www.ConcreteCottage.com

It is late October. This month was a busy one and we got a lot accomplished. One of our carpenters, Jimmy, also does a fine job roofing. He and his helpers came out on weekends and evenings to get out roof on. The metal on the long south side of the house was done while I was out of town. The roofing on the master bedroom tower part with the curved areas came next. Photo is of Jimmy and his helper, Roy.

We have used a roof material made of  GALVALUME®, an internationally recognized trademark of BIEC International Inc., and some of its licensed producers. The product is a 55% aluminum, 45% zinc alloy coated sheet steel developed by Bethlehem Steel and sold commercially under the trademark Galvalume®, starting in June 1972. Bethlehem Steel later licensed other major steel companies to produce and sell the product using its patents and technology. It looks like galvanized steel but has a shiny, plastic like coating.

We had a big, all day rain a few days ago. Work was suspended on the project and the house got really wet. We found that unlike our five-year-old guesthouse, our grout took in water.  Our friend with a Dac-Art house down the road had it sealed on the exterior with a HydroStop product. So now we are faced with having to seal our house. The HydroStop was real expensive, I don't think I want to go that direction.

Since I had recently done sealing and testing on my cement tile, I had on hand various brands of masonry sealers. These products can be really expensive. At least the good ones. I sectioned off several text places on the west side of the house and tried two ArmorAll products and Miracle 511 Impregnator. I was hoping that one of the ArmorAll products would work well since they are about 1/4 as expensive as the Miracle stone and tile sealer.

The area to which I applied the Miracle product proved to be very water proof when we did our testing with a hose the next day. As you can see in this photo on right, the area above the test sections is soaking up some water but the middle section, treated with Miracle 511 remains dry.

Agrrrr... While doing a walk-through with Dan Z. and Jim the electrician, I realized that the electric boxes for sconce lighting in the master bedroom were never installed. There should have been two per wall on the three Dac-Art walls. At first we thought the block stackers had overlooked including the openings as they stacked the walls. Then we looked on the plans and there were no lighting fixtures on them in that room.  Oh well... We could still add a connection box overhead for a come-later central chandelier. We also decided on the spot to add three sconces to the only wood wall which is the wall with the clothes closets and door to the hall. The electrician is going to have to cut into the studs near the door to squeeze in the required on-off switch. What I will probably do is surface mount the sconces at a later date and just use Wiremold or one of those brass wire covers that come with wall mounted reading lamps to cover the wire from receptacle to fixture.

Our Hurd windows and doors are now installed. They look fabulous. Windows and doors are one of the biggest expense in building a house. It is a huge decision. These windows and doors are white painted aluminum extrusion clad on the outside and primed wood on the interior. The glass is Dade County approved impact glass, like windshields are made of.

We had a problem with the kitchen window. It came in too big to fit our opening. Come to find out, the mechanism that opens and closes the window needs a minimum of space and our size was too small to accommodate the mechanics, so the window company just made the window larger ! This might be a smaller deal in a wood stick built house, but for us it meant sawing out about three inches of concrete 12" thick. The Hurd Co. allowed us a $250 allowance for the labor and blades to make the cut in the wall.

You have to pay a lot of attention when your windows are ordered and delivered. Even with Hurd window rep, Patty C's careful measurements over and over, we ended up with one extra window, one too large (read above) and one with a bowed part on it that has to be replaced.