My Acreage Project - Let the fun begin

[andyg16]

looks awesome man!

[riander5]

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Hey thanks for the offer, very nice of you. I think I am all but finished on anything above 10 feet at the point, but I will keep that in mind and may take you up on the offer. Lots of interior work to do, though not as high, but still up to 14 feet at some points.

Did you install all the exterior siding yourself?

[eblend]

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Did you install all the exterior siding yourself?

Indeed I did. Going to start on board and batten on the bottom portion tomorrow.

[Rocket1k78]

Looking very nice!

[riander5]

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Indeed I did. Going to start on board and batten on the bottom portion tomorrow.

How hard was it? Have you done it before? What youtube channel did you watch if not haha

I have some old ass siding on my house... the wife loves the 'modern farmhouse' look similar to what you are doing. Would be great if I could DIY some of it.

[eblend]

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How hard was it? Have you done it before? What youtube channel did you watch if not haha

I have some old ass siding on my house... the wife loves the 'modern farmhouse' look similar to what you are doing. Would be great if I could DIY some of it.

It's not the easiest thing in the world to make look nice. Working with vinyl is much easier, that I have done before, but this Hardie stuff is my first time. I'm a perfectionist so it takes me a long time to make sure everything is perfectly cut ect. The lap siding is pretty easy, I mean you just put a board up, nail it, and put the next board up, but if you have any penetrations, you have to "block" them, which involves making a block, flashing it, and then cutting hardie around it. This stuff is fiber cement, and contains silica, so need to wear a respirator when cutting as it creates lots of dust, and have to buy a special fiber cement blade as well for whichever say. I bought a 7 1/4 blade that I can move around from saw to saw depending on cuts I'm doing.

The blocking looks something like this. Can buy pre-made blocks, but not sure if they meet requirements anymore, as you have to have the end dams (the vertical pointy parts on top metal as seen in this pic)



I also have a set of Gecko gauges, which make the job a ton easier and can do by yourself. Set the reveal (mine is 7"), and then you basically snap them on to the previous row and install the new board.



At the end of it all you have to caulk the seams between the trim boards and the lap siding itself with some Quad Max caulk, it's available in Hardie colors.

So now that I say it...there are a bunch of things that are required to make it code compliant and proper, most of it to do with metal flashing. I spend a ton of time researching it. I can answer specific questions but it's too much to write about here just as a brain dump.

The board and batten stuff is probably easier, slap a board, nail every 12/16/24 on center, depending on your preferred look, and then cover up the nails with a batten. If you don't have tools for these things, you have to invest in some. I had to buy a siding nailer (for lap siding and panels) and a 16ga brad nailer (for trims and battens)

Youtube....probably every video haha, I have been researching these things well in advance. Lots of stuff shown on YouTube is outdated and doesn't meet our flashing requirements, but general idea of how to throw up lap siding or board and batten is on there and those are generally correct.

[ganesh]

I have been following this build.
The house looks awesome.
Nice job.

[eblend]

Started working on some other lap siding on the house. Can't really finish up at the top yet as soffit needs to go in first, which will be much later (due to pot lights and electrical inspections..). Wanted to mostly post the plug flashing details to my reply above. Code calls for flashing above and below penetrations with 1" end dams, which can be slotted into the siding to reduce the ugly gap. In this case caulking will go around the slots, sides and at the bottom, with top left open.





Next week I am supposed to get my garage doors! Exciting!

[tirebob]

Really digging how this is coming together man... Nice work!

[Gman.45]

Great job, been following this too since the first page - you should be proud of the work you've done here, very impressed with you posts, explanations, etc. More !

[schurchill39]

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That fitment is sexy

[eblend]

Hi All,

Long time no update. Weather hasn't been great last few weeks so not much was done, but I finally have something to share so here it is.

1. New Garage Doors have finally arrived and were installed. There is a slight issue with two of the glass (installed inside out), but that will be fixed easily shortly. It's a dual pane insulated glass with a clear and an opaque glass sandwich, two of the glass are installed with opaque on the outside instead of the inside, so someone at the factory messed up. It's all held on screws so I am sure they will be able to fix this quickly. I could fix it but don't want to risk dropping glass or anything, plus it's their fault so they should address it. I love the smooth look of these, and is the reason they were so bloody expensive. The windows provide a ton of light, so very happy about that.













2. Siding. Process has been rather slow as I don't want to do this in the freezing cold, but did almost finish the one side of the house. All these windows and penetrations take up a long time to measure and cutout. I will do all the caulking at the end all at once. It's such a pain in the ass, that I have to mentally prepare myself for it. I didn't take any pictures of the front, but the boards on the front are also done, just need to do battens. Before I can do battens I have to do caulking on the boards....so they won't be done for a while





3. New tractor parking. Since I had to move the tractor out of the garage, and will need the whole floor cleaned up soon enough to start on concrete prep, I decided to move the tractor out to the back and use the tarp that previously covered the garage doors to make a makeshift 4th garage and park my tractor behind it. Keeps the sun and most weather away, and easily accessible for use.









That's all for now and for the next little while. Will be doing more siding for the next little while, until weather gets consistently warm when I will start on insulation/concrete and all the interior work. At that point things will really start moving quick.

[birdman86]

Jelly

What size garage doors are those?

[eblend]

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Jelly

What size garage doors are those?

8x8 and 16x8. Nothing crazy. Making changes to that would require re-engineering from original project and more money. Good enough for me. I asked about a bigger patio door before....and the price wasn't worth it, so would have been similar here.

[schurchill39]

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2. Siding. Process has been rather slow as I don't want to do this in the freezing cold, but did almost finish the one side of the house. All these windows and penetrations take up a long time to measure and cutout. I will do all the caulking at the end all at once. It's such a pain in the ass, that I have to mentally prepare myself for it. I didn't take any pictures of the front, but the boards on the front are also done, just need to do battens. Before I can do battens I have to do caulking on the boards....so they won't be done for a while

Get yourself a battery powered caulking gun for what ever battery platform you have. It will be 1000% worth it for the work you have ahead of you.

[littledan]

I'm surprised you haven't yet taken the opportunity to whip out your caulk

[eblend]

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Get yourself a battery powered caulking gun for what ever battery platform you have. It will be 1000% worth it for the work you have ahead of you.

I have one...I am not sure if I will be using it for this task. I used it for the roof sections, and feels like you have to be very good to do a good job when there is a constant stream of caulk coming out. I am going to try it with a hand powered version for the lower sections and see if I can do a better job there without having to tool it. If it comes out more or less the same, then I will switch to battery powered one. You can control the flow with battery powered one as well, but think because it's a bit bigger it's a bit more complex. We will see.

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I'm surprised you haven't yet taken the opportunity to whip out your caulk

And there it is! I was waiting for this ever since all the caulk discussion in the kitchen sink thread

[eblend]

Well, decided to post a tiny update. Not much visually is going on, but I finished siding for now and moved on to other things as the weather is warming up. My primary motivator for doing siding was to keep the house wrap from flying away, and I have done all the sides that I needed to accomplish that task. The longest wall is nearly completed as well but I can't proceed any further until I get my furnace/water heater penetrations figured out, so leaving top few rows exposed for now.



I have arranged for Spray Foam to the gravel to happen hopefully next week, still working on finalizing the schedule, but with that being said, I had to finish running last few water lines (can't run water lines in exterior walls due to code, so have to do it under concrete).





Special box setup for future freestanding tub filler



Couple of water lines also ran to the floor drains. Don't know if there is a code requirement for these, but I might as well get them ran. The idea is that you get water dripping down these lines to keep the P-Trap filled...else they can dry out and release gases into the house, as often floor drains are only used in case of overflow and can dry out. One is for the utility room and the other is for the laundry room. Plan is to drain condensate into those lines from furnace/tankless water heater.



Really looking forward to spraying the floor, which will "glue" everything together and I can finally stand on radiant tubing + rebar + concrete and then mass wall building!

[schurchill39]

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Couple of water lines also ran to the floor drains. Don't know if there is a code requirement for these, but I might as well get them ran. The idea is that you get water dripping down these lines to keep the P-Trap filled...else they can dry out and release gases into the house, as often floor drains are only used in case of overflow and can dry out. One is for the utility room and the other is for the laundry room. Plan is to drain condensate into those lines from furnace/tankless water heater.

Thats a super smart idea!

[riander5]

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It's not the easiest thing in the world to make look nice. Working with vinyl is much easier, that I have done before, but this Hardie stuff is my first time. I'm a perfectionist so it takes me a long time to make sure everything is perfectly cut ect. The lap siding is pretty easy, I mean you just put a board up, nail it, and put the next board up, but if you have any penetrations, you have to "block" them, which involves making a block, flashing it, and then cutting hardie around it. This stuff is fiber cement, and contains silica, so need to wear a respirator when cutting as it creates lots of dust, and have to buy a special fiber cement blade as well for whichever say. I bought a 7 1/4 blade that I can move around from saw to saw depending on cuts I'm doing.

Etc....

thanks for the super detailed description man. Looks great and looking forward to more progress!