Winter Woes

Winter Woes

The weeks of -20C temperatures has taken a toll on my schedule and moral. Merv's team spent a week digging the plumbing trenches with both a hoe ram and excavator. The frost in the gravel made it like chipping through concrete. I planned for the curtain wall to be installed before Christmas. This would have enclosed the building making it easy to heat. To my dismay, Tony at Albion glass can't even give me an estimated delivery date for the glass. So I had to ask Perry and Claude to build a temporary wall to fill the void. Time and money wasted due to commitments not being met. Getting temporary heating was even a challenge. The concrete installer told me to use an indirect heater that vents it's fumes outside. The reason being is that the carbon monoxide produced by standard construction heaters will weaken the concrete when it is curing. Took me two days to find a heater in the coldest winter since 1974. The cold finally wore me down and I spent the last days sick in bed with the flu. Thankfully they are calling for warmer weather next week.

Pressing on

Pressing on

The brutal cold continues but the team pushes forward despite it. Len from Valley Rent Rite brought us the scissor lift again so we can get the Tyvek and exterior insulation on. Paul called for a sheathing insulation (Roxul ComfortBoard) that gets attached the chipboard with metal disks (25 cents a disk!). This is in addition to the bat insulation that will get stuffed in the 2X6 walls. The sheathing insulation will prevent any "thermal bridging" across the studs and metal posts. To accommodate the sheathing insulation, we had to extend the roof so the insulation would sit under it. Perry did this by cutting down a 4X4 post to create a triangle piece that extended the roof by 2 inches. We wrapped the corner piece with a waterproof membrane (Blueskin) to protect it from water. Luckily the temperature got above zero so we were able to glue the Blueskin down.

Winter is here

Winter is here

I built my house in the winter and was scarred by the experience. I didn't want to be working in the cold again and pushed hard to get enclosed before winter. Unfortunately, we started a month later than planned and winter has come. The snow and cold makes everything harder. Ice has to be chipped off wood before it can be used. Batteries run out much faster and motors don't want to start. Hands can't do detailed work without freezing. But these obstacles can be overcome with the proper equipment, planning and determination. But this is no normal winter. The day time highs have been below -15C for the last week. Records have been shattered with record lows. Neal and I tried braving -27C but could only last a couple hours at the cost of feeling in my big toes. So we wait for warmer weather in the New Year.

It's a slippery slope

It's a slippery slope

No sooner than we were done with the SIPs, the trusses for the flat roof arrived. The design called for 16" open-web joists on 16" centers to accommodate for snow falling from the pitched roof. The canopy at the entrance of the retail section was built with "glulam" beams which are strips of wood glued together. Paul wanted the canopy to depth to be minimal so we used 9.5" glulam beams and doubled them up. Complete structural overkill but I won't have to worry about snow load. We had to slope the roof towards scuppers at opposite ends of the roof. This is usually done with custom made insulation which is costly. I had a similar problem when building my house 15 years ago. To create the slope then, my dad calculated how to rip wood studs for reach truss. He did the same calculation for the 48 trusses on this new flat roof. Neal was tasked with the difficult job of cutting down the studs with his table saw. It took him three tedious days. The moment Neal delivered the pieces, Perry got to work nailing them to the tops of the joists. After covering 10 joists, we could see the slope emerge. As I was passing Perry pieces I stupidly stepped on a piece of plywood that wasn't sitting properly on the joists. I fell but luckily for me I'm thicker than the 16" joist spacing so I ended up getting stuck between two joists with only a few bruises. After installing the sloped pieces, we sheathed the roof with plywood and finished the parapet wall.

Taking a SIP

Taking a SIP

Tricky trusses

Tricky trusses

My architect, Paul, originally called from the pitched roof to be supported by timber beams and posts. I didn't like the idea of posts since I figured they would get in the way of our equipment. I did love the idea of timber and suggested we use a scissor truss.  Scissor truss I found a company in Perth, Gibson Timber Frames, that could make them. Unfortunately, the price was beyond my budget so I started to look at different options. While surfing the web, I came across a design known as a composite truss which uses steel rods for the lower truss members. The rods are tightened with a left and right turnbuckle. I found this a much more elegant design and hoped it would save me money.   Neither Gibson or my engineers had done a composite truss so it took weeks of persuasion to have them consider it. Once they came up with a design, I had to source the parts. The steel rods are connected to large steel plates inserted into the timbers. I found a company in Carp that could make the plates but they couldn't rust proof them. So I found another company in the east end of Ottawa (Zincon) to coat the plates in zinc. I couldn't find anyone local to supply the rods and I ended up ordering them from Portland Bolt in Oregon. The stainless steel bolts were custom ordered from Fastenall. I was counting on five different suppliers delivering correctly and on time. A big gamble but Paul had modeled all the parts in AutoCAD and was confident it would work. Today, the gamble was put to the test. Gibson delivered the timbers and we started to assemble them. Not an easy task given each timber weights over 500 pounds. But with four people we were able to move them and the pieces started to come together. The steel plates fit as planed with the help of a sledge hammer. The rods lengths were right on and the turnbuckles worked as advertised. We uncovered a couple mistakes. Gibson forgot one of the trusses and worked overnight to deliver the missing one. I ordered the wrong number of bolts but luckily was able to get more delivered the next day. My friend Pat and his son Conor dropped by to watch and I put them to work assembling the trusses. As we finished preparing a truss, Perry used a crane to lift it into position. The trusses were to sit in a saddle at the top of the steel post. Holes were pre drilled in both the steel saddle and trusses for the bolts. After lowering the truss into place, Perry was having trouble inserting the bolts. He discovered that the solder joint in the steel saddle was the culprit so we chamfered the edge of the timber and the holes aligned. Things went smoothly after this adjustment and the trusses were in place by the end of the day.

Men of steel

Men of steel

The Ontario Building Code allows a distillery to be constructed with combustible materials like wood if it’s under 300 square meters. Since our distillery’s footprint is under this threshold, I thought there would be little steel in the building. Boy was I wrong. The engineers ended up calling for a ton of steel. Luckily, there’s a steel manufacturer just down the road from us. A family business, Branje Metal Works has been supplying steel to Almonte for decades. I worked with Chris Branje who committed to deliver the 12 steel posts and 3 moment frames I needed in less than two weeks. Chris Branje at his shop Chris delivered the steel as promised. A crane arrived to help his team put up the posts. I noticed one of the steel workers putting steel plates on each concrete pier. I asked him what was he doing and he explained that they put a 1″ steel shim to help level the posts. I almost fainted when hearing this. I thought I only had to leave enough of the anchor bolts exposed for the plate and nut (1.5″). Adding the shim wouldn’t leave enough bolt to screw on the nut. Luckily, I left almost all the bolts higher than planned since the rebar stopped me from putting them lower. If I hadn’t left the extra space, I would have to redo all the concrete piers at a cost of thousands of dollars and weeks delay. I felt queasy the rest of the day at the thought of how close I came to disaster. It took Chris’s team a couple days to get all the posts and beams installed. No chance of the distillery falling down!

Pounding the ground

Pounding the ground

This week Merv took us "out of the hole" by back filling the foundation. It was a tedious task since the gravel had to be compacted every 12" to make sure the concrete slab doesn't crack. As usual, Merv did an amazing job and left us with a perfectly flat working area.

Pouring foundation and building wall of Dairy Distillery

Just like lego

Less than 24 hours after pouring the footings, we were back at work on the foundation walls. I spent a lot of time debating what I should do for the foundation. Since the building doesn't have a basement, I could have poured the concrete floor on compacted gravel. This is known as a 'slab on grade' foundation and it's often used in the arctic where it's impossible to dig below the frost line. Insulation is extended beyond the footprint of the building to prevent frost from forming under the building. While slab on grade would have been cheaper, my dad and the engineers were worried about frost moving the slab so I went with a foundation wall to support the building's structure. We used insulated concrete forms (ICF) to build the foundation walls. ICF is the same product Perry used to build my house. The forms look like Lego blocks made from rigid insulation. A plastic web holds the two sides of the block together and is used to support the rebar. The 6-inch center of the block is filled with concrete to create the insulated wall. A really neat system. As part of the foundation wall, we had to build six concrete piers to support the steel moment frames. The moment frames are designed to transfer wind or seismic forces on the production walls/roof down through the concrete piers to the bedrock. The moment frames are attached to the piers with massive 1-inch bolts. The steel maker gave me plywood templates so I could position the bolts before they are cast in the concrete. I asked him how much of the bolt should I leave above the concrete and he said 1.5 inches would do. On the day of the concrete pour, it was my job to place all the bolts. I struggled to get the bolts past the rebar in the walls. Most of the bolts were sticking up 2 inches more than they should be. My dad was concerned about this but I said we could cut them afterwards. Friday turned out to be a perfect day for pouring concrete. The Cavanaugh trucks started to arrive at noon and Perry proceeded to guide the pumper and fill the walls. My job was to keep the anchor bolts straight during the pour. After Perry filled the pier with concrete, it was impossible to straighten the bolts until Claude used a concrete vibrator. The vibrator looks like a snake and liquefied the concrete so I could move the bolts by hand. My dad followed after us cleaning the concrete off the bolts. Except from one pier, all the bolts were dead straight. After filling the walls, Perry and Claude adjusted the bracing to make them perfectly plumb. It was nerve wracking to watch the concrete slosh around as Claude jostled the wall. I measured the distance across the production space with a laser and found the walls within 1/16-inch of plan. A good thing.

Gaining our footing

Gaining our footing

As the surveyors finished pinning the outline of the building, Perry moved in to put in the forms for the footings. Perry Rouseau is an ICF specialist and framer. He built my house and we've remained friends since. What I like about Perry is that he's curious and willing to try new things. When building my house, Perry's daughter Jessica was his assistant. Fifteen years later, his youngest son Ethan is now filling that role along with Neal and I. Building footings is pretty straightforward: 2X10s are overlapped and screwed together to make the sides of the form. Neal and I had to redo a couple joints since we didn't level the studs properly. Strapping cut to the width of the footing (30 inches in our case) is used to keep the 2X10s upright. Then a laser is used to level the tops of the forms. This is done by moving the 2X10 up or down until the laser says it’s right. A piece of strapping is then screwed to the side of the 2X10 to keep it from moving. Gravel is then placed to fill the gap at the bottom of the footing forms. Rebar is then placed at the bottom of the footing and lifted off the bedrock using a rock or by hanging it from the strapping. We also had to prepare some concrete pads for the moment frames that will make up the building's structure. These pads have two layers of 20mm rebar tied in a grid pattern. We placed the first grid in the pad forms and the second will be dropped into the concrete during the pour. It took us two days to complete the footing forms and we were ready for concrete on Tuesday. I ordered the concrete from Cavanagh Concrete in Carleton Place. Their bright shiny trucks arrived just after Perry's pumper finished setting up. It took 64 cubic meters of concrete carried by four trucks to fill the forms and pads. Certainly a solid footing. After the pour, Perry put vertical rebar in the concrete for the future walls. Neal and I waited until the concrete had set a bit then covered the footings with thermal tarps to protect them from the cold.     The rebar grids for the pads.   Giving the concrete pumper a try.   A one hand job for Perry.  

Preparing for the 1 in 100 year flood

Preparing for the 1 in 100 year flood

To build in the Almonte business park, the town requires a stormwater management plan. This plan must show how we’ll manage rain runoff from the lot so that it doesn’t exceed a certain rate (i.e. cannot be more than X liters per second per hectare). I tried to argue that I don’t need a stormwater management plan since my building will occupy less than 10% of the area of my lot. But the town wouldn’t budge. Luckily, the engineer working on my electrical and mechanical plans, Ian Clapperton, was able to also do the stormwater management plan. I can’t remember who introduced me to Ian but I’m lucky to have been connected. Not only is Ian a sharp engineer, he lives in Almonte and enjoys his spirits. The stormwater management plan Ian came up with divided my two acre lot into a developed half and an undeveloped half. The developed half will be graded to direct rainwater to a “stormwater detention area” at the SE end of the property. Rain water in the detention area is released into the municipal drainage ditch through a weir that limits the flow of water. This is exactly the setup my neighbour Matt at Sports Systems had to install on his property. The sad thing is that even in the heavy rains we’ve had this past summer, Matt’s weir was dry. Looks like most rainwater is absorbed by the ground. So I will most likely have a useless $25,000 civil engineering project as a feature of my property.

Safety first

Safety first

My architect, Paul, suggested that I hire a code consultant to review the distillery plans to make sure they meet the Ontario building and fire code. I’ve read several stories of distillers running into code issues so I hired Morrison Hershfield, Canada’s top code consultant to advise us. Matt Jardine, a fire code expert at MH, prepared a very comprehensive report for me. The Ontario Building Code doesn’t have any specific requirements for distilleries, however, the Fire Code has an entire section for them. Matt explained that the Fire Code was written for very large industrial distilleries so some of the requirements are not appropriate for a smaller operation like ours. Explosion venting is one such requirement. An explosion vent allows an explosion to exit the building without damaging equipment or the building structure. I’ve never heard of an explosion vent before but found several cool examples on YouTube. So can you blow yourself up distilling? Yes, it’s possible. Ethanol vapor at the right concentration is explosive. If our still had a leak and the ethanol vapor left to accumulate, it could be ignited to cause an explosion. The team at Mythbusters did exactly this in this video. One of Matt’s recommendations is to have continuous ventilation to prevent an accumulation of ethanol vapor. In addition, he suggests a system that triggers a second ventilation system if a dangerous amount of ethanol vapor is detected. As a further precaution, Matt recommended that all electrical equipment within 1.5m of the stills be “explosion proof” to remove any possible ignition sources. With these precautions in place, we would practically eliminate the chance of an ethanol vapor explosion. To completely rule out the need for explosion venting, Matt modeled the force of our worst case ethanol vapor explosion and found it couldn't damage the building’s structure. I feel much more confident manning the still after this due diligence.

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