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Anyway - chit chat over and back to the building !

With Darrell's considerable help I e-mailed various businesses both the pdf of my building plans and my " take off " of the materials required .
Whilst waiting for replies I worked on getting the services connected and the garage floor concreted . I had three lorry loads of " pit run " delivered by Ed's construction , the local quarry firm . I was away in Oak Harbor when they delivered the first load right in the mouth of the garage . Pity as i needed it at the back . I needed the 30 yards spread out as well as trenches dug so I needed a machine and hopefully an operator too .
Russ Bailey the local excavator driver was busy and JT Madson from "south Island " was working in North Dakota !
I therefore Hired a small excavator from Double R Rentals in Oak Harbor and set to work .
I have to admit I really struggled to move the material and even after getting a bigger bucket delivered I decided to leave the now smaller pile and concentrate on doing the trenches for the water , sewage electric conduit and last but not least the rainwater sewer around the back of the house as my new entrance at basement level together with the rain garden requirement precluded it running around the front . These went well and despite the mess were duly dug within the days hire . Pictures here .

It rained and it rained and I made the mistake of ordering another delivery of material to bring the garage floor base up to height . The lorry reversed up the site and its front wheel dropped down into the fresh conduit trench which I had stupidly filled back up with the dirt that I had excavated from it which had turned to goo with the rain . I had no alternative but to send it back :-(

I decided to get on with what I was good at and got some 6 x 2 treated timber from Home Depo for bolting onto the foundation or as they call it here 2 x 6 . I placed lengths up against the bolts and marked out the positions by first drawing a line with a square from each side of the bolt then marking the depth in from the foundation edge for each bolt . I then drilled out the holes using the three marks to interpolate where the bolt center should be . I used a 1 " drill the bolts being 5/8 " though a bigger drill would be ok to give
more clearance and room for error as the washers used are 3 " square .
The Quotes came in and although Home Depo were technically the best as they also took off an additional 8 % for orders over $ 2,500.00 which gave them this edge . However their delivery schedule was not as good and as time was important I gave the contract initially to Cascade Lumber from Camino Island .
They had the keenest prices , free delivery , would take back unused materials and did the best take off from the plan . Next was Hanson's lumber who gave truss prices as well then Forest from Oak Harbor and finally Probuild in Coupeville . Funny as the nearer they were the more they cost !
The first order was placed online by 1 pm and delivered by noon next day - pretty good by my reckoning
. Darrell and me used the 3 ,4 , 5 triangle with tape , level and chalk line to check out the foundation and mark out the building accurately

I decided to raise up the building by 1 1/2 inches by simply adding an extra plate to the eight foot sections of foundation - this would give me a taller garage and basement ceiling and a slightly better view .

The wood showed up on a great big red lumber truck with a cross country forklift operated by Rick
I got the water on but am now wiser and would use a 3/4 inch pipe next time with a simple male poly pipe to male 3/4 inch brass . I also mended the 6 " storm drain I broke with the digger .

Darrell and David set to work and whilst I placed on the " bubble mat " spacing rolls and bolted down where possible . They set up a long cutting table where they could set up blocks to cut legions of studs to identical lengths . They started by working out the correct stud spacing's and marking out their positions . I helped using Darrell's nail gun which has a hair trigger and kept double firing .

The outside wall sections are made with 2 x 6 fir timber at 16 " centres to give 4 studs for each 4 ' wide OSB sheet . Above openings 6 x 8 or more Douglas Fir is used . These headers are nailed between the king studs and are supported by trimmers at both ends all nailed together with 3 or 3 1/4 gun nails . Galvanised nails are used in the treated timber . We left out the headers on the large wall section to make it easier to lift . Next job - finish off the studs then fit the tgi joists !

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