So after a 2 month break, we were back at it. It was mid Spring 2018. With hurricane season coming up the main thing was to get the concrete anchors in and as much of the exterior done as we could manage. During the break we had also ordered a bunch of supplies from Florida which were now on St Thomas. Since the roof was now properly supported the first thing to do was to clear out all those annoying wall braces we had been tripping over. And rather than totally dismantling the way too robust structure that had been holding the jig pole, we decided to just move it over to a corner until we figured out what to do with it. So finally we got an idea of what the finished space would look like:
The house at this point was anchored to the concrete foundation solely with big Tapcon screws. Since there were almost 30 large anchors to install, I splurged and bought this nice rotary hammer from Amazon:
I also bought some adapters so I could use it to mix paint and stucco. Deltec had provided big 5/8 inch Simpson Titan anchor screws for most of the anchoring. In addition, we also had 4 wall panels that were shear panels, and these had special braces as well as the normal anchor screws.
The anchor screws looked fine to me, but just to be sure I also brought this bad boy with me:
The next couple of days were drilling holes in the concrete, then blowing out the hole with compressed air, wire brushing the hole, put some epoxy glue in the hole, and then screw the anchor in. Least fun was blowing out the hole, I got tired of being a sugar cookie covered with concrete dust.
The 4 shear panels with the special braces took a little more work as the threaded rod they attached to was embedded and glued 8 inches deep into the foundation. I was also concerned about the 3 panels in the front with the big door openings. These were actually designed not to have to be anchored at all. I decided to buy some smaller stainless steel versions of the special braces (that area will get wet a lot) and installed those as well just for my own peace of mind. Since I am building the slatted wooden doors for these openings it will be easy to adjust for the now non standard width and hide these braces in the finished door jamb.
Once we were done with anchoring the house down, now I went back and finished nailing the hurricane straps and upside down joist hangars for the rafters. I had run out of stainless steel nails for these so I tacked nailed them the last time until I could get more nails. Since the straps are stainless steel, and the joist hangars are galvanized steel, I was afraid of making a battery out of them in the couple of places they were in direct contact. So I put a PVC membrane between them, hopefully this will help with the corrosion issue.
Next to come was our supplies we had ordered from Miami. At the Home Depot in St Thomas Durorock concrete board sells for $26/sheet. In Miami it was $8/sheet. Since we needed about 40 sheets of it for the outside and 50 sheets of Hardiboard for the inside, it was worth the shipping costs to buy it in Miami and ship it on St Thomas cargo. Total cost per sheet was $16 on site. Another thing we ordered was lead flashing from Amazon for the outside seal between the walls and the foundation. It is simply not to be had anywhere in the Islands. Also coming was Pump Jacks scaffolding. I had a set in Texas but it would have cost more to ship it from Texas than to buy it on Amazon and have St Thomas Cargo take it the rest of the way. And to improve our drinking water supply I brought a reverse osmosis UV treated water system from H2O Splash.
The other thing that arrived was our Total Wall stucco from Sherwin Williams in St Thomas. Princess had decided on a color previously. Since I had already repainted a newly painted bathroom in the past due to female indecision, I decided that this time I would have a ten woman committee validate her choice. The Total Wall company was great about making samples for Buttercup to peruse. She had it narrowed down to 3 colors of Teal (or blue green for us males). During a family gathering we set the samples out in the yard and had the females among us make their choices. In the end Buttercup’s choice won 8 to 2.
With the arrival of supplies it was time to start on the outside of the walls. We also had a visit from the Local PD about this time.
In addition to enforcing the Water Island Fun code, he’s also a Country Music Artist. He sings the Water Island Anthem, “It’s a Beautiful Day” as well as other popular hits like “Mosquito, get away from me”. You can get his music on Amazon here: