Timber Frame Hybrid Home - Owner Builder

[dave1949]

The advantage of using pipe with a gasket is that it can contract and expand with the soil. A common reason for pipe failure is fatigue from movement in the ground. Black Poly pipe is one of the worse for this and in my part of the country, it's a full time24/7 job for several crews in the city to repair them.

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Eddie

I see. Makes sense.

Black poly is reliable here. We don't have your expansive soils and the soil temperature at the depth of the pipe (about 6' if you don't want a freeze up) is pretty stable year-round.

Thanks Eddie.

 

[jk96]

The advantage of using pipe with a gasket is that it can contract and expand with the soil. A common reason for pipe failure is fatigue from movement in the ground. Black Poly pipe is one of the worse for this and in my part of the country, it's a full time24/7 job for several crews in the city to repair them.

If the leak is happening right after it's been buried, the cause is probably from being able to move too much in a bend or curve. The fill is never as compact as the undisturbed soil and that allows the pipe to move more then it should. Sacks of concrete should be placed in the hole to keep the pipes in place until the soil compacts.

Did you use grease to slide the pipes together? Not using it can cause the gaskets to turn and result in a leak.

Before doing anything drastic like cutting the pipe, dig down at intervals and look for moisture in the trench. 14 gallons isn't very much and it will take awhile for it to surface, or it might never come to the surface. The bottom of the trench should hold enough water that you should be able to see it when you get to it. Of course, with rain, that wont work until everything is dried out.

How do you know you have a leak? I had an issue with a water district on a house that I was flipping that said I used 40,000 gallons of water in one month in an empty house with the water turned off at the house. I spoke to a guy at another water district and he said that if the water supply was surging, and it was an old meter, then water would go through the meter under pressure, then back when the pressure dropped. Every time the pressure increases, the meter reads it as water going through, but when the water pressure drops, the meter doesn't read it, resulting in thousands of gallons on the meter that I never used. In this case, they replaced the meter and added a backflow device. Problem solved.

How much water pressure is at your house? If it's too high, over 80 pounds, the water might be going through your toilet. Ideally, water pressure in a house should be around 60 pounds. If you go much higher then that, the valve in the toilet bowl will leak water through it. That water goes through the toilet and down the drain without you ever knowing it. You wont hear it or see it, but it's ongoing all the time. Usually this adds up to thousands of gallons a month. You need to measure the water pressure at the house. You can get a gauge in the sprinkler department of any home improvement store to that attaches to an outdoor spicket that will tell you how much pressure you have at the house. A house downhill from the supply will increase water pressure from gravity.

Good luck,
Eddie

Hey Eddie,

Our water right now just runs to a hose fitting and shutoff valve in the basement. No plumbing inside the house has been run yet. With the line pressurised and shut off at the house the meter continues to slowly run. At 14 gallons a day you have to check it after a few hours since you can't see it move with the naked eye.

Our water line is roughly 5,000 feet. We ran the first section of 3,500 feet a couple of years ago when we did the road work. The new 1,500 foot section was just ran and is the section in this thread. I know we have a leak because I removed a section of pipe where the old line meets new and attached a short piece of pipe with a shutoff valve. After shutting of the water at the valve the meter no longer showed a leak. This tells me that the first 3,500 feet of line is good.

Today I replaced that section of pipe and move half way to the house and did the same thing twice, cutting my possible leaky section to about 375 feet. I'll probably do this one more time tomorrow morning and should get me down to a section of less than 200 feet. From there I'll start digging with the excavator until I hit water or mud. If all goes as planned I should have a sound water line by tomorrow.

Jeremy

 

[jk96]

After a lot of digging our line is fixed and holding now. I ended up isolating the leak to a 200' section and then dug out and replaced this section. I ended up finding the leak with about 40' to go. It looked like either the arm of the trencher raised up a bit in this section or a lot of dirt caved in underneath the pipe when we dropped it in. Since the pipe wasn't laying flat at the connection it caused a bind and small leak at the gasket.

Edit - forgot to mention that we have an elevation rise from the meter of about 160 feet. I ran a pressure gauge this afternoon and we ended up with 46 psi at the house. Considering the elevation increase and friction loss of 5,000 feet of line I was pretty happy with that. Should be more than enough, especially given that our line up to the house is 2".

 

[EddieWalker]

Awesome job finding it. That can be extremely frustrating, especially if you never figure out exactly what the cause was for the leak.

When I put my line in, I forgot about how big a deal them made about making sure I had a flat bottom in the trench. The water district made me smooth it out before giving me to OK to install the pipe. That was so painful of an experience during the heat of summer that I must have blocked it from my memory!!

Eddie

 

[Kyle_in_Tex]

I think my contractor put a 1" layer of sand in the trench to smooth it out.

 

[LarryD]

When I ran 700' of waterline at my property, I piled dirt on the line about every 20' or so and then pressurized. The next day I walked it looking for wet spots.
Be sure to pressurize the lines in the house before covering them.

I sure do like the photo story you're providing.

 

[jk96]

When I ran 700' of waterline at my property, I piled dirt on the line about every 20' or so and then pressurized. The next day I walked it looking for wet spots.
Be sure to pressurize the lines in the house before covering them.

I sure do like the photo story you're providing.

Thanks Larry,

I've been slacking on pictures lately. We've had a lot going on and several things seem to be coming together at once which is good but also a bit hectic. Our septic has been installed, all I have is a poor cell phone pic below. My youngest boy who is 5 thought it was pretty cool to trace the path the toilets would take out to the field. All of the framing with the exception of the basement stairs is complete. Roofing is starting tomorrow along with doors and windows. One thing I didn't anticipate was the difficulty of picking colors for shingles.

Rough in for H-Vac should start this week and we have a better idea of plans for it now. We are using geo-thermal. The house will have two units, one in the garage and one on the north end of the home. We will have a total of 6 zones. After doing some research I also found out that our electric utility provides a $750 per ton rebate for geothermal. There is also a 30% federal tax credit for the cost of the system which will really help.

Steps on the front and back of the house should be poured this week. I'm hoping the patios will be poured by next week. We started roughing in electrical as well. I have a family member who is an electrician that is helping me with it. We dug and buried the conduit for the service run from the transformer to the house today and started hanging can lights as well as figuring out outlet and switch locations.

 

[EddieWalker]

Is this the line from the house to the tank? What size is it?

Are you going with asphalt shingles? You really get what you pay for with those, so the extra money for the better quality is money saved in the long run!!!

Eddie

 

[KRBrouwer]

Have you considered metal instead of shingles. I replaced our entire roof with metal and am very happy with it, especially how much cooler it makes the attic in the summer.

Ken

 

[jk96]

Is this the line from the house to the tank? What size is it?

Are you going with asphalt shingles? You really get what you pay for with those, so the extra money for the better quality is money saved in the long run!!!

Eddie

Yes, that is the waste line from the house to the septic. I didn't measure to be honest. I know it was pretty substantial and if I had to guess I would say it was a 5" line, however 5" is not real common so it is probably a 4" line. I do know it was sized based on our number of fixtures, showers, etc.

As far as the roof we are going with asphalt. We are using certainteed 50 year shingles.

Have you considered metal instead of shingles. I replaced our entire roof with metal and am very happy with it, especially how much cooler it makes the attic in the summer.

Ken

Ken I would have liked to do metal however it just wasn't in the budget. We've got a really difficult roof with 5 dormers, 4 porches or overhangs, and 4400 sq/ft. of total roof. Pitches are mostly 8/12 or 10/12. I think we have a total of 14 valleys. When time comes to replace our roof we will probably do metal at that time. Hopefully it will be long into the future.

Windows and doors showed up today. The crew was able to get about 1/2 of them installed today. I'll try to get some pics tomorrow at the end of the day.

 

[dave1949]

That's great to be getting the house closed in, staying ahead of the weather.

 

[jk96]

That's great to be getting the house closed in, staying ahead of the weather.

Yes it is. Our first major cold front hit today. It was 12 degrees at start time this morning but should be warming back up the rest of the week. Looks like a low of 40 by Friday. It actually wouldn't hurt my feelings if the cold stayed around a bit longer. The rifle portion of deer season opens here on Saturday. Even with all of the construction going on I've been seeing a lot of movement this last week.

 

[dave1949]

Yes it is. Our first major cold front hit today. It was 12 degrees at start time this morning but should be warming back up the rest of the week. Looks like a low of 40 by Friday. It actually wouldn't hurt my feelings if the cold stayed around a bit longer. The rifle portion of deer season opens here on Saturday. Even with all of the construction going on I've been seeing a lot of movement this last week.

LOL.

Yep, a hanging deer carcass is going to chill a lot better at 30* than 50*. Should make better meat.

Some years, with too warm temps, the moose hunters here have to really haul butt to get their moose from the middle of nowhere to a cooler before it starts turning.

 

[emanaresi]

I see you went with andersen windows and doors. We are having a really hard time making the decision. I would like to go with marvin windows and door, I do believe it is a better product, but I can save a lot of money going with andersen, or even eagle. Ugh, it is so difficult to make these decisions and try to keep the budget working. WE also are arguing about metal vs shinlges. I think metal will win out but it will take a big chunk out of our budget :-(

How long is your electric run from the xformer to the house?

 

[EddieWalker]

As a home remodeler and repair man, I find that valleys and flashing to be where I find leaks in the roof most of the time. Be sure the roofers use a quality membrane in the valleys, or metal. Another big shortcut I've come across is either using short nails or staples. Never allow them to use staples, and be sure the nails are long enough that the shaft of the nail goes all the way through the decking.


4 inch is good for the drain line. It looked a lot smaller in the picture. Did you add cleanouts to the line? I have them where my lines exits the house. One is angled to go back towards the house, the other is angled to go to the tank. With a 4 inch line, I've never needed to use the cleanouts, but they are cheap to put in and cheap insurance.

Eddie

 

[jk96]

I see you went with andersen windows and doors. We are having a really hard time making the decision. I would like to go with marvin windows and door, I do believe it is a better product, but I can save a lot of money going with andersen, or even eagle. Ugh, it is so difficult to make these decisions and try to keep the budget working. WE also are arguing about metal vs shinlges. I think metal will win out but it will take a big chunk out of our budget :-(

How long is your electric run from the xformer to the house?

Our choice was between Marvin and Anderson as well. We ended up with Anderson 400. The price difference between the Anderson 400 and Marvin was about $12,000. With that said Marvins were also alumininum outside vs vinyl for Anderson. Marvin also make an integrity line that is fiberglass that is probably a better comparison. I also have a friend who has Marvin double hung windows and hates them due to all the leaks. This along with price moved us to Anderson although his could have just been an install problem, as Marvin typically has a great reputation in our area.

Our run from the transformer to the house is about 80 feet.

As a home remodeler and repair man, I find that valleys and flashing to be where I find leaks in the roof most of the time. Be sure the roofers use a quality membrane in the valleys, or metal. Another big shortcut I've come across is either using short nails or staples. Never allow them to use staples, and be sure the nails are long enough that the shaft of the nail goes all the way through the decking.


4 inch is good for the drain line. It looked a lot smaller in the picture. Did you add cleanouts to the line? I have them where my lines exits the house. One is angled to go back towards the house, the other is angled to go to the tank. With a 4 inch line, I've never needed to use the cleanouts, but they are cheap to put in and cheap insurance.

Eddie

Eddie I verfied today that the waste line is 4". We have a 3" clean out next to the house going in the direction of the septic only. Our waste lines in the basement have cleanouts which will take care of the house to the exterior cleanout.

As far as roofing everything will get weather guard in place of felt. We used 5/8" sheathing. All valleys will be metal. Shingles will be nailed and the roofer did mention using longer nails on our project. I'm not sure exactly what length longer ment but I'll check. Here's a couple pics from their start today.

 

[Robert_in_NY]

Are they going to still run the shingles through the valley and either weave or closed cut the valleys? I do this all the time and never have a leak but we find leaks often with open valleys and metal being exposed to weather. I prefer the closed cut system but run one side up 18" and cut the other side a couple inches up from the valley. With water and ice guard on the bottom you don't even need metal with the weave or closed cut.

http://www.roofingissues.com/newsstories/shingle-valleys/

 

[jk96]

Not sure to be honest Robert. I'll have to find out but will mention your method.

Jeremy

 

[jk96]

The house is finally closed in with the exception of three window that were damaged in shipment and the double doors for the dining room. We've just covered them up for now. HVAC came in today and started measuring for duct work. The house is a little tricky due to being so open but I think we have everything worked out. Still waiting on my concrete guy for patios. Once that is done we can get started on the outside stonework. Here's a few updated pictures.

Front View




Back View




Side View




Front Entry




Living Room Fireplace




One More from Above




2nd Floor Hallway




View from the fireplace back to the entry

 

[forgeblast]

Wow! Just think after all the hard work You will get to live in there!!! That is going to be one awesome home.