sigh.

Surprisingly, this was on my slab checklist but I failed to verify that it was usable following the concrete drying. Don't make the same mistake when you do yours.

Today, they did the fireplaces, entry way, guest room bath and master bath. There are some "problem" spots near the threshhold to the dining room from the entry.

We hung shelves in the pantry following the obligatory two trips to Home Depot. Patrice put the final coat of stuff on the front door and Brandy and I installed lots more of the blank cover plates of the low voltage outlets.

The dishwasher, cooktop and disposal are delivered by the appliance company. Still on backorder: the LP conversion kit and vent-a-hood.

The tile guy installed the mosaic over the cooktop area. It looks mighty fine.

The backhoe dug a trench from the power pole to the house. Two feet wide, three feet deep, about 80 feet long. He also dug a huge hole for the propane tank to be buried in. (Music from Jaws begins.)

(Climax from Jaws theme)

The trench is full of water, 100%, all the way, totally. Except for the part where it caved in, that is. Same for the propane tank hole.

Snag two: The faucet for the Tub isn't high enough to clear the rim. Looks like yet another trip to Home Depot to pick out another spigot.

In the better part of a week, not much water has drained from either hole. This clay soil holds the water well. I rent a pump ($25/day) with a two-inch hose. One pair shoes and a couple of hours later, the water is on its merry way downhill again and the trench is basically empty of water. Now let's just hope I get the power line buried before it rains again.

Here are some really good ideas for building your custom home:

• Talk with an interior designer. They may have some really good ideas about things you like or want. Easy to build in, more difficult to put in after construction is nearly complete.
• Talk with your builder. Take their advice. Be up front, but firm with what you want and flexible in other areas.
• Get it in writing. Dates, commitments, you name it. And don't pay until you're happy with the end product. It's your money and you have to live with it.
• Don't over-estimate how much work you can do (like wood floors for example) and don't over-estimate your skill. If I could do it all over again, I would hire all of the work I did myself and be much happier paying for it.
• Get top of the line HVAC units.
• I recommend this spray-on expanding foam insulation.
• Double check all electrical connections are in place for septic systems, outside lights etc., in your island, hot water heater closet and HVAC unit locations. Check this before the drywall goes up. If you have an island or floor plug, it needs to be checked before the slab is poured and after to make sure their conduit didn't collapse. Two might be a really good idea in this case.
• Drywall and trim shrink any openings you may have left for a china cupboard, buffet and/or hutch. Leave extra room in the blueprint for it. Measure during framing to make sure the opening is big enough for your furniture after the wall and trim are installed.
• Get a working model or a picture of what you want. If you can see it, touch it, feel it and you like it, that's good. If you think you know what it's going to look/feel like, it's not going to look like that.
• Get a can of spray paint after the electrician roughs in your outlets and switches. On the floor near each one, paint a symbol for wall switch, single/dual gang outlets, fixtures, any opening in the wall. After the dry wall goes up, make sure you have a hole in it for each of your marks on the floor.
• If you have nailed-down wood floor, be sure to leave 1/4 to 1/2 inch gap between the planks and the walls, all the way around. Otherwise, your floor will buckle when it absorbs moisture from the air. No matter how good it looks once you just finish installing it. And I would avoid the pre-finished stuff and just have it sanded. This stuff cups too much for my liking.
• Make sure the painter covers the floor in any areas where you will be laying tile.
• Install a central vacuum system. It's the absolute best decision I made concerning the house.
• Put some bar lights over the vanities in the bath room.
• Don't use these incandescant can lights as the only light in a room. When they get hot and click off, the room is dark.
• If you have a freezer, make sure the electrician knows where it will be plugged in and don't put it on a Ground Fault Circuit (GFI/GFCI).
• Try to get a sample of the exhaust fan you'll have in the bath room. If it's noisy in the showroom, it'll be noisy in your home.