Ben’s Garage: Winter Solar Access

December 14, 2016

The rough shell of the garage is now up! We got the roof boards and felt on just before the first major winter storm of the season. Since then, a cold front has moved through. While that DOES drop the temperature (single digits F. right now,) it also means CLEAR skies! It’s cold, but sunny! […]

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Ben’s Garage: Raise the Roof!

December 10, 2016

Today, we put the roof on the garage! Planning was interesting, because the big weather forecast was for a large snowstorm to be coming in. Fortunately, it shouldn’t start until near the end of the day. We weather was cold but clear as we got started – about 15 degrees F., but sunny. The first […]

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Raising the Trusses!

December 3, 2016

This past Saturday, we got the Trusses up. I was a little concerned about this. Each truss weighs over 200 pounds and is 31 feet long. We would need more than just my brother, my Dad, and I to do the job of lifting the trusses onto the roof, setting them in the proper place, […]

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Putting up the Beam

December 2, 2016

The next big step would be install a header across the south side of the garage. This wall is almost nothing but doors. In fact, there’s so little there to hold up the roof that we needed a structurally engineered beam to span the entire south side! This was done with a “micro-lam” beam. Essentially, […]

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Ben’s Garage: Wall Day

November 25, 2016

While other folks were out buying their Christmas gifts at the Black Friday sales, we were busy building walls for the garage! What’s it take to build a few walls? For starters, a crew. My Dad, Jim, and my brother, Wayne, came out today to build walls. Of course, the two of them are pretty […]

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Remote Defrost

November 20, 2016

Winter hit yesterday. It was a huge overnight temperature drop, and we got a little snow. That’s OK, because it’s a great opportunity for me to show of one of my favorite features on the car, REMOTE DEFROST and PRE-HEAT! Nearly every plug-in car has some sort of similar feature. A car owner can pre-heat […]

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Trusses Delivered

November 17, 2016

While I wasn’t expecting it yet, the engineered trusses that will make up the attic and roof showed up today! These trusses are HUGE! They will run north and south. The garage is 29 feet in that dimension, plus a one foot roof overhang on either side. That makes these 31 feet long each. I […]

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Pouring the Slab

November 15, 2016

The Slab got poured! Unfortunately, I wasn’t there to see it happen. Luckily, my wife would be home, and I asked her to take some photos. I left for work first thing in the morning (still dark outside) and wouldn’t be back until again after dark. In the mean time, the masons would be hard […]

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Installing the Pex

November 14, 2016

Well, this was it, the big weekend – installing the Pex tubing to create a hydronic heating system for the garage BEFORE the concrete gets poured. Last week, the mason plowed through the work of trenching, laying the block for the stem-wall, pouring and packing gravel, and then laying down the vapor barrier and foam […]

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Garage Update; Nov 9 2016

November 9, 2016

Been working hard lately! Whew, time for an update on the garage! In the time since tearing down the garage, the next step was to get the ugly old maple tree out of there. It’s EXACTLY where the new corner of the larger garage will go, so it needed to come out roots and all! […]

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