Our home construction has actually start ed!!!

“I met with my excavator this morning and we signed papers and a check was printed and most important, that excavator was actually pulling stumps and rocks!!!!

Soon, very soon, I'll be pounding nails!”

“excellent! I'm glad to hear it.”

“Pictures and a trip report”

“Very cool. What's the site like - view, woods, meadow, stream, etc?”

“It's on a knoll looking right over the pond. We are right on the water. Features of this house will include 2 large, 8' wide by 5' tall windows facing directly at the pond.

Since I am the laziest man on this planet, it will be vinyl sided, aluminum trim and white fibreglass doors. That's right, not painting!!!!!!”

“Vinyl siding was the worst mistake I made on our house. Go with hardyboard. Very tough, low maintenance, looks good, and blocks noise.”

“My brother, who just moved from Houston, also likes hardyplank a lot. His boss, who lives in one of those "sail-in" neighborhoods down there, recently re-did his whole house in hardyplank.”

“Man cuts off his hand while working with a circular saw

It happened so fast, in a flash of steel and blood, that for a split-second all he could do was reel in pain and clutch his bleeding right limb to his chest.

Marcel DiMaggio was using a circular saw to cut a board for a cabinet he was building in his parents' garage last Wednesday night, when he suddenly lost control of the machine. As a horrible pain spread through his arm, DiMaggio, a grounds keeper for the Jericho schools, knew he'd cut himself, probably badly.
[...]
"What did you cut, two fingers?" Charles DiMaggio said...

When they stepped into the hospital's emergency room, DiMaggio saw for himself.

Marcel had no hand.
[...]”

“You'uns gots to be keerful with them thar pahrtools...”

“Vinyl siding was the worst mistake I made on our house

Can you qualify that statement?

That is like saying Fords Suck, buy a Dodge.

I am very familiar with both products, their limitations and the benefits. Quite frankly, on a multi story building, I wouldn't choose vinyl so quickly, but on this Ranch, in a minute.

Anyways, why don't you like vinyl?”

“A while back someone had home construction questions and a residential contractor responded. Was that you monkeyboy, that is the contractor?”

“Yup, I had a few observations from my "vast" experience in construction.

I'm always on the lookout for a good construction story that has not yet gone the way of a fish story. I also value peoples opinions about products and processes, when they are qualified. Alot of new products and methods coming out all the time, and I've found that what was old school doesn't necassarily work as well as some new school. ...and vice versa.

I had a guy tell me once that the excavator we were looking at was the next to nothingist machine they ever made. He obviously didn't like it. Silly me, I asked why don't you like it. He proceeded to give me a list of design flaws in the machine that were very problematic. He said the one thing the machine did have going for it was that it was the largest machine that had road tires and was great for grading ditches. Then he showed me that they ran all the hydralic hoses in pinch points and they often wiould pinch when you picked up a rock. And thegrease fittings were forever being broken off, because they weren't protected..... It truly was a next to nothing machine, once you took a good look at it.

It's qualified opinions like that I seek.”

“Well Treebait and I don't like vinyl in Florida on the coast because:

1. It only looks good at a distance. Up close it just looks cheap. (pure opinion there)
2. We would have preferred greater sound dampening and extra insulation than what viynl afforded us.
3. The airspace behind the vinyl makes a great home for bugs. We are forever flushing out ants roaches and spiders. In Florida that's a huge year round issue.
4. Structurally I would have preferred a stiffer frame and a solid sheathing/top layer would have provided that.
5. We are in a hurricane area and vinyl isn't a great idea if the winds get too high. I've seen vinyl stripped off houses by high winds. Chances are kinda rare on that one but just that same we play the "will we get a tropical storm or hurricane" lottery every year.
6. Solid siding would greatly increase our homes resale value.”

“Oh yeah, congratulations!”

“7. Crap (mold mildew) grows behind the vinyl too.”

“You could side the house with Cyprus. No painting or treating required with that type of wood.”

“Of course it's going to cost a lot more than vinyl.”

“Thanx for the imput. I appreciate your opinion. We live in New Hampshire, so some of the issues aren't as apparent as here.”

“Just do like lots of people seem to do in VT, NH and ME Monkeyboy. Get it started and leave it without any siding for years. Sometimes without even placing Tyvek over it. j/k

Congrats on getting started!”