Building a new house and shop (1 Viewer)

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Grinding the little ridges of concrete from the form seams on the walls and domes this morning. Dusty, dirty, nasty work but it will make skimming the concrete much faster/easier.
 
Great video, thanks for sharing! Embarrassing, i can't tape an envelope this quickly!
 
Several companies make really good grinder shrouds for various size grinders.
We have 4.5 and a 7 inch shrouds for our grinders. The smaller grinder has variable speed. Very helpful.
Using a Rigid vacuum with the shrouds which makes concrete grinding almost dustless.
We use diamond discs as they last longer and work faster. Really small stuff we use a stone.
Take care and wear a proper respirator.
Good luck..
 
Several companies make really good grinder shrouds for various size grinders.
We have 4.5 and a 7 inch shrouds for our grinders. The smaller grinder has variable speed. Very helpful.
Using a Rigid vacuum with the shrouds which makes concrete grinding almost dustless.
We use diamond discs as they last longer and work faster. Really small stuff we use a stone.
Take care and wear a proper respirator.
Good luck..

Yes to all of the above; using a Makita angle grinder with a dust/vacuum shroud, a diamond concrete cup blade, and a shop vac. I have to leave the tip of the dust shroud off, to be able to grind all the way to the top and bottom edges of the wall seams, so this leaves some dust un-vacuumed. I do wear a good respirator and safety goggles.
Thanks!
 
First interior wall built yesterday, the main circuit panel set, and the first light hung in one of the domes. Also got all of the interior wall placements chalked out and a few changes made. Waiting on delivery of plaster materials this morning.

power in the house.jpg
 
Don't forget to isolate the equipment ground wire from the neutral. They cannot share the same buss, the neutral should be isolated from the can. Looks like they are not separated from the pic. If you don't separate, all exposed metal in the building could be energized (carry current) presenting a shock/fire hazard. Not sure if you are doing a double deep wall there or not, those cables must be in a raceway into the panel, they cannot be individually routed as shown (not sure if they are temporary or not).

You can also flip the panel so the breaker is on the bottom (nothing in the NEC or IRC mandates the main to be on top, it just has to be labeled). This will make it easier for terminating all the conductors.
 
Don't forget to isolate the equipment ground wire from the neutral. They cannot share the same buss, the neutral should be isolated from the can. Looks like they are not separated from the pic. If you don't separate, all exposed metal in the building could be energized (carry current) presenting a shock/fire hazard. Not sure if you are doing a double deep wall there or not, those cables must be in a raceway into the panel, they cannot be individually routed as shown (not sure if they are temporary or not).

You can also flip the panel so the breaker is on the bottom (nothing in the NEC or IRC mandates the main to be on top, it just has to be labeled). This will make it easier for terminating all the conductors.

It is a double wall. Thanks for the tips and advice.
 
That does look like a tricky one- To transition all those conduits into the breaker box. Can you run all the conduits into a gutter or duct and then pipe a couple 2"-3" conduits into the bottom of the breaker box?
 
That does look like a tricky one- To transition all those conduits into the breaker box. Can you run all the conduits into a gutter or duct and then pipe a couple 2"-3" conduits into the bottom of the breaker box?

A possibility, yes. The contractor is doing some of that today; I have been unloading stuff and making Home Depot runs today (see below).
 
7,000 lbs. of acrylic-based plaster and portland cement delivered this morning:

Sto.jpg


It rained 3/4" here early this morning, and the ground around the house was muddy. The delivery truck barely got out. Home Depot delivery came later, and the driver would not come down our road from the gate to the house; left 1-1/2 pallets of cinder blocks in front of our dumpster by the gate. Had to move them all by hand onto a trailer and unload same down by the apartment/shop, since the garbage men come tomorrow morning.
 
The one drawback to where we live. I recommended guys delivering the cabinets last week Tuesday not to come due to the roads still being coated with sleet. We were nicely told they would be delivered Tuesday. Tuesday at noon I was called and they had slid off into the ditch with their enclosed 5th wheel trailer. Thankfully I anticipated this so I got chains out and drove the tractor a mile down road and pulled them up the next two small hills.

Still worth it though!
 
My caliche (crushed limestone) road in from the gate on the paved county road is in pretty good shape, but it's 1/2-mile long and has two fairly steep hills where you have to descend and cross creeks. Both have good earthen bridges across with big culverts underneath, but the hills can be daunting if you're not used to them. I always try to tell the dispatcher but that doesn't often carry through to the driver. One thing that gets them a lot of times is that I run my business from home, and they assume that because it's a business address then it must be in some paved industrial park or something. All the Amazon and UPS drivers know just to leave stuff inside the gate/fence.
 
One thing that gets them a lot of times is that I run my business from home, and they assume that because it's a business address then it must be in some paved industrial park or something.
For years I had the opposite. I'd try to explain that my business address was an office and the receptionist wasn't going to be much help to them. However, my home address had the Bobcat with pallet forks that would make unloading things much easier!
 
Skimming the interior of one of the domes today:

skimming 1.jpg


skimming 2.jpg


Also framing some interior walls in one of the dome modules that won't be skimmed (you won't see the dome because of flat ceilings over bathrooms and etc.).

framing.jpg
 
STO makes a great product which we have used since 1988.
Must be nice to get to this stage. Congrats.
 
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STO makes a great which we have used since 1988.
Must be nice to get to this stage. Congrats.

Thanks Rugy, it is good to be moving forward again. Starting to feel much more like a house now.

The STO is expensive but a very nice product.
 
Educate me: what’s STO?
 
Educate me: what’s STO?

Mark, STO is both a product and the company that makes it (and a bunch of other stuff). The product I am using is an acrylic-based material, that when mixed with Portland cement, makes a skimming plaster that readily adheres to concrete without primer, trowels on smoothly, has almost no shrinkage, makes a solid substrate for any other materials (stucco, drywall mud, etc.) and can be painted. It was invented in Germany by Wilhelm Stotmeister, from who's name the brand name was derived.

Sto Primer - Adhesive - Sto Corp. - https://www.stocorp.com/sto_products/sto-primeradhesive/
 

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