The Boat House

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It is early spring 2006. This new construction project of the boat house is about to start. As the first action we cut the trees down from the spot and marked two back corners of the coming building. This going to be a challenging operation. The soil is  thoroughly wet clay to 12 meters depth. At left you can see a 1,5 m deep pit we made in order to locate the electric cables in the ground. The pits were immediately flooded with water.

Luckily the Finnish summer 2006 turned out to be exceptionally sunny and warm. The wet clay soil dried out  to as hard as steel and allowed a tractor excavator to be used.

To make it sure I requested the local electric company to show the position of the electric cables that I knew were quite close to the coming foundation of the boat house.  It turned out that they were exactly under the back wall (you may be able to see the blue spray markings on the ground). I decided to move the position of the building a bit towards the lake just to avoid punching the steel pillars through the cables.

Mid July I hired a carpenter to do the job while I did not judge myself to be an expert on building constructions. The job was really challenging, to build a concrete foundation partially in and below the lake surface. First we removed the soil to one meter depth and filled it with frost-resistant sand. On the right the "pool" is dug, leaving a half meter threshold to the lake to keep the water out.

Then the pit was coated with a strainer and quickly filled with sand before the water found its way through. It all went well, luckily.  On the left.

The concrete mold was started to be built but shortly after we had to stop and wait for the steel pillar company to have their next free slot available for the job.  The carpenter I had hired for the job turned out to be unfortunately of the lazy type. I couldn't leave him alone to build the boat house without continuous control but I had to let him go instead.

The next exciting moment was to get the steel pillar company on the property simultaneously with a mobile crane that was required to lift the steel tubes and their hammer up to 10 meters height. The last two months had went without a single rain but now one rain would be enough to turn the soil too soft for the crane. I had it all arranged to be done on the following Monday, August 7th. On Saturday I realized that the local mobile crane I had chosen for the job made a no-show and did not respond to any calls. Oh my ! I had to postpone the occasion and find another mobile crane for the job. And pray for another few days with no rain.

Finally, on Thursday August 10 I had the crane and the pillar hammer on the grounds. And still no rain. !

We managed to insert all 14 pillars on average to 12 m depth in just a bit over 8 hours. Wow, the worst stress seemed to be over now. In case of rain the soil would turn soft but it was not any more critical - I thought !

I then hired a company of two carpenters to do the rest of the building, MG Rakennuspalvelu Ky.  Luckily I first agreed upon the foundations only.

They started well off, finalizing the mold of the dry land side in two days. Then the walls extending to the lake had to be made room for by digging the ground half a meter below the lake surface. My brother Heikki came to assist me with his mini excavator. In case you need his services in southern Finland, contact www.minikaivin.fi

He dug the ground out starting closest to the land and using the soil as material he built up a dam to keep the water out from the pit that had to be almost half a meter deeper than the current lake surface. The result is proudly shown on the left.

Once the molds were being built towards the lake the weather could not resist it any longer - the thunderstorm with pouring rain just had to come around ! I had to pump about 3000 liters of water from the pit to be able to continue the job. Two times !

On the right the concrete casting was to be started in less than one hour. To my great surprise the molds were not even close to be ready. I jumped in to assist before it was too late. The job turned out to be a total disaster !

The concrete reinforcements were incomplete, two cubic meters of sand was missing from the center and none of the inner sides of the molds were assembled in place. As nicely as the work of these new guys had started off, the lack of experience was showing off more clear every moment. They had no idea how much work was required to fulfill each task.

Well, the concrete pump came, luckily one hour late. While the concrete was pumped in (on the left) the guys tried to build up the rest of the molds and reinforcements. If I only had had the expertise to judge the maturity of their work I had cancelled the concrete pumping for that day. Unfortunately I was to believe what these experts told me to.

While the carpenters were tied up to build the molds I decided to take over the concrete vibrator in order to press in the concrete properly in the molds. Starting from the right lakeside wall I wondered why the concrete surface kept on falling down. I then noticed that the mold had given in ! These poor "professional" carpenters had forgotten to put any nails to the corner of the mold ! Thus it was no wonder the wooden frame gave in and the concrete leaked out.

I then gave over the concrete vibrator to their responsibility not to break down their weak molds by myself. As a result them being too busy finishing the molds the vibrator was forgotten for too lengthy periods.

Suddenly it struck to me ! The molds were all built the wrong way round ! As you can see on the left the outside of the foundation is vertical while the inside is slanted. My intention had been the opposite, in order to cope with the ice pressure I wanted to have the outsides slanted. Now it was all too late to fix it !

I sure hope their insurances are properly taken care of...

A week later when I took the molds apart the ugly truth revealed itself. In several places the concrete had not  been vibrated enough and the foundation was full of cracks and holes, iron reinforcements showing naked here and there. At one position shown on the left the foundation was practically cut in half. Unfortunately that point was one of the most critical ones, bearing most of the ice pressure to come.

Well, after some discussion they fixed the problems by filling in all the holes and covering the naked iron reinforcements. It took them two days of free labor but as an outcome the foundation finally looked quite good - but the leaked out mold corner ! The plywood molds could not be removed because they were soaked in the leaked out concrete and thus they just left them in place as you can see on the right. It was going to be my problem to get them molds off.

After some consideration I decided to continue the project with somebody else - again ! Where are all the good old craftsmen, proud of their work ?

Well, I decided to go on by myself, educated by a carpenter friend of mine. First I put on the lower course as you can see also on the picture on right.

The foundation was several cm's off from the wall lines, not even close to level and the lake side walls were twisted inwards at the middle. It took me a good time to figure out the proper wall locations. To my another nasty surprise I found out that the whole foundation was exactly 10 cm too long ! Why ? Because the walls had been slanted the wrong way the steel pillars did not fit within the molds and thus the guys had decided to move the outer walls 10 cm out instead of consulting me. What can I say...

The following weekend I built up the wall bearers. On left. The construction started to look like a building for the first time.

On the right you can clearly see that even now that the lake surface is at its lowest level ever the boat house is leveled deep enough - there is almost one meter more to the boat house bottom.

The autumn is coming. It is the first of October and unfortunately the exceptionally beautiful Finnish summer weather is over. It has been raining through the weekend. As you can imagine it slowed down the enthusiasm remarkably while cold water was pouring down all the time.  However,  in spite of the almost desperate circumstances quite some progress was made. The building frame was finished all the way up. Next to come is the roof. The first half of the first roof truss was tried on its place (at right) and found to be too short.

 It turned out that I had made a mistake when ordering the timber. I only had ordered wood enough for one side of the roof ! Back to the phone to order the missing half !

Well, I had some other appointments for one weekend and the project status remained the same for the last two weeks. Now it is mid October, rain is more frequent and the weather is getting chilly.  Next thing to do was to construct the ridge beam (roof-tree) and lift it up to the top.  While the building with its eaves (overhangs) is 14 m long it was next to impossible to find that size piece of wood at reasonable cost. I therefore decided with my carpenter friend to use some 150 x 200 mm pine wood beams he had and bolt them together to form the ridge beam.

In order to make their connection firm he recommended to put some friction plates in between. After several days of plate hunting I finally located these so called "Bulldog" plates, Norwegian made. While I needed only a few the minimum quantity sold was 40 pcs, priced next to 100 euros  ! If there is anybody who has a need for my excess 34 Bulldogs, just let me know.

Next surprise was their vertical friction. It turned out to be impossible to bolt the beams together because the plates refused to cut into the tree. How ever we tightened and hammered, a 10 mm gap remained, shown at left. Finally we had to take the beams apart and hammer the Bulldogs well into one of the beams and thereafter bolt them together. It worked out - almost.

On the right the ridge beam is finally completed. It took half a day just to heave the beams up and get them bolted together. And still it was two meters below its final position :=( We managed to lift the 300 kg heavy beam up by another half a meter but then more suitable lifting equipment was required. Next weekend will show whether the beam will reach its final location.

Well, the next weekend came - but the carpenter not.  We both had a wet weekend, mine working alone in the pouring rain and his pouring himself but not water alone. While the temperature was only +3 ºC it made the rain really freezing. Only the snow was missing :-(

I began by completing the ridge beam. I was not satisfied to the way we managed to bolt the beams together last weekend but built a system shown on left to press the beams together with a 6 ton hydraulic jack. I could tighten each bolt by another 5 mm under the pressure. It was worth the effort.

The only thing I did not think about properly was the use of those borrowed X-Ray unit counterweights. They were rigid enough but they weighed 30 kg a piece. It required already an effort to bring them up to the construction site but once they were assembled together it turned out impossible to lift them up by myself. I had to disassemble the setup every time I moved it to the next position and the whole operation took about two hours !

At the last position I got a bit sloppy. The jack was placed on a thick iron plate but it dug itself into the beam, tilting and twisting the whole assembly dangerously. I just kept on going to get it all done for. I was lucky.

Next episode was to lift the beam up. It was going to be supported at three points, at both ends and in the middle. The middle supports had already been replaced once because they were too short. My verification revealed them to be still too short. So, I took them down again and built new ones that were of the correct height. Yes it is true what they say - well designed is half done. 

I cut the other supports to their proper lengths and prepared the horizontal beams that were to sit on those. I then started to lift up the hoists to their stands. In the picture on right you can see one of the stands already raised. I set up more and taller ladders to reach up there - only to find out that the stands were too narrow at their tops - the hoist did not fit in between.

I had to take the stands down and decided to call it a day. I should have verified the dimensions by myself... Heated up the sauna.

Sunday morning I continued the one man show.  My mind was set up to lift the ridge beam up today. Took the first stand apart, rebuilt it and hooked the hoist to its top. But then - how to lift this assembly up ? With the hoist on top the system was top heavy and impossible to lift up by one person. After some consideration I decided to use the hoist itself for assistance.

After two hours of work I had the first stand up with the hoist on top. Just one more to go ! Then the rain started with an unbearable strength. I had to give up. Maybe next weekend... Fortunately I had been farsighted enough to add a rain shield on the hoist. Who knows how long it will take before the ridge beam is finally up.

Two weeks later our team was dry and operative again. It is the beginning of November and to my great surprise the weather has turned unusually cold. On Saturday morning when I climbed up to the construction the temperature was down to -12 ºC and there had fallen over 20 cm's of snow  ! What did I say the last time ! Only the snow was missing. Well, now it was there all right :-( If I had not covered the one hoist I already had up it would have frozen up to one big clump...

Last time the autumn storm had dissolved half of my dam down and sunk the garden water pump into the lake bottom mud breaking it down. To be able to remove the last plywood pieces I wanted to pump the water out from the boathouse but now the pump was gone. Thus I bought a submersible pump and hose that were powerful and dirt tolerant enough to do the job. Well, the rain had lasted over two weeks, raising the lake surface by almost half a meter. My dam had sunken below and the lake was inside my boat house ! And all frozen. Maybe I'll find some other use to my brand new submersible pump :(

So, back to the building project. With the two of us it now took less than half an hour to rebuild the other stand, fix the other hoist on it and lift the whole thing up. Great ! During the years of my electrical engineering carrier I had learned that while one person can perform 100 %, two people are not worth of 200 % but something like 150 %. It requires four to five engineers to reach that 200 %. Here it was all different - if one person was worth of 100 % two would make up 300 % to 400 % minimum ! One never stops learning. What a mistake it was in the beginning to hire only one carpenter for the job.

Well, then came the most exciting moment ! We were to raise up the ridge beam. With two hoists and two men the whole operation lasted less than five minutes. And there it was, up above anything else. I was quite nervous and wanted to hurry the supports in place before the whole thing collapsed. He called it the time for a coffee break ! Maybe it was just to calm me down. Well, the beam was happily hanging up there in its noble loneliness for that twenty minutes and all the time required for the supports to be built in place in no hurry.

The rest of the day went cutting the roof truss to dimension and lifting them "upstairs". My wife, daughter and her boyfriend were all helping - luckily. I was completely exhausted after that effort. Only Sauna and cognac could recuperate me.

On Sunday morning we started to install the roof truss. The operation turned out - again -  to be more than challenging. The pieces of wood were really heavy and raising them up while standing on practically nothing - on a ladder placed on some snow covered frozen planks here and there - was really sweltering. It took all the day but finally I could see how the building was going to look like... and I liked what I saw.

December 3, 2006

Well, then everything went the way nobody wanted to. The next two weekends I was to work alone while my friend was tied up with his other activities. The following weekend I spent in Chicago at an exhibition and thus the whole project was postponed critically. The roof was needed in place before the snow would really fall. I called for help, searching for another carpenter (again) who could finish the building before it was too late. I found one who promised to have a look the next weekend (once I was in US).

When I came back home I called this guy up. He had not been there and had also lost his interest - good bye. It cannot be that difficult. I called up my carpenter friend to build the boat house together on the coming weekend. He had unfortunately fallen to the bottle again and thus it was another lonely weekend at sight.

On the left is a glimpse to my country house guest room. Filled up with doors, windows and other building stuff for the boathouse to come. I bought them over a month ago when everything still seemed to go smoothly and now they are endangering our Christmas - cannot ask anybody over because the place is packed.

On the right is what I achieved during the last month. On yesterday morning I woke up after my trip to US and found myself to be ill. Fever, sore throat, acing lungs - a flu...  All I did was to put up some scaffold for the coming roof build and try to cover the building for the snow.

December 10, 2006

It seems that this building project of mine doesn't have much of a blessing ! A week later, now almost mid December I spent another weekend working alone. It is just not going to get anywhere like this ! That guy who never showed up had a friend willing to do the job. He called up and we agreed that he would call me up next Friday for driving instructions and come up on Sunday to check the place.

I got a call on Friday morning at 6:45 from the first guy, letting me know that he was interested again, now that the other carpenter would also attend. Good. The other never called me up that day so I called him up. We agreed that  he would call me again on the coming Sunday for driving instructions. He never did. Neither did he answer to his phone when I tried to call him...

On the right I am preparing the supports for the head eave halves, four altogether. Got them all done but couldn't lift them up alone.

December 17, 2006

This whole project is slowly getting on my nerves. I tried to call up anybody who could help me out. The first guy above responded, surprised that the other guy never did. He promised to find somebody else to help me out. The next day the guy who never showed up called me to apologize. He could help me but not before mid January - just fine !

On last Friday a third carpenter called me up, informed by the first one. He promised to show up on Saturday to check the project. After several phone calls he finally complied to turn up ! Ten minutes before the total darkness of the Finnish December. We agreed that he will take a friend along and build the roof for me during next week - even before Christmas ! Too good to be true.

To make the job to proceed a bit faster I decided to lift those four head-eave-halves to the roof top and nail them together. The work was more than challenging to be done alone. I bought 30 meters of rope and two double-blocks to make up a 4:1 hoist. You can see it hanging on the left (red-white rope) between those two yellowish hoists I already possessed. I used the new hoist to lift the halves up one by one and the final pull was done by those yellowish chain hoists. It was insane. It took four hours to lift two halves up and nail them together. At right the lake side head eave frame is complete and on top of the other roof truss to be moved to the other end of the roof. It took all Saturday. Pay attention to the tarps by which I carefully covered the frame last week. The autumn storms ripped them into pieces and threw them off :(

On Sunday I started for the other half. The unexceptionally warm Finnish autumn decided to end finally. In the morning it was -1 ºC and all the planks were ice covered. It gave me the extra thrill I already had missed for :( Not to mention that the lake surface had risen almost to its maximum ever and my peer was washed ashore over its supports. Nice, I was not going to have a lazy Sunday after all.

Well, in the end of the day I had the head eave frames built and lifted up just as planned ;-) At right see the blocker I put onto the end of the ridge beam to prevent the head eave to slip down when moved into place. Just in case...

At least the weather was fine all this weekend. Maybe somebody is looking after this project after all.

December 19, 2006

On Monday afternoon I called the carpenter up to hear how everything was going. It wasn't. He was just about to visit the place and bring his tools over - in the end of the afternoon, come on !

On Tuesday he didn't pick up his phone before mid afternoon. And he was already driving off !

I decided to go over and have a look what had been done. Next to nothing. A couple more scaffolds were put up and one of the head eave frames was moved towards its location. A work of maybe two hours.

Well, then I saw how the eave frame was hanging there. See the photo at left, taken 5 o'clock in the afternoon when it was already pitch dark. Something wrong with it. I seem to be a moderate carpenter myself - I had measured the length of the beams with an utmost accuracy but forgot to reduce the thickness of the end plank. Thus the frame did not fit in place but now all the beams have to be shortened up there.

January 1, 2007

Happy New Year to you all. I wish that mine will turn out to be also well after all. However, at the moment it does not look that good.

After four full days of work, on December 22, the achievements of the carpenter and his friend were not that encouraging at all. The head eave frames were finally in place but not filled in yet. Against what we had agreed they had also started to spread the undercover over the roof. It was supposed to be put in along when the roof was laid on.

And a lot of new scaffolds had been built ! There was practically a full floor been built as you can see at the right. It did not serve any purpose for the building of the roof that had to be done from above.

While they seemed to be satisfied on their achievements I had no alternative but have them build the rest for a contracted price. There was no way I could pay by an hourly rate if all the effort was put for building just new scaffolds.

We had a nice Christmas pause, heated the smoke sauna and enjoyed our stay. It was good for the Boat House project that we had no snow and the temperature was well above 0 ºC but it did not actually feel like Christmas with the green grass and no ice on the lake. First time in our lives we had a Christmas swim !

On December 27 they returned to continue the job, convinced to be able to complete it in three days. The compensation was fixed accordingly. However, the result of those three days is shown at right. They were three now, obviously the carpenter and his two sons, but all they managed to do was more scaffolds. They used up all the timber on the premises to put up more and more scaffolds with handrails and all. The last afternoon they spread the under cover on the other side as well and managed to put the face plank in place. An effort of another two hours.

So, after seven working days not a single roof plank was put in place :( Suddenly the carpenter (who now had turned out to be actually a TV-mechanic) drove away in the middle of the afternoon, leaving his sons to work alone. Two hours later, when it was pitch dark and the temperature was down at -6 ºC I went down to check the silence. The poor guys were sitting in the dark, frozen up and waiting for their transportation. I brought them indoors to warm up.

On Saturday I spent one hour to fill in one of the head eave frames (compare the picture at right to the one left above to locate the one added vertical beam line). This was to make it easier to explain them how to do it. Just copy that three times.

Tomorrow they will continue and I don't know what to think. It seems to me that this latest "carpenter" is suffering from acrophobia and thus is not able to climb up without extremely heavy scaffoldings. It will never work that way I am afraid.

January 7, 2007

He called me up on Thursday, explaining that they had proceeded quite a bit. But - he said - he would need ropes and safety harnesses to be able to continue. The roof was too steep for him.

When I got there on Saturday all I saw is at right - approximately 80 cm of panel had been laid in one week ! All that he could reach standing on the scaffold. A rough estimate tells me that the rest of the roof will take another 8 - 10 weeks. Too long, the snow will fall before, halting the whole project.

A change to the plans is an obvious must. I need to let this guy go and find another solution to complete the job. Maybe I'll manage to gather some people from the office for a work party over the next weekend.

Frustrated as I was I decided to initiate the next phase and not to wait for them to complete the roof first. I spent a good two hours on Saturday afternoon to frame up all the door and window openings (but the two upstairs because of all the heavy scaffolding that blocked the access).

On Sunday I practiced how to install the window frames in place. Unfortunately after 45 minutes the patience of my daughter was used up and we had to head back to civilization.  All I managed to reach was one window frame. But I learned the system. Next weekend I will have all the doors and windows in place.

January 14, 2007

It wasn't quite like that. Instead of the window frames two of my colleagues volunteered for a roof work party on Saturday . It turned out that the "carpenter" had not visited the site at all that week but to pick up his tools, explaining that his son had been ill. The illness seemed to be in himself because the weather had been most wonderful all week. Well, at right you can see my two friends and one-and-a-half-meters of roof built up in less than two hours. The red stripy packages in front contain the mineral wool for the walls and roof to come. At the down left corner is my sailboat, covered by a tarp that had been torn away by a storm - hopefully, because the tarp had been swiped over against the direction of the wind - and the boat was half filled with snow when we got there.

On the left I am proudly posing on the roof after three hours of work party. We were half way of the slope. A second level of stand-on planks had already been added. As a comparison it took three weeks for the "carpenter" to reach the position where the first plank level is fixed on !

By the way, he came over in the afternoon to get paid for and dared to judge our work to be slower than his ! I've heard about people who observe the world through pink glasses, but he seemed to be completely blinded and looking at videos telling about the life of somebody else. I told him that I did not need his services any longer.

On Sunday morning I planned to add another six plank layers and cover the completed slope with a roofing. Once I had all the planks up it started to snow heavily :-( After a while I had to stop and climb down, it became way too slippery. At right the current status is shown. It looks like this is how the boat house will be until the spring finally comes. It was so close...

January 28, 2007

The last two weekends I spent just a couple of hours building the boat house. I was too depressed to really go into full action alone and thus concentrated on small things only. I dismantled all window and door frames and brought them down to the construction site. Finally there is some room for a guest to overnight in the guest room.

In the picture at left all the ground floor window and door frames are in place. Actually the door frame in the middle of the left wall is only fixed by five screws instead of six, because my last Torx-bit broke in pieces. I broke already two of them, trying to insert a screw at a position of a branch. Don't do it, it is just too hard wood !

The weather is finally normal Finnish winter weather. -10 ºC and lowering now day by day. Beautiful sunshine as you can see. Fortunately the days are getting longer. Now there is enough light from 8:30 to 16:30 - already long enough for an 8 hour working day.

February 4, 2007

Another mild weekend. The temperature was barely on positive that is highly unusual at this time of the year. I achieved quite a bit during these two days, even though they were quite short. I only worked some three hours each day - come on, it is my free time after all. Another thing that is slowing me down are my eye-glasses. At these close to zero temperatures they continuously fog up and make it very difficult to see clearly. Somebody must have had the same problem and found a solution to it. Just tell me how !

On Saturday I tore down all the scaffolds the last carpenter had built upstairs to get them out of the way and assembled the last window and door frames in place. I felt bad when I saw all the heavy planks he had cut for scaffolds, what a waste of good material. And the amount of nails he used - more than was used for the actual building constructions !

On Sunday I filled in the the last two head eave frames, added diagonal supports to the roof corners and replaced the temporary mid wall supports by properly cut-in planks as shown at right. Compare to the view five pictures up.

February 11, 2007

This was a short weekend for building. I only spent about one hour out there. Main reason being the -22 ºC crispy weather that did not exactly encourage for a longer stay. Otherwise nothing to complain, the sun was shining and there was no wind. At right a lakeside view now that I could finally walk on the ice.

What did I achieve ? Those two diagonal supports at left. I still have to remove the temporary ones from inside but there is no hurry. Well, I also turned around the upstairs door frame that I installed last week - exactly vertical but upside down. The hinges would keep the door from flying up. That happens... :(

February 25, 2007

The last week was the winter holiday in Finland. We spent most of the time at the country house but unfortunately the weather was keeping itself on the crispy side all the time. Finally, on the last Saturday the weather broke and the temperature settled  down to a more bearable -8 ºC. I could skip reading the books and go for some outdoor activity...

At first I added the remaining diagonal supports I had planned in. At right you can see them sitting nicely in place. Now I am convinced that the construction will stay up without folding down when stressed by the wind or alike.

I then went upstairs for the roof truss supports. In my original plans the roof truss were in line with the wall bearers and the middle floor beams, firmly nailed together. Because of the window and door openings my carpenter friend wanted to change the rhythm of the wall bearers and not just add some more to frame the extra openings.  As a result most of the roof truss became unsupported, kept in place by one or two nails only. After a considerable amount of thinking I decided that it was not good enough for me. As you can see at left the rigid enough roof truss is just touching the horizontal beam corner and is fixed there by one nail. No way it could bear any forces, it was just good enough to hold the truss itself in place and to keep it from falling down. Next to it is the extra support that I made eighteen of, to fix all the loose roof truss properly in place.

At right half of the east wall is done and the other half is still to go for. This wall had 14 unsupported roof truss while the other had only 4 because of the  unsymmetrical door and window openings.

The result at left looks insane. There seems to be vertical beams at a 30 cm pitch at the length of the whole wall. This is why I wanted to do it by myself and not to let a "professional" to do it. However, I picked most of these "beams" from the scratch pile and from the fifth carpenter made scaffolds I tore down. Now I feel more safe and nothing extra was added to the cost - fine.

But the winter made it really tough. At right you can see my pile of planks. It was nicely covered with a tarp with just a couple of small holes in it. Basically it shielded 99,9 % of the planks. However, some water leaked through, covered the planks and froze. The pile became a one huge frozen plank !

I had a heater to blow there through the night after which I managed to pull a couple of planks out of the pile. ;-) Just enough to have those roof truss supports made together with the scratch planks I gathered.

My last job for this weekend was to decide the height of the boat doorway.  It was just the matter of how it was going to look for, all boats fitting in the boat house would be low enough for a lower doorway (not to count the sailboat mast).  I walked back and forth on the ice, trying to visualize the looks of it. Finally I decided 190 cm to be the fit and nailed the top plank in place (at left). In the evening I modeled the same building face with the Illustrator  (at right) with the sliding doors to come and decided that it looked perfect. All right, the upstairs window could be 20 cm's lower but then it would be too low for the person inside.

March 25, 2007

A whole month went by since I last wrote to this page. The reason is that I waited for two new carpenters to begin their work. These local guys I finally managed to hire were known to be good and I ceased to build the torso by myself any longer. All I did was to mark the lake side sliding door fixing points where the wood had to be filled in all the way through the wall frame.

I also had the local building inspector to visit the site to assess that the construction was properly done. She agreed my extra roof truss supports to be necessary and wanted another bolt to be added to the middle ridge beam support. She also suggested that an upstairs floor would stabilize the framework remarkably. So be it...

These new guys are really good ! After two days of work I visited the place and found the lake side wall built up all the way (outer panel still not there). Because the ice started to melt pretty fast we decided to start from the lakeside walls instead of the unfinished roof. Easier to build from the ice than mess in the ice cold water. At right you can see the lakeside wall waiting for paneling. The horizontal beams are the fillings for the sliding door fixing points.

At left the same thing seen from inside. If you compare it to the picture above you can see that the guys added some extra framework to properly support the panels.

During the rest of the week the guys completed the plank roof. While the roofing felt required a minimum temperature of +6 ºC the roof could not be covered yet and they concentrated for Friday on the walls instead.

On Saturday we had the roofing celebration. Finally !

I had spared a bottle of shampagne that we exploited with my wife, sitting on the frozen peer.  It was quite a relief to see the boat house to really progress at last.

At right the land side gable wall, where the extra framing and panels are already in place but some panels are still missing.

On Sunday I installed the electrical wiring for upstairs. I was somewhat surprised to notice that it only took about one hour. How much did I pay to the guys who wired the country house ... and I did it balanced on a ladder fitted on just two planks over nothing.

Well, at left you can see all the upstairs wiring hanging already in place.

March 28, 2007

Three days later I would say that some progress has been achieved ! These guys had made all scaffolds required and covered the lake side wall with the final outer panel. And the ice is already gone in practice. It still sticks tight where it is not required but it has already melted all around the building site - of course. This has been the warmest ever known March in Finland but somehow it doesn't surprise me at all. Whatever it takes to make it the hardest for me...

I did ask them to leave the scaffolds in place that I could paint the wall the next weekend.  Some work ahead to look for.

I walked around the building and saw that they already had begun to cover the roof with the felt as you can see at the left. Almost half way one slope ! This is because the weather is so warm - the felt cannot be assembled in less than +5 ºC , maybe somebody is looking after all this, after all ...

I went home and spent the rest of the evening by building the fuse box for my boat house to come. I was so proud of it that I enclosed a picture at right.

April 1, 2007

I was somewhat disappointed. All what was done the last three days was the roof slope that was finished. I need to talk to the guys. To assist them with the other slope I carried all the felt (some 500 kg) up to the scaffolds.

And I painted :( I spent all weekend just painting this one wall. Friday evening a protective coating in three hours. Saturday and Sunday took both eight hours. Green to the window and roof edges, reddish brown to the eaves and darker brown to the wall - two layers each.

April 9, 2007

The last week was only four days long because of the Easter plus the carpenters had one day off. However, the guys pulled themselves well together covering the other roof slope in two days and continued to panel the land side gable wall. The scaffolds included... Feedback worked.

My intention was to use the four-day-long Easter weekend to tear down the fifth carpenter made extra heavy scaffolds. Before that I planned to install a door slide bar to the lake side wall utilizing the scaffolds still in place. And while I went through all the trouble to locate a shop for slide door equipment I bought also the heavy slide gear needed to heave the boat into the workshop and back. It was good for 500 kg. I can warmly recommend this company Helaform for anybody interested in professional sliding doors and alike. At left the six meter long steel profiles are on my car roof, weighing almost 100 kg ! Had to drive extra carefully because they tended to pick up all resonant frequencies available.

This small effort turned out to be quite challenging (as always). I installed the slide bar on long Friday but decided to add a visor above it. This in turn required some woodwork and painting (and time for it to dry up). I made them on Saturday and painted two layers on them on Sunday, planning to fix them on on Monday.

Meanwhile I ripped part of the back wall scaffolds down.  The amount of nails I extracted can be seen at left. This pile is from a half wall long scaffold only. At right two typical joints are shown.  That poor guy must have been really scared of high places. Or at least I never found the button to switch the nail gun on sustained fire...

Monday morning was a complete surprise by any sense. The weather had been beautiful all weekend but in the morning it was freezing cold. During the night the temperature fell down to -7 ºC freezing the partially unfrozen lake up again and stopping the paint from drying. While I was hanging up on the scaffolds fixing the visor on the wall the lake ice was screaming in a way I have never heard before. The sound resembled the loud whining of a jet plane, followed by rifle fire and light artillery. The scaffolds were part of the show, trembling and wobbling along with the rhythm of the ice. It was really scary ! I expected to fall down to the water at any second.

Well, I managed to fix the still wet painted visor in place (at left), wash my hands from paint and rip all the scaffolds down from the back and lake side walls. Unfortunately I had to leave the front wall scaffolds undone because I was totally exhausted and finally fell in the ice cold lake while walking on the icy underwater veneer plates.

Compare the the water surface level to the March 28 condition when the lower scaffold was built. The water has risen about half a meter, floating all the constructions  !

But have a look. The construction starts to finally resemble that cute boat house I had in mind.

April 15, 2007

Sorry about my bad photo angle. It only shows the land side gable wall that is now complete and the first layer of paint has been spread (not yet the green though). Also, note that I ripped off the front wall extra heavy scaffolds with handrails and all. Not to mention the bucketful of nails I extracted and threw away.

The main thing is, however, that also the back wall was finished last week. Just the paint is missing now.

April 22, 2007

The building finally has all the four walls of it ! Some window panes were also put in place to prevent the rain to wet the insulations that are as well being installed now.

Our family spent most of the weekend painting. On Friday evening I covered both side walls and the inner wall with a protective coating. I hated the job and thus managed to get it done in three hours. Of course it was raining, just enough to wet me totally soaked. Combined with the +5 ºC temperature I was more than ready for the sauna after the job.

On Saturday my wife and daughter started to spread the paint to the side wall and under the side eaves. I was to first install the slide bars to the ceiling and then join them for painting. Next week the carpenters will lay on the upstairs floor that would make the bar installation much more difficult. Not to indicate that it was easy now :(

The first half of the bar on the workshop side was reasonable to put up but the other... Three meters high above the freezing cold lake surface. How could I ever fix it there ?

After some time of thorough thinking I hung the bar up with ropes that I fixed to the upstairs floor bearers. I then played around with my 30m long pier and tried to guide it into the boathouse. Finally I beat the wind and managed to get it partially in. Just to take it out again and float it to the shore to get all the necessary gear aboard. As I thought...

Once I was up the ladder, measured the fixing points and started to drill the first hole, I noticed that my drill battery was still in its charger ! It would take an hour to float the pier out and in again. I had to think for another solution. I called for my wife and asked her to partially fill a bucket with sand and put the battery in it. I threw her a rope that she fixed on the bucket, floated it and I pulled it over. Nice ! At right me, the ladder and the bucket.

A clever person can get through a situation where an intelligent one never gets into ;-)

The workshop is shown around. At left to the lake and at right to the land side. It feels like a room now when all the walls are in place. The "table" at the center is the carpenters tool to cut the mineral wool insulations in size.

Note the slide bar in the ceiling. It is otherwise centered but tilted 30 cm towards left at its far end in the picture at right. This is to give way to the center pole of the spiral staircase to come.

May 2, 2007

This weekend I installed most of the electrical wiring and then we (my daughter, her boyfriend and me) spent some nice time together (two days) to paint the house with two layers of paint. The weather was of course perfect for the purpose - temperature just above the minimum allowed +5 ºC, occasional showers and strong northern wind :-( But we managed to complete the job !

The gutters and upstairs floor are all in place now, the roof insulation and indoor paneling are still underway. A local carpenter visited and promised to build me the doors and stairs to dimension. In two months... At right the opening for the staircase to come.

At left the final ceiling construction is shown. The added horizontal beams add rigidity and act as supports for the ceiling panels.

The nature also wanted to express its power. The lake surface has risen to 15 cm from its maximum ever. At right you can see that there still is another half a meter to go before the boat house would float away. It would not because I bolted the frame to the concrete just in case ;-)

The subsurface drainage design will be more than challenging. At left you can see that the lake has turned into a castle moat, almost surrounding the building. Drainage pipes would just lead the water in, so ? Maybe I rely on the fact that in the autumn the water is low and the piping will act as a real drainage and dry the land before it freezes up. The problem is that if the water freezes below the founding it will gradually lift it up year after year .

May 6, 2007

Another labor camp weekend at the boat house. Fortunately the results finally start to show. On Saturday I ripped down all the scaffolds around the building, leaving just the lower parts over the water. They will still be needed to build the window frames there.

From outside the building starts to look pretty much finished, just those door and window frames missing to give the final touch.

Inside will, however, still require some more effort.

I located a potential problem ! The weather was a bit stormy today and the lake waves created a resonant wave inside the boat house.  Now and then the water splashed really high, reaching the inner wall and some water spread out to the workshop floor. Not good, not good at all. I need to figure out something that directs the upwards splashing water back down from the wall.

The upstairs insulation work has proceeded well.  At right you can see the current situation. The lake side room is ready and waiting for panels. The land side room is still missing the top insulations plus another 5 cm extra insulation layer that will be added horizontally over the existing vertical directed insulation. Crossing the insulation directions will minimize the warmth leakages. Of course the middle wall still requires some attention, it has to be paneled and properly insulated because it will separate the cold and warm sides.

At  left the workshop after my Sunday four hour clean up spell. I collected a bucketful of nails from the floor and carried away four full wheelbarrows of pure waste. Not to mention all the planks and veneer boards I had to carry out. One of the veneer boards I placed in the doorway to calm down the strong wind that was blowing through the building, almost ripping off your clothes. Good for dust control, though.

Once I had the room cleaned I brought in some of the floor insulations. The floor will be covered with a 5 cm polyurethane insulation layer, on top of which another 5 cm thick layer of concrete will be cast. A floor heating cable is going to be installed there to keep the floor nicely warm. It will also act as an emergency heating in case the air heat pump will break down.

May 8, 2007

I visited the site on Monday evening in order to install some electric piping to be cast in the floor and put the floor heating cable in place. The upstairs had been completely insulated and first ceiling panels are in place as shown at left. Unfortunately I had not enough pipe bends with me and I had to return on Tuesday for the rest.

It was a good thing to do. The guys had left the upstairs window open and it was raining in  :-(  At right the workshop floor heating cable is in place - after a three hour long effort. I never really figured out that it was altogether 115 m long ! It took 170 cable ties to fix it.

May 13, 2007

Slowly but surely the project progresses. Too slowly again, I am afraid. It took two days for two carpenters to lay the panels for half of the upstairs as shown at left. The job seems to proceed at half speed. I need to address the subject tomorrow.

At first the upstairs was looking nice. Then I noticed one missing electric cable ! Somehow they had missed one cable end and left it hanging somewhere behind the panels. Half of the lake side room is without electricity. How to fix that now ?

On Friday the downstairs concrete floor was cast. The pump car was agreed to come at eight o'clock in the morning. It finally appeared at 11, three hours late ! And for some reason the amount of concrete I had ordered was not enough but the car had to go back for a refill. I could not understand that at all. The required volume was 1,9 m³ and I asked for 2,3 m³ to compensate for the material waste in the pump and tubing. For some reason another 1m³ was needed.

On Saturday I wetted the floor and covered it by plastic to prevent it from cracking. I then went to measure the height of the room. Explanation for the extra concrete volume was found - the floor was 3 cm higher than supposed ! Why everything has to be so difficult ?

While the floor was cast the newest carpenter was working on outside, constructing the window frames and fixing the gutters. This guy came to substitute one of the two carpenters that had to begin another construction site of theirs. Unfortunately this new guy seems to be far too slow. It took him a full day to make seven window frames and those only half way through, not to mention the missing gutters as shown at left. I could have done it faster by myself.

May 20, 2007

We had a nice long weekend because Thursday was an official holiday and we took the Friday off as well. Thursday went for planting some potatoes, carrots, onion and dill. I then found out that my garden pump that last autumn fell to the lake bottom was really broken. I had to go for a new one on Friday to be able to water the plants.

Friday was the last day these carpenters were working for me. I had asked them to estimate the duration of the remaining work. They thought that finishing the upstairs paneling would take the Friday and the workshop paneling would require all next week for two guys. I told them that I did not need their services any longer, just finish the upstairs on Friday. While I was hanging around they managed to complete the upstairs by the noon ;-)

I spent two hours on Friday to cut the floor edge insulations and to spread a plastic sheet to the walls.  I then went to buy a new garden pump and an air compressor and nail gun as well. On Saturday I started to panel the workshop. At right the progress after three hours is shown. It took so long because I had to design and make three feed-through holes for the garden water pump that I will install inside to the corner of the room.

At left the same after another two hours. I paneled half of the workshop in five hours alone ! From there it is simple to calculate that to complete the workshop paneling will take altogether 10 hours for me. I seem to be 8 times more effective than the professionals that estimated 80 hours for this work :-/ Well, I spent some time to install the fuse box on the wall as well.

But I must say that it never stops wondering me how the panels change the size of the room. The space looks almost two times larger now that the walls are light.

June 10, 2007

The springtime is quite busy. We didn't have the time to visit the country house for one weekend and the other went for cutting the lawn and planting the vegetables. This weekend I finally managed to continue the building work again. At right are all the window frames that I painted twice. What a job - it took me over two hours for one round.

Actually I had visited the place in the middle of last week to build them up and put the doors and locks in place. A job for one full evening but can I complain? I myself had wanted to make the window frames similar to the main building. Also, now that the doors can be locked I can leave the tools in the boat house and don't have to carry them back to the main building every night.

On Saturday morning I painted the already partially installed window frames as shown at left.

Once all the frames were painted and still wet, I focused on the paneling again. After four hours of work the workshop was all paneled for. Shown at right. Thus it took altogether nine hours instead of my estimated ten to panel it up. I then turned out to be almost 9 times more efficient than the two professional carpenters...

At left the back side of the building is shown. I built up there a carrier for the air-heat-pump outdoor unit. The indoor unit will be installed up to the wall shown at right. Notice the feed-through hole up in the back wall.

June 19, 2007

Two days for summer holidays. I prepared myself by bringing a carload of raw material to the site. Trim strips, rain water wells, drainage pipes, water hose, wall sockets, light switches etc. Something to work on during the holidays...

June 29, 2007

One week of holidays has passed. Been fishing, gardening, resting and reading. Every now and then I also visited the construction. At first I carried indoors all the planks still under a tarpaulin. Next I installed the rain pipes and pulled the air heat pump up to the wall with a hoist. My good neighbor gave me a hand there.

Once I got to speed I also put all the readily painted window frames in place. The building starts to look pretty much finished now but look at the surroundings...

The place resembles a junk yard. We decided to clean it up next Monday and ordered a detachable tipping body on the site for that day.

Once it started to rain I decided to continue indoors. Finished the paneling all the way up and added trim strips to the corners. Connected most of the electrical wirings and then went for the inside door and window frames.

What a nasty surprise - again :-( I had installed the window frames for a 2 cm thick paneling but the panels I had were only 1,5 cm ! Thus all the window frames were sticking out from the wall surface by 5 mm. I had to make an edge groove to every single window panel. Luckily I had bought a manual milling cutter that I now used for the first time - cutting out the plank edge for over 30 meters length. It wasn't that bad after all, after three hours of work I had all the downstairs frames in place.

Then came the stairs that I had ordered from the local carpenter. We put them in place and they seemed to fit. Unfortunately, as you can see from the picture at right, the two upper steps are not in level and must still be fixed. I had not ordered the vertical support beam because I wanted to utilize a leftover stump I had since the country house was built. It had been lying around for years and turned grey. I spent a couple of hours to rub it down but there it is now, lying on the bench nice and pale.

July 29, 2007

Had my summer vacation. Unfortunately it is over now. Managed to spend some time for the boat house as well but not enough to have it completed. My neighbor encouraged me by promising me a double gin and tonic once the boat house would be finished. Just you wait... 

At left the staircase has been straightened up. I first supported it with one of my hoists and detached all the staircase fixing screws, then pulled it up to a proper position and fixed it back again. Look at the the stump that has been varnished and put in place now. Seems that it finally found its specific location to rise and shine.

To be able to install the mid wall doors I had to first build the walkway over the water. Otherwise there was no way to get the doors up to their hinges above the water. For the walkway I needed two 6 meter long  steel I-beams that I ordered from the local hardware store. If anything could go wrong with this construction site, it really did so.  The wholesaler refused to cut the beam but decided to deliver it to the site at its full 12m length.

Well, the 17 meter long truck managed to find its way to the site but there was no way it could ever get out by itself. While my tiny 100 kg I-beam was on top of a 25 ton steel beam load it had to be unloaded first. !?! Therefore the truck came down there heavily loaded. So, after unloading my beam at right the truck with its 25 ton steel load had no change to climb up the steep uphill but was stuck there instead. I called a local farmer friend of mine to pull out the truck. He came with his huge tractor but the truck driver had not even an idea where to fix the pull chain. Finally they figured out to put the chain around the front axle spring assembly ...?...

Once they started to swiftly move uphill the poor truck driver managed to steer his truck to the ditch !  There was no way it could be pulled out with the tractor any more. Thus, we had to call for real a tow car.

The procedure took five hours ! The tow car operator was unbelievable, knowing every smallest detail that was required. He showed the truck driver where the proper pull location was, how to reveal it under the truck nose panels and finally picked the truck pull hook from the truck glove compartment... As one clever detail see the picture at right. One cable is pulling the truck up while the other has been fixed around a tree rootage to pull the trailer simultaneously towards right. Slowly but surely the truck was pulled up all the way. Unfortunately the truck driver got so nervous that he managed to steer his truck again into the ditch while been slowly pulled up  :-(

Once the steel beams were cut in size and painted for rust protection as shown in the animation at left  I started to build up the walkway.

At right the two steel I-beams are in place waiting for the wooden platform. Of course the I-beams had to be tied together horizontally because they carry loads at  the vertical direction only and would be very unstable in the horizontal direction, being able to flip under a load or to create nasty horizontal vibrations when walked on. Tried it and found it to be real. The beams were to flip real easy.

At left you can see my approach to the problem.  While more experienced in woodwork  I made the supports out of wood instead of welded steel structures. At first they seemed to work well before I noticed another source of instability. While those two steel beams were of same length they also possessed the same resonant frequency. Each step on the walkway woke up that resonant frequency, making the walkway to vibrate in a not at all so convenient way.

Well, while I had to make some kind of extension for the side doorway entrance anyway, I decided to support it with another diagonal piece of steel I-beam. After having cut that out and hammered the end piece to a proper angle I decided to add STEEL FRAMEWORKS to my CV. This process of a couple of hours included for example the build up of earplugs out of my work suit knee pads. Hammering the I-beam just exceeded the pain level (120 dB).

The diagonal support worked out. While the other long I-beam was now supported midways their resonant frequencies differed enough from each other, making the walkway finally nicely solid.

Once I had the walkway done the mid-wall doors could be put in place. At right the scenery from inside is shown while at left it is seen from the boat.

The window from the mid-wall door is still missing but the blowing of the wind has already  diminished to an acceptable level in the work shop area.

The air heat pump is now installed and up and running as well. While I could not find a 6 mm copper pipe from anywhere I finally asked a local refrigerator assembler to add 10 cm's of copper pipe and pull the system in vacuum. It was managed in one hour that I considered to be reasonable.

The next thing was to add some decorative wood stripes to the windows. Just by adding these tiny stripes made all the difference to the looks of the boat house as you can see at left. I also washed the windows that seemed to make even a bigger effect :-)

August 5, 2007

This was the warmest weekend of this summer, +27 ºC. I plunged in the lake and stripped out all the scaffolds still standing in the water. Moved part of them inside and built another scaffold there to be able to climb above the water and finally fix the boat slide bar to the ceiling. Not yet, though. I had more important things to be carried out for immediate damage control.

First I used the indoor overwater scaffolds to put the rest of the window panes in place. Now the wind is not blowing through the building any longer. Next I went for the conduits and rain water pipes. As you can see from the picture at left, the running water was wiping the sand away from below the building. At right the white underground drainage pipes are moreless in place and the black rain water pipe is next to be covered. In the end of the day they were all properly in place. Next I have to place 5 cm insulation sheet on the sand and cover it up by another 5cm layer of crushed gravel.

IN MEMORIAM  Jouko Haag, August 4, 2007

The carpenter friend of mine who helped me out with the most unfortunately deceased yesterday. I along with several other people will long for his earnest views and advice. He was one of the real old-fashioned upright carpenters that are not too many to find today. God bless his soul.

August 7, 2007

The weather has been unbelievably warm for the last two days ! Yesterday +27 ºC and today even +28 ºC. I had to leave work early and go for my labor camp again. The weather was just too perfect for the outdoor and inwater jobs. On Monday I removed the decorative grids from the doors and painted them as well as the window frames of the doors. I used the same reddish brown as for all the window frames.

Today I finished the underground piping around the building. At left the back wall is shown. Altogether I had to shovel and wheel more than 4 m³ of gravel - huh... But it's all done now. Just waiting for the 10 m³ of crushed gravel to arrive...

By the way, never carry along a digital camera with an almost empty battery !  I did. Just after I had shot the picture at left, ten huge Canadian geese splash landed on the water less then 10 meters away from me to see what I was up to. A really magnificent scene while my camera was blinking " battery empty" ;-(

Don't believe it ? I quickly recharged the batteries and managed to photo the geese still walking on my pier.

The next weather sensitive thing to do was to fix the boat rail to the ceiling. While it was warm and serene it was the right moment to climb up to my over water scaffolds, drill pre holes for 14 huge bolts and screw them in place. 

At left the flimsy scaffold of mine. It was more than interesting to climb up the ladder that was wiggling around on the thin planks. One just had to keep the balance and stop trembling and it was quite all right. Much easier than fixing the roof truss in December. Now I could only get wet if I fell in the water - no broken bones. So, after two hours I finally had the boat slide bar overwater part fixed in place. Wow !

August 16, 2007

The 10 m³ of crushed gravel arrived at 7 am on last Saturday morning. So silent that I never woke up when the truck visited (^_^).  Now I just have to shovel up and wheel around some 100 wheel barrows of gravel...  ( 20 tons !)

First things first. The heat wave still continues and the last week has been around +27 ºC every day ! Unexceptional, but let's get it in use. I moved the scaffold under the boat doorway and finalized the frames of it. Painting them greenish created a problem. Some animal had knocked over the paint bin that was unfortunately not properly sealed. The paint had leaked out but on top of another paint bin where it formed a skin on it. I managed to collect some of the still liquid paint and dilute it to somewhat usable paint. Next I have to persuade the paint shop to make me another bin of this especially tinted paint to be able to finish the painting.

Yesterday I visited the labor camp midweek. Just to utilize the warm weather while it is still there. Installed the missing window to the mid wall door and built the frames for the doorway and the mid wall window. Some green paint is obviously missing at the moment. Later in the evening I started to build up the indoor lighting system to be shown later.

August 19, 2007

This weekend was going to be short for my construction work. We were invited to my friend's 50 year anniversary on Saturday. Thus I spent the Friday evening by jumping around on the scaffolds over the water, giving the boat doorway and the mid wall door and window frames the final green paint layer. Bought some more paint ...

On Saturday morning I started to build up the workshop lighting system. At left  you can see the first plank of the four to come. One dimmer, two power supplies and six 50 W halogen lamps on each. At right the first of them after a couple hours of work, finally up and shining. It will take another full day to complete the other three but the result is rewarding. This1200 W of total lighting power will give a good enough level of light even to my poor elderly eyes.

Having the first light plank installed I washed the door windows and installed their painted grids back. The two lake side sliding doors are still missing but otherwise the building looks quite complete. And nicely so if I may say.

August 26, 2007

This weekend I wanted to make the project to look complete - at least from outside. I therefore concentrated on shoveling the gravel instead of building the indoor structures.

During this weekend I shoveled and wheeled around altogether 18 tons of gravel ! Alone ;-(. At right the beginning is shown. In order to prevent the ground from freezing under the building (and thus lift it slowly up) I placed 5 cm thick insulation sheet on the ground around the building and covered them by a 20 cm layer of gravel. After four hours of continuous wheelbarrow movement the backside started to look final as seen at left. Enough for one day.

On Sunday morning I continued with the rest. After another four hours of hard labor the job was almost complete.  At right you can see the current condition.

Two meters of ground insulation is still missing from the left side because I have to install some water pipes there first

September 2, 2007

I visited the site mid weeks to receive a convertible sofa for the country house. Once I was there I spent the evening by adding the still missing inside door and window frames to the boat house water side. I then prepared the rest of the ceiling lamp woodwork and finally built up the sofa that had arrived. It took all evening till midnight with those instructions...

Next weekend I had enough. The boat house was such a mess ! See the above picture on August 19. It was next to impossible to move around in the middle of all dust, scrap, tools and planks laying around. I built some supports to the wall and moved all the planks on the shelf. At right the place is shown after two hours of rigorous cleaning.

Then the boat house water side outer sliding doors finally arrived on Saturday. We carried them in and once I was preparing to paint them I noticed them to be mirror images ! Again. Just as the mid wall doors, also these were made mirrored. I refused to cope with this and called the carpenter to pick them up for repair. It was enough that I have to live with the wrong way round operating mid wall doors. He collected the doors shortly to be returned in a week.

I then went back to my lamp project. The first set of six lamps I had installed turned out to be a disaster. I had chosen the halogen lamps instead of fluorescent tubes to avoid the annoying transformer buzz of those. Because the full power of the lighting was somewhat an overkill I added a dimmer to the lamps. It stated on its package to be silent. It was. Unfortunately the halogen lamp power supplies were not ! Equipped with a dimmer they started to make a terrible buzzing sound. I took them apart, draw out schematics of their electronics and deducted that the buzz came from the three inductive components of the power supplies. I took all the not-yet-installed power supplies apart and cast all their inductive components in epoxy. While doing this I noticed that the transistor insulations were all improperly installed, creating a real danger of short and fire. In order to save expensive insulation material they were cut too small and slipped off their actual positions when assembled, creating 0,2 mm air gaps over which a 300 V DC voltage was applied. I need to contact the dealer immediately. The ones of mine I fixed by carefully placing the insulations properly.

At left three readily assembled lamp bars are shown. The one above has still to be taken down for noise reduction and insulation rework.

September 9, 2007

I had made a miscalculation and was three lamp powers short. Went to buy those and made a reclamation of the electrical safety of them. Unfortunately they were all sold out. The shopkeeper was nice enough to give me two 100 W power supplies at a price less than one 150 W. The drawback was that now I had to rewire one of the lamp bars. Above the six 100 W power supplies (to substitute those three 150 W's) and the two buzzing ones that I took down from the ceiling. All taken apart and inductors cast in epoxy. It helped remarkably but did not stop the buzz completely. I just have to live with it :-(

The night temperature dropped down to 0 ºC. The autumn is already on its way. On Saturday I completed the mid wall door frame insulations as well as the upstairs window and door frames that were still open for the wind to blow through. Turned the air heat pump on.

On Sunday morning the building was nicely warm, even too warm for working. I had set the heat pump to 18 ºC but the resulting room temperature was 22 ºC. Again something wrong ?

September 16, 2007

Last week I made a list of things to do. Still too much. Tried to figure out the proper priority of the tasks. While the autumn is seriously on its way the outdoor activities took the lead.

Bought four electric hoists and 50x50 mm square steel pipe to build up the boat lift. This was to get my wooden sailboat under the shelter. My workmate assisted me by welding the pipes together.  At right the way I transported the welded frame to the country house.

Painted the frame on Friday evening, lifted it up and assembled the first two of the hoists the next day. I then noticed that the electrical connections required some more attention. No use to lift them up because they all require some rewiring. Thus my sailboat still remained outdoors :-(

The carpenter had fixed the water side outer door panels the right way round and brought them over. One week late though. I was to paint them but before that I had to figure out how to fix the sliders to them. While there was no acute hurry to have the doors in place I decided to concentrate on more important things first.

I spent all Saturday afternoon by moving the plank pile from the forest to its "final" position at left.

On Sunday I took apart the carpenter #1 made workbench and with the invaluable help of my wife me managed to clean up all the surroundings, pick all the trash up and pile the planks nicely up after removing over 2 kg nails from them. The exterior looks pretty much done - finally.

September 23, 2007

Huh, spent the whole weekend alone at my private forced labor camp. Made A LOT of progress, though. As already earlier prioritized I was to concentrate on the outdoor activities at first. Decided to start by painting the insides of the lake side door and window frames as well as the newly arrived lake side slide doors. It took all Friday evening ( 5 hours) because the slide doors appeared to be 6 mm too thick to fit to the hangers.  I had to figure out a way to utilize my fraise to cut out some panel before painting them. At right...

Saturday morning I started to dig a ditch for the electrical wiring and water pipes. The distance was not that long (20 m) but it was full of thick aspen roots. Used my cultivator to do the dirty work and then finalized the ditch with a spade.

It seems that my luck is turning good once again. While I was carrying the boat slides out of the way of my ditch to come I found two big but perfect cepes (mushroom) on the bank. Prepared a delicious jubilee dinner for myself.

Once the ditch was dug and the tubing installed and covered I switched over to the next critical point - to finally get my sailboat out of the rain.

I installed the two missing hoists to the frame by a quick and dirty connection scheme (by four extension cords) and pulled the assembly above the water side. At left. 

I then lowered the lift clothes underwater (at right) by operating the four hoists one by one strolling on the temporary scaffolds fixed at the boathouse sides. Note the four hanging control handles that I picked in the reach by a boat hook.

The next thing to do was above my imagination. I was to bring my sailboat indoors. Finally !

I paddled the unmasted boat to the boathouse doorway, fought against the suddenly risen gusty wind for a while and then managed to slide the boat inside the boathouse and onto the underwater lift clothes.

I felt like captain Ahab when operating the hoists two at a time. While standing in the boat I lifted the bow up followed by the aft. In a few seconds the boat (and me) was 1,5 m over the water ! What a feeling !

I couldn't leave it there. I had to lift it up a bit higher, open the doors and pull the boat indoors to the workshop to come. Before that I had to fix the indoor slide rail properly to the ceiling. The result at right...

The boat started to leak out the water in it because of which I had to turn the heat pump onto "DRY" mode. I accompanied my boat for the Saturday evening by enjoying some vine and listening the local radio station. We had some fun... She drying up while I was doing the reverse.

Woke up on Sunday morning and went for my labor camp again. Coupled the water piping to the wall, installed the still missing ground insulations and carried over all the gravel required. At left the piping cover is still missing but the construction is now prepared for the winter to come.

At right how the place looks now. My workmate came over to collect my scrap wood pile for his heating. Nice.

September 30, 2007

Believe it or not - no pictures this time. Some stories, though. Arrived on Friday evening and went to check how "DRY" the boat house and the boat had become. The air heat pump clung on the wall, having its operating lights happily on and obviously feeling completely self-satisfied - not heating nor cooling. The inside temperature was down to +15 ºC, held up by the emergency floor heating cable I had installed just in case. Was the set +22ºC somehow forgotten by the poor air pump ? It responded by a humble beep to all the commands I gave it by the remote control but no other action took place. I tried all tricks in the book but finally the "Russian reset" was the only thing that made a difference. Turned the pump power off and on again from the fuse box. Suddenly the pump noticed that the temperature was all too low and rushed to pump it up. - Hello !

Last week I had already called up the shop I bought the pump from to complain about the too high temperature it kept but now I have a more serious thing to complain about. This pump seems to be a total lemon. The explanation I got for the too high temperature was, however, worth of telling out here.

"Because the pump is up on the wall it is natural that the temperature it measures is higher, because the warm air goes up. That is why the room temperature is higher than the set value".

I just asked one more question : While the pump is up on the wall and therefore measures a higher temperature than in the middle of the room - how come the middle room temperature is even higher ?!? I was given the phone number of the local Panasonic representative...

Showed the boat out to hang on the water side and installed the last missing lamp bar. Had to rewire it to fit to the three 100 W power supplies instead of the two 150 W I couldn't get any more. For my GREAT disappointment these 100 W power supplies were absolutely silent. No buzz at all... Now I have to live with the idea to change them all to 100 W types. Come on...

I have altogether four windows in the boat house that I want to operate as ventilation windows. This means that just by operating a single indoor handle the double pane window opens up and closes. A mechanism is required for this to move the outside window pane along with its inner partner. Bought and started to install those. After a lenghty period of time I had to give in. It turned out that even at their closest possible position they were far too thick to fit into my window frames. And I had thought that there is a standard for everything for house building.

October 4, 2007 (50 years since the Sputnik was launched)

Called up the local Panasonic service because the warranty period was to end in two weeks. They  came back shortly to tell me that the serial number of my unit did not match their files. And they had noted it down by themselves ! I decided to make a trip to the country house the next day to find out the correct number and get the wheels rolling before it was too late.

While I was going to make this relatively longish trip just for a serial number I decided to combine something to it. I swapped the window mechanisms to 22 mm up types, bought some floor tiles and cement and loaded them all into my car. It was just about too much ... approximately 500 kg ! My poor car proudly bowed down under the heavy load and carried it all the way to the boat house.

It was already pitch dark when I arrived to the site and started to hand carry the tiles and cement over to the boat house. The summer is unfortunately over. At left the 500 kg is finally indoors, spread evenly out not to break the floor by the weight.

I then went to reassemble the window mechanisms. Piece of cake now that they were thin enough to fit in...

At right you can see the new "thin" mechanism. Starting from right is the 22 mm wide body of the mechanism, next to it the flange to be fixed to the counter frame and then the screw to hold them together. The flange is in the position it should be to fit into the 23 mm gap between the frames - 1 mm off from the body. However, the screw was threaded only up to15 mm from the body, making the minimum frame distance to be 37 mm ! I had to make a new thread to the remaining part of the shaft and then cut off the excess part of it - exactly the length that was originally threaded ! The building business seems to be not that exact at all :(

October 14, 2007

Another lesson to learn.  I just spent a couple of hours to add new info to the site. I then transferred it to the server with my FTP software  latest version. Clicked the buttons I was used to - finding out that it had just overwritten the file in my computer I had spent hours to build for. Who in the world has a wicked enough mind to swap the locations of source and object windows in a file transfer program !!! Thanks buddy.

Well, here all that rewritten again. Giving in is not an option for a Finn.

I had planned this weekend carefully ahead. Decided to tile the workshop floor with the tiles I had brought over mid weeks. The plan was to give the final layer of paint to the outer doors on Friday evening to be able to carry them out on Saturday. Next thing to do was to push the from-ceiling-hanging-Snipe-boat out, carry all the tools and other appliance upstairs, sweep up the floor, hone it with a stemmed diamond grindstone I had borrowed from my workmate, dust it up again and then just lay the tiles on.

It didn't just go that way ! At left the Boat house on Saturday morning. The temperature had fallen below zero first time this autumn, making the smoke-sauna roof to frost. I had forced myself to paint those doors on Friday evening, having  them done finally at 22 o'clock in the evening. Quite exhausting after a full week of hard labor in the office.

Saturday morning I went for it. At right the indoors as it was then. The painted outer doors are leaning against the right wall while the rest is a total mess, again. Pushed the boat out - that created a peculiar sight at left. Have you ever seen a two-story boat house before ? With a mast in between. Well, at least I haven't.

It took half the day to empty the workshop up and clean and hone the floor. On the latter side of the afternoon I could finally start to lay the tiles on.

It was that time I looked out the northern window (at right) and saw that it was not that bad after all. The scenery brought an ancient thought to my mind: " Outside my window, there is a tree" (Cream). Beautiful, isn't it ?

I mixed the plaster in a 10 liter container and started to spread the tiles around. The work was more difficult than I had considered. At 20 o'clock Saturday evening I had to give in, after mixing up two batches of plaster. All that I had achieved is shown at left.

The job was really much more awkward than I had thought. I had figured out that a plastic wall-to-wall-carpet would be a more challenging choice because of the huge plastic sheet refusing to bend in the direction I wanted, combined with the contact glue willing to glue down everything it could reach.

The tiling, instead, seemed to require lots of patience. I continued on Sunday for another three hours and managed to reach a 1/3 situation.

October 21, 2007

Visited the site on last Wednesday to let the air heat pump repair person in and lay another batch of tiles on the floor. It was quite relieving to experience that it is not only me who makes a mess out of things. The service man took the high-up-on-the-wall-hanging outdoor unit into bits and pieces, carried them all down and started to disassemble the large circuit board that had failed to heat up the building, requiring a power sequence to wake up again. The designer of the pump had obviously saved in wrong places. In order to replace that board the service man had to remove all the insulation materials inside the pump to gain access to the compressor and other parts that had wires connected to. Because the circuit board did not have any connectors on it, all the wires had to be detached from their other ends ! Well, after one hour the faulty circuit board was on ground level and the man climbed up with the fresh new replacement he just took out of its shipping carton. But.

Once he was lifting the new board in place he noticed that it was already broken ! Physically broken. At some time in its life the board had received a huge impact that had cracked off all the circuit board corners that had the fixing screws on them. While the packing was nice and intact somebody had packed and shipped him a broken PCB ! Panasonic - remember the brand. He had to put the original board back and after about two hours we were at the starting point. He then replaced the indoor unit circuit board and temperature sensor to get the too high temperature setting corrected. When tried up the system switched itself off with an error indication ! He had forgotten one wire in the outdoor unit, had to climb up there again, take all the insulations out again, route that loose wire in its place and reassemble everything.

After the long and complex operation everything seemed to operate well... Next weekend I found out that the temperature was exactly the same amount too high than before. Well, he can try to fix it again once he comes to replace the outdoor PCB with a solid one.

The rest of the evening I spent by spreading more tiles on the floor. After all the above there was time enough for only one batch of plaster.

On Saturday I started the drudgery again. After the first batch of plaster all that I had achieved so far is shown at right.  After another batch of plaster I started to feel so thoroughly plastered that I decided to continue this desperate job on Sunday. Then comes my wife around and makes one simple question: Why didn't you just paint the floor ? Never crossed my mind ! How simple that would have been. But too late now.

On Sunday I begun to tile the staircase area. Instead of cutting the tiles around the stairs and the stump I decided to lift them off and make the tiling contiguous. At left the stump is finally off its position after a half an hour's effort.

Hung the staircase up with a hoist (at right) and was just about to start to lay the tiles - starting from the back wall as always - once I decided to make a simple calculation first. It had turned out that one batch of plaster was enough for about 30 tiles. If I started from the back wall there was a possibility that my plaster would not last to tile the floor all the way underneath the stairs. I thus decided to start below the staircase instead, just in case. How right I was for a change ! As you can see at right I was out of plaster two tiles short in the back corner. If I had started from the back the missing two tiles had been exactly under the staircase supports. I had no intention to keep the staircase hanging up there any longer than was absolutely necessary.

The remaining area to be tiled can be done with one more batch of plaster. Then just seam them tiles, put the skirting in place and go for the staircase banister. Simple.

October 28, 2007

One batch of plaster to go... Well, not exactly. Started on Friday evening around six o'clock and had to give in a quarter to midnight. Designed and constructed the boat door threshold insulation. Laid almost all of the remaining tiles in place but while they were all along the sides and had to be cut in size it took a lot of time. Tiles next to the boat door threshold (at left) had to be laid tomorrow, after the polyurethane fillings of the threshold insulation have cured.

On Saturday I cut the insulation to shape, shielded the wooden door frame with some tape and assembled the final seven tiles in place.

With another extra batch of plaster I had to mix :-(

The very edge of the tiles I sealed with a stripe of silicon paste not to let any water in between the structures.

Once the tiles were finally laid on the floor I could start to seam them up. That plaster bag told me that one square meter required 1 kg of mass. While it was a 20 kg bag I was sure to run out of mass somewhere at two thirds of the floor. What an agony - now I wasn't able to finish the job this weekend after all. It was mid afternoon when I mixed up the first batch of mass in a bucket. Estimated that one bucketful would be enough for half of the floor.

Three hours later I had done half of the floor and the mass bucket was still half full. There seemed to be a major estimation error on the bag ! It was half past five in the afternoon and I had not eaten anything yet. Decided to go on for it while the mass was still usable. Completely exhausted I got it all done by eight in the evening. Heated up the sauna and ate my late dinner.

On Sunday I started to wipe the dried mortar off the tiles. That job requires a cloth. I decided to utilize my totally plastered sweat pants at right. Wrapped them up around a floor mop and begun to scrub. At left the final touch starts to show off.

Note my new vacuum cleaner, meant especially for dirt and sawdust. It is very loud and looks like R2D2 but it works just fine !

After another two hours I had the floor scrubbed and could go on to install the hung up staircase back in place.

While the tiling added one centimeter to the floor thickness, the staircase as well as the support stump had to be shortened accordingly. At right I am slicing off the staircase.

Slowly but surely the Boat House is coming around. Actually it starts to look more as a building than a workshop.

November 7, 2007

Last weekend was spent on my friends birthday party. Thus I decided to visit the Boat House on Tuesday evening to make at least some progress also this week.

Shortened and put the detached door frames back and installed all skirting boards and corner lists.

Next I built a ceiling above the doorway and assembled two light spots there, connected to the staircase light.

Lighting conditions with and without the main lights are shown at both sides. A similar ceiling will be built to the left side as well.

November 11, 2007

Could there be a better opportunity for building construction than the Father's Day ? Built the left half of the ceiling and installed last two lamps. Finally all the hanging electric wires are neatly in place. Just some corner lists must be added but that can be done at some time later. Otherwise the workshop is now finally complete.

While in the mood for electrics I decided to install the outlets and lamp to the boat house wet side. Much easier now while the outdoor temperature is still on positive.

Once the lamp at left lit on, the downstairs was complete. Well, the outer doors still wait for the lake to freeze up for easier installation.

Luckily it had been raining a lot for the last two weeks. A month ago I brought the row boat short-sightedly in the boat house from rain. While the lake surface had lowered by 30 cm since then the boat had stuck to the muddy bottom that is not excavated yet. I could not figure a way to get it out and laying there it effectively prevented the excavation to come. Vicious circle that the Nature itself decided to sort out. Thank you ! At right the boat is now safely out and up for winter.

At left again one lesson to learn. I sealed the heat pump piping hole with polyurethane foam. Put too much foam in the hole and did not understand to cover up the wall below. Once the foam expanded out it formed a fist size ball that then dropped off - rolling down along the wall ! I have no idea how to clean the stripe off without leaving visible marks on the wall.

November 18, 2007

I spent this weekend for wiring. Not bad, I managed to complete the job ! For a change something finished up.  Now all the outlets deliver power and lamps light up. Two light switches still need a bit further attention. They are going to be installed to the staircase handrail to come. However, before the staircase handrail can be built the end wall has to be listed and the window framed. I just refuse to build another scaffold.

November 25, 2007

Some progress again. Finished the end wall and framed up the upstairs doorway. Most of the trouble was in carrying all the equipment upstairs. Not to mention how to squeeze all the timber through that staircase...

Added sealing strips to doors to keep the coming winter outside.

Some lists and the handrails and that's it !

December 2, 2007

I am getting lazy. Don't want to spend all my free time for the boat house any more. This weekend I worked only one hour on Saturday and another two on Sunday. Paneled the staircase walls and raised up the handrail beams.

The most difficult part of all this was to lead the lamp switch wires up to the handrail. At left you can see the rather poor result of my craftsmanship.  Made a wire groove to the list but the fraise kept on slipping, making the outcome to look pretty terrible. Luckily it does not show outside.

December 9, 2007

This was a long dark weekend with lots of rain. Perfect time to learn how to make dowel joints. The staircase required altogether 47 of them and thus gave me more than enough of dowel joint practice. 

One thing to learn again - check the drill depth adjustment ring position before every drilling. It slipped slowly upwards without notice that made the holes deeper and deeper. When I found it out it was already too late - I had punched through two list surfaces and had to redo them from beginning.

After all I was quite satisfied to the result. At left the banister is finally in shape but the vertical lists are just hanging in place because they will need to be dismantled for easier varnishing. At right the view from downstairs.

At right the last lamp switches are in place and the electrical wiring of the building is now complete - huh !

January 1, 2008

Happy New Year ! So, the project did not finish last year. Must happen this year, though. Spent the holiday season mostly resting but visited my private labor camp for some hours every now and then.

Took the banister into bits and pieces to varnish it up. I also took my rotary planer into use for the first time to shape the handrails from a couple of left over outer wall panels.

A few layers of varnish with some sanding in between and after a couple of days the banister parts were ready for reassembly.

After stumbling across all the material I had brought upstairs to make room for the tiling of the downstairs floor I had it. Spent half a day to move it all back down and cleaned up the mess. At right the staircase is finally complete and the skirting boards are now also in place.

At left the warm side of the upstairs almost complete. The ceiling strips are still missing and the wooden floor is covered up with cardboards to prevent it from damage before I have the time to varnish it up.

January 20, 2008

After two more weekends the upstairs is now finally complete! Well, to be exact a two meter long ceiling strip is not in place yet but laying on the insulation package at left in the picture at right. This is because I need to squeeze the electric wire out of the way first. Maybe later. Most important is the fact that now I can bring my tools downstairs and clean up the place. The construction work is  really finally FINISHED !!!

The outer doors are not yet in place though. This is because the lake refuses to freeze up ! It is already the end of January and the temperature still stays on positive. Strange. There is a lot of icy slush but that cannot be walked on.

Now that the building itself is practically complete, it is the time to fix the focus  on the next phase.  At right some new material I brought in this weekend.

That pile of laminated timber is for the table where to work on, a work bench, but - more importantly for two huge bass reflex boxes that I need for properly sounding background music ;-) During the boat house construction I spent hours and hours listening my small plastic radio and its thin plastic voice. Required a total change. You'll see. Check the Bass Reflex Box.

January 27, 2008

First of all let me introduce my new Boat House Stereos ! Bought the loudspeakers and the tuner amplifier from reasonably priced net auctions. The sound is already remarkable better inspite of the cartonish appearance of the "bass boxes". 15" speakers just cannot sound very thin.

Boosted by the rhythms I started my new career as a furniture maker. At right I cut out the table width extension and the sides by my hand held circular saw.

Next I positioned the parts into my brand new glue clamps, spread some epoxy glue to the seams and clamped the assembly together to let the glue harden overnight. Of course I had spred newspapers underneath before that operation but after the photo was taken. I wouldn't be such a fool to spoil my tile floor with the epoxy glue.

Next morning the tabletop was ready. Took the clamps off and made parts for the table feet ready. Next weekend I will practice some dowel jointing again, this time for the feet.

February 3, 2008

The Mother Nature seems to have some sense of humor.  The only thing I have been asking for is to make the lake to freeze up that I could lift the outer doors in place. As you can see from the picture at left the whole lake is frozen (very thin, though) but the boat house doorway is still splashing open. I think I got the message...

Concentrated on the coming furniture. At right my brand new upright drill that I purchased to be able to make exact holes at right angles. Those are a must for the dowel joints I was going to do quite many.

The wooden panels being glued on the floor are for the bass boxes.

The table is going to have a shelf underneath for tools etc. For that I had to make slots to the feet to hold a grooved board that in turn would hold the plywood shelf in place. That was quite an effort to make happen. First I cut slots of defined depth to the feet sides with my circular saw (at left) and then carved the slots open with a knife. Next I made the grooves to the boards with the fraise (at right).

Then I spent some hours to drill all the holes for the dowel joints and furniture assembly mounts that I used to mount the feet to the table top. Just in case the whole thing had to be dismantled and moved out one day. I must say that I was positively surprised of my success. The assembly mounts pull in only one millimeter and still I managed to drill their holes at exactly right spots ! They worked out just fine, tightening the feet nicely to the table top.

At left the status at late Saturday night. The table is assembled together and the left end piece is clamped in place to let the epoxy harden. The panels clamped on the floor are the tops for the bass boxes.

The 12mm thick plywood shelf refused to fit into the 12 mm wide groove I made for it ! I called it a day and went to bed.

On Sunday I completed the table by sanding the plywood edges off a bit.  Now it fit in. At right the workbench as finished. After some sanding and varnishing it can be taken into use.

The bass box bottom panels are clamped to dry off. Maybe next weekend will see (I mean hear) the new improved sound. But to be honest, they are going to be really BIG !

February 10, 2008

This was a lazy weekend. Lots of rain and sleep. Did no bass boxes but finished the workbench instead.  Rounded all the corners with the fraise and sanded the table top off with my new eccentric sanding machine. After layers and layers of varnish I pushed the table against the wall and filled the shelf with my tools that had been laying all over the floor. Getting organized.

May 4, 2008

During this spring I spent most of my free time to build up the bass boxes to the Boat House. Clean indoors work. Almost there now as you can find out by checking the  Bass Reflex Box. However, the exceptionally warm and nice spring weather made me to think about the garden watering. I had removed the pump together with its piping in order to assemble it inside the heated Boat House in the future. No need to disassemble it before the winter any more. After a couple hours of labor there it is at the right. The two through holes I made to the walls last autumn were exactly at the spot ;-) The garden water is safe now.

Concentrated merely on gardening I had no plan to go for the Boat House construction this weekend. On Sunday morning an exceptional sight unfortunately punched my awareness. Three people in a row boat were entering my Boat House. Just like that ! While they kept on rowing around and in and out of the Boat House for a good fifteen minutes I had to go and ask for the purpose. Just for curiosity ! Come on ! Nobody trespasses a foreign property just for curiosity. Unless you are a complete moron... or a thief.

This made my priorities to go upside down !

I had to put the outer doors in place immediately to prevent this from happening in the future. While the mother nature herself had refused me the easy possibility to stand on the ice floor in the winter and also crashed my peer in the autumn I decided to utilize the combination of these two  misfortuneties.

Floated my split peer remainders into the Boat House and decided to put those doors in place by standing on the peer stub. I must admit that it was quite an effort to drag those 30 kg doors to the doorway, rise them up and aim the suspension screws to their receptables while standing on the rocking peer.

The Mother nature wanted to have her word as well. Changed the beautiful sunny weather to a thunder storm - just like that. While I decided to completely discard this new message and just continue the work asking for some good luck for a change - she suddenly gave in ! The storm center circled around but never came directly on. She also turned the sun on in the end to allow me to have the nice photos of the doors.

Check the matching angle of the door panels and the roof shadow...

July 7, 2008

Spent already most of my summer holiday. Doing anything else but the Boat House. For some reason. Two years ago this project was started by the first carpenter. Today I had all my friends around to celebrate the Boat House - finally complete. Huh.

At left my workbench as well as my huge bass boxes.

At right the other side of the workshop with all the tools fixed to the tabletop.

Next I need to understand how to enjoy this new space of mine. Right now it still feels like a labor camp.

September 21, 2008

Well, it took a couple of months to accommodate myself to the idea that the Boat House was made for use and not the primary cause of existence any more. As you can see from the picture at right I went to buy a wood lathe. This is purely because the work bench had the room for it ... Now I can bother all my friends by giving them poorly turned round wooden objects as gifts (^_^).

That air-heat-pump you can see at the wall (Panasonic) was a great disappointment to me. It works just fine and doesn't consume that much of power either but it keeps the room temperature +4 ºC higher than set. While its minimum temperature setting is +16 ºC  there was no way to go below 20 ºC that is far too warm for a workshop.

Complained about it several times and had the electronics swapped twice. No change. Finally I took the temperature sensor out, measured it and added a 150kΩ parallel resistor to it. Now it works just fine, adjusting the temperature 2 ºC below the setting. Thus the room temperature can be adjusted from +14 ºC up. How stupid of them not to make this happen from the factory already...

Below two pictures for you. The Boat House seen from the lake side. Doors opened and closed. One hardly can tell that the doorway is 10 cm left from the center... Especially because I made the right door 10 cm wider than the left.

The Boat House story ends here. Thank you for your interest ;-)

February 25, 2009

Well, I couldn't just leave you like this. Some more achievements to be shown which I slowly performed during the past winter.

At right the lake side upstairs is shown, the floor properly varnished now. This I already did in last October before the temperature dropped below the freezing point because this space is not heated up. The other half of the upstairs I varnished just two weeks ago. No photo because it looks pretty much the same.

March 1, 2009

Finally this year the lake froze up properly ! At last I could go and walk on the ice.  Built the outer slide door bottom rails in place. Now the doors do not catch to the walls any more and can be operated remotely from the boathouse inner peer by a rope control system I built. By careful sight the light colored rope can be seen in the picture at right. It runs along the ceiling at right and comes down to a knob that will be replaced by an operating wheel shortly.

I extended the bottom rails way beyond the width of the doors to give the doors better support when closed. After a couple winter storms I can now judge them to be sturdy enough.

As it is so much easier to build standing on the ice than in a floating  boat I had left the inner peer side finishing to wait for the ice. At right it is done now - one and half years later. There is a large float at  the left peer end that I will use for a floating boat walk that will be built to the right side wall.

March 8, 2009

Made some shelves to the back wall and a tool rack for the wood lathe chisels. I had inherited an Alvar Aalto design coat rack that I placed in the Boat House doorway. The shelves I made follow the same theme. It only took me three weekends to have the shelf end pieces made...

Give a glimpse to the ceiling. Those three spruce beams hanging up there are for the mast to become for my sail boat. Or as some people call it a wooden spar. At last the boat house will serve to build boats in it.

Some more things to come up here as well shortly....

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