All moved in.

Immediately after the final building inspection on tuesday morning a visiting friend and I moved all the equipment which had been living in the basement of my parents house, into the bakery. It certainly is more full now. Feels almost cozy and certainly, and finally useful for making the bread.
a couple pictures (and a movie!):

Trimming up outside

And the mostly finishing touches on the outside.
There are a few things that I would like to add but they are not required for the building inspection
and I am flat broke and need to get rolling with this whole bread business side of the project.
So, some final outside pix and then on to inspections and licenses and insurance and then
finally, some bread.

The Front















The Back

















The Porch (with trash cans)

Insulation, Drywall and Painting.

I did not take any pictures of the insulation and drywall aspects of this project.
Perhaps this is because these processes are truly miserable.
I managed to come to the insulation phase of this project on what was one of the hottest, most humid days of the year.
Given the itchy unpleasantness of insulation I also wore long sleeves and pants and by the afternoon nearly passed out.
But fear not, all was fine and I finished up the next day and proceeded with the drywall.
Drywall is another miserable task beginning with the hoisting of large heavy panels that break or mar easily
and is followed with the unpleasant task of applying joint compound, sanding and repeating
and repeating.
hot and dusty and disgusting.
at any rate, when it is all done it is time to paint!
So here are those pictures:

The Kitchen. Replete with three-compartment sink.











The Oven, with blue bathroom visible to the left.
Those great tables (and the 3-compartment sink) came from an on line auction
of the equipment from a closed SuperFresh store in Rosedale, MD)





















Balcony Rail (will keep me from falling out of the office.)

Siding. (and windows).

For the long absence, I apologize.
there are many excuses, not the least of which is I have been busy building.
but perhaps more legitimately I have no patience with the slowness of the internet in these parts.
At any rate some pictures.
In this installment siding and windows!


House wrap, like Christo, but for a reason.


















Siding. (and windows).





















And in Blue!

A Roof

Finally I have a dry space in which to work. My dad helped me by holding these panels in place while I scrambled up the ladder to secure the tops all around. Then I began to put all the rest of the fasteners but before I could get around to the front a delightful 15 minute thunderstorm whooped up and tore the front panel off the side I had yet to fully fasten. It made a sound like a crack of thunder which is what I thought it was at first. at any rate, if you see some dirt on that front panel, that's why. It ought to wash off with the next rain, which, with the way things have been going of late in Maryland, shouldn't be too long.




















A view from the new roof of the incoming storm.

Sheathing

Sheathing is the proces of applying sheets of plywood (or OSB in this case) to the outside walls and roof of a structure. Sheathing doesn't protect a structure from the elements. This is the job of siding and roofing. Sheathing gives the structure strength by tying all of the framing members together. Before the Sheathing was installed when I stood on the loft of the building the whole thing swayed slightly. With the sheathing installed the whole thing is "solid as a rock."


Up next: Siding, Roofing, Windows and Doors!

Framing

Lots of wood, stacked neatly into pretty repetitive piles and the building has become, as my mom says, "real."

Concrete Block

The first move vertically is this: a single course of concrete block. Humble, homely, but sturdy and ready to be framed upon.

Plumbing and Concrete

After the septic was installed and the trenches dug I set about trying my hand at the plumbing. Though i did a job that was apparently "not half bad," not half bad is also not half good as far as the building inspector is concerned and the plumbing was (slightly) reworked by E.T. Kimble et fils of Sudlersville, MD.
That having been completed I prepared the site for concrete by putting down a layer of stone covered in plastic covered in wire mesh. The stone allows moisture an easy path away from the slab and the plastic prevents water vapor from migrating through the slab. This is more of a concern in a finished basement setting where carpet etc. would get moldy although, no one wants moldy bread so i may as well do this right.
I also had to build a form which was a bitch and six halves, primarily because i built it and then it rained and rained again, each time making the ground softer and each time upsetting the delicate balance. then the plumbers came and completely fucked the whole thing up with no delicacy whatsoever.

But finally, after much purgatory, i emerged to today, a beautiful sunny day on which Gillespie and Son, Inc. brought some concrete and Edwin Wright and his son Ebby (and some guy named Gene) finished it to a wonderful smooth finish.
Finally, this project has risen up out of the mud and it is starting to look like a building and starting to make me feel great!
(I have also had a few drinks this evening.)
shiny new concrete.

Septic System

The septic permit issued after the perc test was done required a 1500 gallon two compartment tank (this is a larger tank than the one for my parents' 3 bathroom house) equipped with a pump which would pump the effluent up to the existing distribution box.

For those unfamiliar with Septic Systems a brief primer.
A Septic System consists of three parts: a tank, a distribution box and a drain field. Effluent from the house (bath water, laundry soap, poopy, etc...) enters the septic tank. in the tank solids settle to the bottom and liquid rises to the top where there is an outlet. The outlet drains via gravity to the distribution box (or D-Box (different than a D-Bag) in the parlance of the trade). The distribution box splits the one input into multiple outputs that lead to the drain field. The drain field is an array of perforated pipes laid on gravel at the permeable layer (that part of the subsoil that water can easily travel through. The liquid effluent (having been separated from its solids) flows through the drain field and gradually seeps into the ground where it is continuously filtered by dirt and other particulates until it reaches ground water. The septic system doesn't so much keep you from dumping sewage into water as much as slows it down considerably.

The system being installed for the bakery differs from this model in two ways. A. it has a two compartment tank (most septic tanks do) this allows for "double separation" and keeps more "shit" (solids) out of the drain field. B. It has a pump. This is because the current D-Box is uphill from where the bakery is located. Typically these things are all gravity fed.

The work is being done by Raymond Harrison and Sons Septic Contractors. The excavator is being operated by a very talented guy named Andrew. It's nice to see someone so good at something you had never considered being good at before. So tuesday the tank was put in, yesterday they laid most of the line to the D-Box and today they finished the line and began work on the inlet side of the box. While they are here they are also excavating the slab and footers for the concrete foundation of the bakery building.
What fun! What a mess!
The trench with pipe being laid in it. (the tank's top is visible in the foreground, Andrew is visible in the middle distance, in the trench)








Backhoe and Oven, together at last.

Stucco: Finish Coat

I chose Charcoal as the color for the finish coat. And when applied I thought it looked grand, a nice rich dark grey, but, alas, all good things must come to an end and as the stucco dried the color ended up lighter. It still looks good but it is sort of like a slightly darker, bluer shade of portland cement. oh well, it still looks pretty snappy.

Stucco

Given that I have had some delays with the health department (which I will tell you all about in due time) I needed an outlet for my building enthusiasm and figured it was long past time to finish the exterior of the oven. When last we left the oven it had been surrounded by a steel stud wall and sheathed in concrete backer board. This was functional but pretty hideous and so something had to be done. Given the enormous amount of cement already in this 70 sq.ft. I thought a little more wouldn't hurt and so I decided to finish the oven with stucco which is essentially the same as mortar.
Stucco goes on in two (or three coats) and given that I couldn't find any info on the pros or cons of one or the other I decided to go for the 2 coat. The first coat is called the scratch coat because once it is partially cured you scratch it to ensure good adhesion with the second coat.
The concrete backer board had to be covered with wire lath, a miserably sharp product that helps the stucco adhere to smooth surfaces. I did not cover the concrete block with wire lath, although some do, and at times I wished I had because the concrete block did not grab the wet stucco with much ease. Now that it's up though I am fairly confident that it is not going anywhere anytime soon. Enough talking:
Some rounding of corners on the front of the oven done with left over stucco












Stucco around the back
















Wire Lath on the front corner of the oven

Perc Test

Perc Test is short for Percolation Test, a test of how well (or poorly) water percolates through the soil. Typically this consists of digging a hole to the permeable layer (sandy or gravelly layer) and filing it with water and seeing how quickly it drains. This test was important because it would determine if the existing septic system at this residential property was adequate to serve the bakery as well, or if we would have to upgrade the system. Because the property is in the "critical areas" (within 1000 feet of tidal waters of the Chesapeake Bay) if improvements were required it would have necessitated an upgrade to a nitrogen reducing septic system, a very expensive proposition that would have made the bakery project impossible at the current time.

Well, out came the backhoe and the Health Department today to see what was necessary. The backhoe dug down as deep as it could (about 17 feet) where the heavy clay soil of this part of the eastern shore becomes sandier. The Health Department didn't need (or want) to put water in the pit. They just had a look at the soil, thought a bit, and decided that augmentation of the current system was unnecessary. Hallelujah.
What will be necessary is to install a 1500G two compartment tank near the bakery which will be outfitted with a pump that will pump the effluent up to the existing drain field. Not cheap, but not impossible.

In further health department news here is a picture of the Food Service Plan Review Application. Yes sir, that binder full of bs is just an application. Not pictured is the check for the $350 plan review fee. I do love a good bureaucracy.



Up next!: we put in a septic system! excavate a slab! and build a bakery!

Oh Yes, i am building this bakery.

So apparently the "perhaps longer" to which i referred in the last post meant over 2 years. But fear not, I am back, and the loan for the building of the building has just been approved! I suppose this means the economic downturn is over. And now it's time to give the local economy/government a boost with some much needed and seemingly endless permit fees. stay tuned!