Pond Boss Forums POND CONSTRUCTION Creating habitat Building a garage-apartment with a pond view

Go with something that will give you plenty of options and flexibility down the road.

Looking good Brettski. I have no good advice on the electric. But, if you can access the outside of the ductwork where the damper is, you could grind a flat on one side of the threaded shaft, and then make a handle to slip over the shaft, but under the nut. The handle would have a "D" shaped hole in it. Adjust at will, hold the handle and tighten the nut.

How realistic is it getting a wired phone into your place? Check with the phone company about where the closest loops are and what it will cost to run a wired phone in there. With wired phone lines declining every year by millions it will not be much longer before they are not supported. Realize in telephony terms not much longer means 10-20 years, the industry moves slowly.

Have you looked into internet service in the area? By me the only service that is decent is 3G wireless (so to be 4G) offered by Verizon.

I am assuming all of your ethernet cable will be homerun from a router, have you looked into the router you are planning on using?

Hey Lassig...
Thanks, that's the kinda banter I seek. I agree with your assessment about the phone line and will likely throw one in....just cuz. Yes, all lines will be home runs. I am very interested in thoughts regarding how and where to bundle up the originating home runs. The phone lines are a no-brainer, but what about the ethernet cable? What are the pros and cons of locations within the structure and what type of "box" should they start from?

I think your going to find that Cat 6 is your best choice. I used it for all my hard wired phones, computers and intercoms in my shop. Cat6 walljacks come in a wide variety of combinations and easy to install.

What internet service are you thinking of using? The reason I ask is that if it is cellular than the modem will need to be in a location where it gets a good signal. With most cellular modems being usb devices the cellular router needs to be in the same location. I would home run all of the ethernet cables to this location. For example in the house I am building right now, I think this location is going to be the second bedroom closet. Being a finished location, I will put in a wall plate with x ethernet positions (haven't decided how many yet) and terminate them there. As I used them I will run short jumper ethernet cable between the wall plate and the router (or switch if I have to many for the router).

If it is not cellular them I would have it close to where it enters the building.

Being low voltage no real box is required just a wall plate. But you could put in a typical low voltage box for them.

One more point, with the way TVs are evolving I would put an ethernet plug at each TV location.

good stuff you guys...keep the ideas flowing
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Buffs,
So, you think a typical phone line is useless compared to running an extra ethernet line?
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Lassig,
The only high speed option I have right now is satellite. That may change, of course, so I want to be properly prepared for the possiblity of 3G or 4G avail and/or cable/DSL service further down the road.

You should have 3G available to you now, I would take a look into this since satellite is a pain, speeds are slow, and costs more than 3G. If your cell phone has data service you could walk around and watch the signal on it. Of course this only works if you go with the same carrier. If you use that three letter carrier that I started my career with, lots of luck trying to get a signal. Verizon Wireless has great 3G coverage and is aggressively adding 4G coverage.

Brettski,

Google "structured wiring". I located an low voltage enclosure in a stud space inside a centrally located closet. From there I ran flexible low voltage conduit to boxes in every room of the house. The conduit comes in rolls and looks like miniature corrugated pipe, very inexpensive. It has a fish tape inside it so you can pull/upgrade the cabling now or down the road sometime.

This past weekend was spent working outside. The cooler temps and lessened precipitation beckoned us to get a few days of outdoor labor in before the dog days set in. We took advantage of the reasonable weather and finished digging in and setting the perimeter drains.











Now we have the entire perimeter of the structure set with 4" perforated drainage and river rock. It is all sloped to run to the 2 buried 4" lines that run out toward the pond (they pop out and drain into the yard about 20' downhill from the structure). All the gutters run into these same drains. Sometime in the near future, we plan to trim it all out with landscape edging. This will include re-grading the immediate perimeter to drain away from the gar/apt and planting grass. Until then, tho, we are hoping that these first steps will not only help to keep the perimeter of the foundation dry, but it will ease maintenance and, most importantly, will keep the mud from splashing up and all over the bottom rows of our new siding job. We will see...

Looks great, Brettski. That gives me some thoughts for what I'll do for my building as I've been thinking I need to install perimeter drainage there. Is that just sheet plastic or is it a geotextile-type fabric to allow surface and sub-surface water to enter the drains?

Hey Todd...thanks for the props.
The fabric is a roll of 3' wide landscape fabric (big box store) with a 25 year rating.
The perf pipe is generic, too. 4" dia bell end that glues with PVC glue. There are two continuous rows of holes in each pipe. Each of the 2 rows are nearly opposite each other along the length of the pipe. On the sides of the house that carry the gutter feeds, we set the pipes so the holes are at each side....creates a gutter at the bottom of the pipe to carry the larger amounts of water. At the ends of the house where the pipes don't see the gutter flow, we set one row of holes about 4 or 5 o'clock to allow seepage to flow in a bit quicker and lower within the lined trench. The 2 corners of the house that are opposite the exit drains are simply connected with 90 degree elbows. The 2 corners that also continue out into the yard are Tee's.

Sounds like a good setup. What I'm contemplating is that I poured a 16 x 20 slab directly on the ground without excavating a level spot to pour it. We have a lot of rebar and the steel mesh to help hold it in place, but I want to eliminate as much water as possible from running underneath the slab where it could freeze and maybe do some damage, so perimeter drains appear to be a must. Using landscape fabric would likely allow any slightly sub-surface water to still penetrate and enter the drainage pipe, I'm guessing, while surface water would easily enter the pipe as well after hitting the rock barrier and dropping down to the pipe. Again, I really like the layout of how you did yours and think the river rock is a great look. Thanks for the more detailed explanation.

4th of July? Barbeques and pond parties? Are you kidding? We call it a 3 day weekend of productivity without having to use a vacation day.
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I spent a day setting boxes and running Ethernet wire, coax, and speaker wire. I understand the speaker wire and the coax, but I'm runnin' kinda blind on the Cat5e wire. Some of the PB brethren have offered super advice and support; many thanks. The nice part about running all this wire junk is that my toughest decision is where to terminate it. Then, just leave enough extra wire length hanging in that area and forget about it...at least forget about it until the time comes to tie it into a structured wiring panel. Anyway, we are going to use the linen closet cuz it's upstairs, has the available room, and is centrally located. Wiring for the shop is now complete.
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The next step is another milestone for us. It's been a little over 2 years since we broke ground and the time has finally come to lay in some fiberglass insulation. We considered the possibility of using spray foam, but nixed it for cost. As we often say, if it was our actual home, it might get more attention and priority. For our gar/apt, fiberglass with some specific, focused applications of the smaller cans of spray foam will do just fine.
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Speaking of small cans of spray foam...
The plan is to keep the mechanical room heated throughout the winter when we are not there. All the Pex water lines will be installed to facilitate quick gravity drain back down to the water tank inside the mechanical room. The point, tho, is to have the mech room very well insulated; perhaps a notch better than the rest of the house. There a bunch of boxes in the walls of the mech room. This means the insulation between the back sides of the boxes will be pretty thin, comparitively. We are taking a little extra step to not only increase that area for R value, but seal up the holes at the back of the boxes.





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Way back when we were putting together the second floor framing to support the floor deck, we encountered a 29 foot long lam beam of questionable integrity. Long story shortened, we were sent a replacement and told to scrap out the rejected lam beam. I cut the length in half (to ease handling)and plan to use it for a workbench countertop. In the meantime, at 16" wide x about 15 feet long, it serves as an ideal insulation workbench.



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Let the itch begin!
We called a very, very old portable window air conditioner back out of retirement to help us endure the hot, outside temps. In the end, it made a notable difference. And, as more insulation was installed, we knew each piece was increasing our potential of beating the heat....anything for inspiration to keep going.



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We got about 2/3 of the wall space insulated in the shop area. Filling in the wall that separates the shop from the rest of the garage was our first (obvious) step to create the cocoon that we charged Dski's old portable A/C window unit to cool. Finishing this wall also creates the boundaries of the space. We both needed to experience this progress because it sparks a bit of inspiration. We can now stand in there and look around and say "yep, this will definitely be a square footage improvement over the 10 x 12 shed that we have been living in for the past 2 years". It makes me smile when Dski starts telling me where she plans to put the bed, the table, etc. Like I said....we both needed it.
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To cap off the shop/garage wall, we temporarily tacked in the metal entrance fire door and the metal door for the mechanical room access.



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We got about 2/3 of the wall area insulated and gave it up to come back home. We will finish the walls on the next trip. The real bugaboo will be the ceiling. I am seriously considering RockyTopper's suggestion to use blown-in insulation. The jury is still out on that one...

Outstanding! It gets better every time! Having done insulation in walls and ceiling of our 16 x 20 "barn" at the farm just this past winter, I know what a chore that can be. And mine doesn't look half as neat and organized as yours does! Congrats on that bit of progress - I can totally see how it motivates you both!

Wow, that looks great Bski. Although it's been a long haul, you should be proud of what you've accomplished. I highly doubt that any contractor would build with the attention to detail that you have maintained during this project.

Nice job !! That is some good progress. Plus you will be freeing up space upstairs by using up those rolls. Get you one of those small fans to help with the temps.

Looking good BSKI! Same here with the 3 days of productivity and no vacation day all though I did manage to enjoy a rib eye off the grill yesterday evening. I noticed you have installed plastic barrier on the walls. We did the same on my home way back when. The insulation guy I just used on the new structure told me when I ask about it that it is now against code in these parts. Not sure if that is true or if I just got took.

Hey Ski the above quote pretty much sums it up hey! I know exactly what your talking about. I used to be excited about 3 day weekends now I can barely make it through them! Your place is awesome dude! Everytime I look at what your doing I am motivated to press on. You are one heck of a builder buddy! Awesome job! And thanks for the all the info and advise!

We spent Saturday dealing with some structural issues and Sunday was the balance of the insulation and vapor barrier within the walls. Once again, Dski's old beater portable window A/C unit delivers big.
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As much as I plan, I don't catch everything when I should. Then, I will occasionally over-react to curing the issue I overlooked. These recent decisions may, or may not, be an over-reaction.
When we set the anchor bolts in the wet concrete at the tops of the walls during the pour, I was sure that I left plenty of the bolts exposed for fastening the walls. Not so. By the time we laid down the 3/8" thick sill sealer and we set the walls on top, there were many instances where the tops of the anchor bolts were too low to get a nut threaded and cranked down. We used a wide spade bit to countersink the base plate, sometimes removing as much as 1/4" - 1/2". Not good, but it is what it is. Oddly, so many months later and the entire weight of the structure has crushed everything down, the bolts are now plenty long enough. I can't win.
Anyway, we took this last opportunity before closing up the walls to add a bunch of 1/2" wedgit anchors. Why? Cuz that's me and that's how I roll.



The other structural issue was a bit more complicated. It has to do with rack resistance. Without going into a bunch of detail, suffice to know that I wanted to beef up the 44' long wall with the double overhead garage doors. Since more than half the wall length has very little rack resistance (two 10 ft garage door openings and the narrow wall sections adjacent to them), I added a diagonal brace by notching all the 2x6 studs and screwing and poly-gluing it in. It took a long time; cutting the notches was a pain. In the end, We are pleased with the final product


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Before we left to go home, we had all the shop walls insulated and covered with vapor barrier.


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Although this shop area (about 400 sq ft) is slated to be our next LNP home as we continue to work on all the other areas, I know that in the end, this will be my man-cave....and it WILL be a cool man-cave.

Air Hockey, Fridge for beverages, top notch sound system, wide screen TV, pop corn machine in the corner. All with an exquisite view of the pond. Yep I can see the man cave in the works.

the blue boxes near the ceiling are for the speaker wire jacks
air hockey? popcorn cart, eh? hmmmm....
at the rate we're going, I better put in a shuffle board court, too

Did I say how much I like those windows before ?

What in the world is that clock doing on the wall at this time and location ? Don't give me some SA answer like - ticking.

BTW - I can see lots of uses for that half-cut lam. beam in a man cave.

Nice very nice!!

Don't forget power for the jukebox.

We deliver!