Homebuilding in Wasilla Alaska
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These photos show the progressive stages of siding our house with Hardi-Plank siding
Gretchen got some siding completed whilst I was gone. It is Hardi-Plank cement board. We will be trying a new idea on the gable ends, we will see, no I am not going to tell you what it is.
Gretchen cutting the Hardi-Plank siding with a carbide tipped saw blade. Notice hearing, eye and respiratory protection. There is a lot of dust when you use a saw. There are other methods like nipping or scribing and snapping, sawing was the most convenient for us. Also we used Hardisoffit for the soffits.
The almost complete south side, the door still has to be painted and it has to be fine graded.
Still siding, we are on the east side of the house. We are using 8 1/4 inch siding this gives us a 7 inch exposure. We use 2 inch galvanized roofing nails only on the top of the board. We can do this because the walls are 16 inch on-center, thus we can 'blind-nail' the siding. If the walls were 24 inch on-center we would have to nail top and bottom of the board. We also use screws into the plywood substrate where the board ends and we cannot nail directly into a stud, a corner for example.
We are still on the east side of the house. We are using pump-jack scaffolding made by Qual-Craft. We have used this type of scaffolding for years, it takes some practice to set it up efficiently, but it allows us to work up high in relative ease and safety. It works perfect on uneven ground.
We have finished siding the east side, now we paint it. We are using Sherwin-Williams Super Paint.
An up on the scaffold view for something a bit different.
The south and east sides completed except for a few details, a great accomplishment for us.
A closer detail of the shingle and siding interface, these are Hardi shingles, they are made out of the same material as the siding, we thought it would give us a bit of a different look for this area, most of the homes have lap siding all the way up the gable ends. The shingles come in 16 inch by 48 inch sheets. Hardi recommends you use a 16 inch per row stagger. This allows enough randomness in the appearance to not notice the pattern.
Gretchen ripping cedar trim.
After the septic tank went in we did a bit of additional clearing, this makes the place look a lot different! We are thinking of some type of groundcover that does not have to be mowed, wishful thinking is my guess.
After the septic tank went in we did a bit of additional clearing, this makes the place look a lot different! We are thinking of some type of groundcover that does not have to be mowed, wishful thinking is my guess.
We are still working on the front, this is a view of the driveway and the approach to the house.
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