LUMBER DELIVERY
In keeping with our "goal" to build the best house and inspire solutions to the environmental crisis, we sourced our lumber from a sustainable lumber company based in the Pacific Northwest. You might be thinking we created a bigger carbon footprint by doing so, but the type of lumber we needed wasn't available from local sources, although we will be using local lumber later in the build, so the lumber would have come from other areas of the country anyway. The lumber we sourced is Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) certified. The FSC certification is considered the "gold standard" designation for wood harvested from forests that are responsibly managed, socially beneficial, environmentally conscious, and economically viable. Sustainable Forestry Initiative (SFI) certification is another sustainable lumber option, though it is less rigorous than FSC. If we needed to source lumber locally, like the bracing we used for the straw bale walls, we have used SFI lumber. In talking to Larry, the semi-truck driver, he made stops in Spray and Medford, Oregon among other cities to pick up our lumber. He was also able to bring down an order of wood on the truck for another client in Tucson, thus negating the need for a separate truck.
As is usually the case, Mother Nature and Murphy got together and decided that Monday the 26th of October was going to be a great day to have the first wet cold front of the season move through Tucson. Unfortunately they failed to let us know so we scheduled the lumber delivery for first thing that morning! The day started off dry and not that cold but as the day progressed the cloud levels dropped, as did the temperature and the rain drops. Even one of the construction crew guys from Minnesota got a little chilled.
The road to the build site isn't big enough to handle a flatbed semi-trailer truck so we had to complete the off-load of the lumber about 300 meters to the east of our driveway where Marsh Station Rd intersects with Zoo Stage Rd where there was a large open area. Evan the excavator uses this area to park his truck and trailer when he brings out his big "toys". Larry was waiting for us with his loaded truck when we showed up at 7:00 AM.
The flatbed fully loaded with our lumber
Tom, our construction foreman, said he had lost a couple nights sleep trying to figure out how to get all the lumber, especially the long roof joists up to the build site. His solution was to rent a forklift with an extendable arm. So at one point we pretty much blocked the entire intersection as we had two trucks there at the same time as they were off-loading the forklift.
Once the forklift was off-loaded, the next step was off-loading the lumber from Larry's truck and staging it all there in the open area. We wanted to get Larry on his way as soon as possible. Once all the lumber was off-loaded Tom began the task of transporting the lumber up to the build site. As he had to drive down Marsh Station Rd both on the way in and the way out, Spencer and I were tasked with traffic control. Our driveway sits at the bottom of a large dip in Marsh Station Rd, so Spencer was at the top of the hill to the west of the driveway and I was at the top of the hill to the east of the driveway to warn drivers to slow down while Tom was driving on Marsh Station. We both had orange flags with which to signal the drivers. It would take many trips with the forklift to get all the lumber up to the build site.
We have a couple of large spans, both in the house and the garage that require long gluelam beams. It was kind of cool to see that they were made in Washougal and Vancouver, Washington, which is just across the Columbia River from where Jeff's Aunt and Uncle live in Oregon!
The thing that really caused Tom the sleepless nights was how to get the 30 ft long roof joists up to the build site. The bundles of 20 ft long 2 x 4s and 2 x 8s were a challenge with the narrow road and multiple trees, but there was no way the long joists could be brought up perpendicular to the tines of the forklift. But Tom came up with a brilliant idea! By extending the arm of the forklift we were able to stack 11 joists at a time upright on the arm and parallel to the direction of travel. Then we strapped the joists to the arm and the cab of the forklift. This worked like a charm! Jeff helped Luis load the joists on the forklift and Tom would strap them down. Needless to say Jeff was a little sore the next day after loading over 60 joists. The rain held off for most of the morning but as we started loading the joists it got cold and wet.
Tom all loaded up with joists
The movement of the joists went well, but Murphy wasn't finished messing with us. When Tom arrived back at the staging area, after delivering the last load of joists, the forklift had steam coming out of the engine compartment. Upon further examination, we found that the cooling fan blades were broken and a line to the radiator had come off. Alas, the forklift was out of commission. This only slowed down things for a short time, as we only had the gluelam beams and two bundles of 2x6's left to move and everyone except Jeff had pick-up trucks. The gluelam beams, which only weighed a couple hundred pounds a piece, were loaded on Tom's truck and the 2x6's were loaded on Will and Luis's trucks and after a couple of trips all the lumber was finally transferred up to the build site.
Beautiful rough cut beams that will be used in the casita above the rammed earth wall and between the big windows in the house
A wrap-up of the days work
Now that we have our lumber we can start prepping for framing and the garage concrete pour. Logistically it was much easier to get the lumber delivered before we blocked access to the build site with the pouring of the garage slab.
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