First sunset

Friday afternoon the four of us watched the sun set from our new family room. It's been quite a week!

The house is wonderful. Just about every aspect is better than I had expected: the house fits the site without looking too boxy (despite the lack of porches and trim), the rooms feel spacious but not grandiose, the shipping damage is minimal.

There's about two months of construction remaining, plus utility connections and landscaping. I'm confident we'll move in by June.

First look: kitchen

Entering the kitchen from the front, looking through to the back:



Panoramic view of south side, standing in front of sink:



Panoramic view of north side, standing in front of stove (not installed yet):

First look: family room

Here's a panoramic view of the family room. The rectangle at the near right will be an opening into the kitchen.

First look: living room

In the living room, at the front of the house, looking back through the dining room and family room, to the back yard. We didn't order that chandelier, it was just swinging in the breeze all the way from Pennsylvania.

Button it up on Friday

On Friday, the heavy lifting is complete, and the SetWright team finishes shingling the roof peak, and hemming the modules together inside and out.

Back view

Here's the house from the back. The left (north) side has the kitchen, with guest room above.

Last module down

The last module is set in place. Note our crane operator, one of the brothers from Pick Construction, in the cab. Since I've built robots and other computer-controlled motion systems, I knew that 2 or 3 axes of motion were being simultaneously controlled to create the crane's smooth motion path. Watching on Wednesday, I just assumed this motion control was done by computer. Not so. Paul was doing that by hand.

Electrical interconnection

When we left our heroes, they had dropped the main electrical panel into the basement, prewired with all the connections for module "B". Now they're feeding all the connections for module "D" down through "B" to the basement.

But there's a catch. The conduit through module "B" is obstructed halfway through. So here the SetWright foreman is trying to clear the obstruction, while the crane suspends the 10 tons of module "D" above him. No luck, so he cut a separate passage, and we'll route it properly later.

That conduit existed only to make his life easier.

South elevation with dogwood

 

This picture shows the south side of the house, just before final erection of the roof peak on Thursday.

In front of the center windows (the dining room) is a very special dogwood tree, which was given to us by my grandmother when we bought the house in 1991. All the nursery people we spoke with advised us against planting a real American dogwood (cornus florida), which have been failing in the Northeast due to anthracnose infections. They said we should plant the hardier Chinese (kouza) dogwood instead. But my grandmother always loved dogwoods, and I really wanted one, so we did it.

The first few years were indeed dicey: it never got anthracnose, but had bouts with scale and several cankers which I carefully removed. Over time it grew stronger, and has now been healthy for years. Taking out the large spruce that was obstructing it will also help.

My grandmother passed away a few years ago, but I think of her every time I see the beautiful tree she gave us. It's now perfectly situated with our new house, and I can't wait to see it bloom this spring.

(I think the holly bushes will have to move, though.)

New movies

I remade the movie of the first day (looks a little clearer now), and made a movie of the second day.

The setting phase is almost complete, we'll "take delivery" in an hour or so. I'm blogging from our neighbor's house (where the webcam is), since our internet connection seems to be having trouble with file uploads.

Joe Derba wins tractor pull!

The last module (upper north) was on a long 56' trailer, but only 12' wide. So we thought it would be easier than the first big one. Not so. Here's the truck trying to back it into our driveway.





And here's the problem...

We tried yesterday's trick: pulling the trailer sideways and back with the tractor chained to the hitch. No dice. The house is too heavy and stuck on the curb, and the truck doesn't have the traction it needs when there's no weight on its back wheels.




Next idea: use the crane to lift the back end of the house, lightening the load and lifting the wheels over the curb. Well, that just transferred more weight to the front skid, so it couldn't move at all.





Next we tried hooking Joe Derba's 4-wheeler and pulling with that, too. Seems like it might work, but in this attempt the two vehicles are working at cross purposes.








Finally, we get Derba's 4-wheeler and the truck pulling together, and the module skids off the curb, down the ramp, around the tree, and over the road into position. We backed it into the driveway, and were done with the hard part. Here's a quick movie of the operation (Windows format, about 4mb).

Repaired shipping damage

The lower south module was damaged Tuesday night, when the truck driver tried to go up Chestnut St and brushed the top corner on a tree branch. The two outer boards were cracked and tipped in a bit, like so:







Derba's team cut out the damaged parts and replaced them Thursday morning, with the new 2x12 you see along the whole middle of the house.

Module setting movie, take 1

Over in the links to the right, you'll find a 3-minute time-lapse movie of the day we set the first two modules. It's a bit rough, and the first minute is a bit boring...

The movie's in a Windows-only format, sorry. I'll try to make a better quality one in a more ubiquitous format.

Two down, two to go

The first two modules are set, and fit on the foundation within about 1/4", maybe 1/2" in a couple spots, well within tolerance once the sheathing and clapboards are applied.

Project was slowed today, there's some shipping damage to the top of the southern module (left-hand in this picture), which must be repaired early tomorrow morning before the third module can be set on top of it. We've had the expected difficulties getting the modules into our driveway, but the module transport has been much smoother today, the crane operation (by Pick Construction) has been seamless, and the setting crew (SetWright, engaged by the house manufacturer but actually an independent out of Maine) has been great.

We'll get the other two set on Thursday, and hope to get the roof erected before the (light) snow that's forecast.

Great day for Up!

The first module is up and away. This is the lower south, with the living/dining/family rooms. Also the biggest one with the longest trailer.

Don't try this at home

Two of the modules are on 56' trailers, which are tough to back into a 12' driveway from a 34' street. So the technique involves decoupling the truck, driving around the block, reconnecting it via a 12' chain, and skidding it around the last 25 degrees past that tree on the right. Then the truck can go up our neighbor's driveway, reconnect normally, and back down our driveway.

Electrical panel installed

The electrical panel is all wired, here the SetWright guys untie it from its shipping position and drop it into the basement while the crane holds the module aloft.

Stairway to heaven

The view from the front door. Watch your step.


















The side door needs some work, too. Who's there?

Sneek peek at kitchen

Here's the north wall of our new kitchen, viewed through the interior wall just before the module was set into place.

Big trucks

All four modules arrived and are parked overnight at the Braeburn Country Club. There was some undue excitement getting them there, since they arrived at rush hour, delayed by a flat tire on route 9, with mistaken instructions to use Chestnut Street which is off-limits to trucks never mind houses. But after a couple hours idle time on Allen Ave they were escorted up to Braeburn, and we'll be ready to go at 9am tomorrow.

The kids saw the parade go by on Fuller St while coming home from karate class, and are getting very excited.

Oh, this is one of the small ones, by the way. The upper north, I believe. The big ones look large even on Allen Ave.

Wednesday's the day

Trucks carrying the four modules of our house will leave Pennsylvania at the crack of dawn Tuesday morning, arrive here late afternoon, then be lifted into place on Wednesday. An 80-ton crane will show up tomorrow evening to be in place in our front yard for the next morning. The roof will be erected on Thursday.

So, with a bit of luck and a lot of work, by Friday we'll have a house. A bit unfinished, perhaps, but a house nonetheless.

Pit stop :-)

On Tuesday, a neighbor observed a truck driving down our street. It slowed by our nascent house, as many do, then stopped. A man got out, went in the porta-potty, got back in his truck and drove away.

Another weather delay

There's some weather headed our way, with a good chance of snow/sleet on Wednesday, and almost definitely high winds on Wednesday-Friday. So we've postponed the module delivery again. Try again next week once we see the forecasts.

Derba Construction

Our general contractor is Derba Construction, of Walpole, led by Joe Derba. They've done a great job coordinating the demolition and foundation, and now have a brief respite before the modules show up.

Overdesigned drainage system

Here's the monster drain for the roof, required by Newton. By my calculations, we can drain 6" of rain per hour. That's 20X worse than the 100-year storm rating in the Northeast (6" per day). Pretty ridiculous.

Modules rescheduled for Thursday

We've rescheduled the module placement for Thursday, Feb 15. Same plan: transport modules from Pennsylvania on Wed, lift and bolt them in place on Thurs, erect the roof on Fri. The foundation is complete and Derba has nothing to do until then.

Basement with a view

The concrete strip down the middle will be the footing for some steel columns to hold up the center of the house, at the module boundaries.

The slab for the basement floor will be poured later, after the modules are placed.

Too cold, postponed delivery

We've postponed delivery until next week. The setting crew (SetWright) says the hydraulic tool (*) they use on the fasteners that connect the modules is not tolerant of this cold.

There's plenty of other work to do in the meantime, and we can look for a better site to stage the modules.

(*) We were wondering what this hydraulic tool could be. Some sort of impact wrench, perhaps? Finally decided it was called "Joe", the hydraulic tool that doesn't like the cold.

Ready for backfill

Foundation is ready to be backfilled Monday morning. The white pipes are the drains for the roof - Newton requires any new house to be able to drain a rainstorm of 6" per day without flow into adjacent properties. Not really a problem through our sandy soil.

After backfill Derba will build the kneewalls (wooden parts of the foundation) on Tuesday, then kick back for a couple days while the crane operator and setting crew place the modules.

Delivery on Wednesday

House modules are scheduled to be set on Wednesday (yes, Feb 7). One will arrive in our driveway Tuesday afternoon, to be lifted first thing Wed. We're looking for places to stage the arrival of the other three.

Derba is scrambling to get the foundation backfilled and ready, but all looks good.

New toy - Panoramic photos

I bought a new software product called Panorama Plus that automatically stitches multiple overlapping photographs into a panorama. It's based on technology from University of British Columbia, and completely automatic: you just give it a set of pictures and it does the rest.

Foundation poured

Foundation was poured today. Looks straight and square to me, we'll see when they take the forms out tomorrow.

Footings done

The footing for the new foundation was poured on Monday. Our neighbors have graciously let us use their driveway for the forms crane and concrete pump, which is shown above. Yes, you can pump concrete, great distances in fact. The blue crane above is pumping concrete into the footing forms, and is controlled remotely by the fellow in a white shirt with the wireless orange control box on his belt.

In addition to the artifacts I mentioned before, we placed the key to the front door of the old house under the footing for the front door of the new house.

1-888-CURE-ALS

Our concrete supplier is a supporter of the ALS Association. As many of you know, our friend Stephen Heywood, inspiration and co-founder of the ALS Therapy Development Foundation, passed away this Thanksgiving. Please support their search for a cure.