DEAR TIM: I want to
start construction on a home, but just about everyone wants me to wait for
months because bad weather is just around the corner. Can you build a home in
the rainy season or in the middle of winter without causing problems to the
structure? What are some tricks one can employ to make headway each week so
that the house can get done sooner rather than later? Does rainwater hurt all
the lumber as the house is being constructed? Jason S., Cutbank, MT
DEAR JASON: All of
your questions are great. You're going to love the answers too. The bottom line
is that you can build a home in almost any weather. The only thing that can
really inhibit you is frozen ground, but even with that, if there is a will,
there's a way.
This house is being
built in the middle of a harsh winter and they're making progress each day. The
roof was covered with tarps so ice and snow will not cake on the sheathing.
Photo Credit: Tim Carter
Many years ago, I
used to subscribe to a building magazine. In one issue they had a photograph of
a large home being constructed in the middle of winter inside an enormous
circus-like tent. It was ingenious, and I remember the photo caption saying how
even on cold days the inside of the tent was normally over 50F because of the
solar heat gain.
The key to building a
home in bad weather is getting the foundation installed and the house up out of
the ground as rapidly as possible before the onset of extended rainy or bitter
cold weather. You can pour concrete in cold weather and bitter cold, but it
takes an experienced crew and one with the proper equipment to protect the
concrete so it can cure enough to resist freeze damage.
If the ground is
frozen, believe it or not, you can actually thaw the soil using a portable
ground heater. This portable heater is usually in a trailer and circulates a
hot solution of glycol in heavy rubber tubing that lays on the ground. It's
important to cover the tubing and soil with insulated blankets that hold the
heat in the soil. It's expensive to run the heater, but it can be done if you
have to pour in cold weather.
You can connect this
same heater to radiant floor heating tubing so that you can pour a concrete
slab in cold weather. The concrete thinks it's a late spring day as the warm
fluid courses through the tubing causing the concrete to harden even as it's
snowing!
There are modern
building methods that allow you to build a home totally indoors in a factory.
It's quite possible you can build a modular home in your area and have the
sections trucked to the job site and lifted onto the foundation in just a day
or two.
If you can't do that,
you can at least significantly compress the construction time by using walls
that are prefabricated in a factory and trucked to the site. This can save
weeks of time. Stick building walls at the site in bad weather is slow,
dangerous and hard on the carpenters. Prefabricated walls are set with a small
crane and a seasoned crew can have a normal house under roof in a week or less.
If you want to roof a
house in bad weather, it's a good idea to cover the roof sheathing with tarps
to prevent snow and ice from holding up progress. Once the storm passes, you
can remove the tarps and the roofers can quickly get to work on a nice dry
surface.
If you use the latest
building materials, the roof sheathing will not be harmed by rain as some new
sheathings have a waterproof coating. The seams between the pieces of coated
oriented strand board (OSB) are sealed with a special tape that keeps out just about
all water from the wood substrate.
Normal rainwater will
not harm the wood that's used to build homes. Many homeowners fear that wood
will immediately rot if allowed to get wet. That's simply not the case. The
only thing that doesn't fair well if it gets wet is low-grade OSB. This
flooring and wall sheathing material is still available and if it gets wet, it
can swell and not shrink back to its original size.
There are new OSB
floor sheathing materials that are specially made to resist standing water.
They will not swell. You can also get OSB wall sheathing that's just like the
roof sheathing. It has a special waterproof coating on the exterior side that
repels water.
The real key to
building in bad weather is to use a builder that's got the equipment and
experience to handle extreme conditions. This all has to be talked about before
you sign the contract.
It's up to you to vet
the builder to ensure he has all the needed skills and moxie to go up against
Mother Nature and come out a winner. The key is to get started on the job and
make rapid progress, working long days if necessary, until the shell of the
building is up and weather tight. It's not as hard as you might think.
Varghese Plaza, 1st
Floor,
537 - M.S. Road, Opp.
ICICI ATM,
Vettornimadam,
Nagercoil-629 003.
Office: +91-4652-224337, 648115
Mobile: +91-9500946902,
Email:anitpromoters@gmail.com
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