Namely the average customer service experience is REALLY bad.

Example, yesterday I went to four big box building supply stores. I was looking for a box of 2.5 inch plastic-collated nails for a Hitachi NR-90AD pneumatic nailer. I didn’t remember the angle of the nail gun ** (nail guns load nails at different angles and this can vary from manufacturer to manufacturer and some manufacturers even vary the angle between their different model guns.

I haven’t had this nail gun very long and I didn’t remember the angle. Three stores struck out in various ways. As an example of the extremely poor customer service I received in the third store the guy in the power tool section sent me over the tool rental guy because he didn’t have any idea what I needed. Now the tool rental guy works with tools day in and day out. It’s his job. And when I walked up to him and said I needed 2.5 inch nails for a Hitachi nail gun he looked at me like I had two heads. He said he didn’t even know that Hitachi made nail guns (even though they had Hitachi nail guns stocked on the shelf 50 feet away) and furthermore they only rented Paslode nail guns. I wasn’t trying to rent a nail gun. Something I made pretty clear.  Why couldn’t he have said “Mr Customer, I’m not familiar with that nail gun but let’s figure this out.” And use whatever resource is necessary to resolve the problem. Instead, after a 5 second exchange I walk out frustrated and irritated and drive down the road to his competition.

At the fourth store the first associated didn’t know what I needed. But another associated who overheard the conversation explained exactly what I needed and made sure I found the right one. I walked out with what I needed (something it turns out I could have found at any of the stores) and will very likely go back to that store in the future. And the next time very likely might be $1,000 instead of $100.

This isn’t limited to building supply stores. A few weeks ago I bought 105 pieces of 2 x 6 tongue and groove boards. This was from a local-owned lumber yard. I bought it from them because they told me they could have it on site by Wednesday or Thursday of the week I ordered it. Everyone else said it would be Friday minimum. I paid over $2 extra a board for this privilege. Well, guess when the boards arrived? You’re right..Friday. With no phone call from the company to apologize or give any explanation. And that’s not all. Once we opened up the stack of lumber and started staining the boards we discovered that 58 of the boards had mold all over them. And not a little mold…a lot. Enough that there was no chance of us cleaning the boards up. In addition to the delay that this caused while waiting on the new boards to arrive, it also meant we had to send the forklift back to the rental company and then re-rent it when the new boards arrive. This alone cost us three or four hundred dollars extra.

What was the problem here? The problem was this company was farming out these boards to another supplier. Not uncommon. However, this supplier had left these boards out in the rain and then bundled them up leaving them prime candidates for mold. It took two weeks to come to some kind of resolution about how the lumber yard would try and compensate me for this. It was all very weak and under-inspiring if you ask me. Essentially they were trying to pass the blame along to their supplier. It would be like Walmart trying to blame one of their Chinese manufacturers for a defective item. To the customer the problem is Walmart’s, not the manufacturer. The customer wants a resolution – not a blame game.

I don’t know what I am trying to accomplish with this post. I am not out to change the world. However, I don’t think I am alone in that I try my hardest to not frequent stores with poor customer service. I know that in today’s cut-throat world it’s all about the bottom line. But it would seem to me that companies are working so hard to differentiate themselves from their competition can do so in a cost-efficient way. No need to spend more money on advertising. Just teach your customer associates how to interact with customers. No one can know everything. But everyone can do their  best to ACTUALLY HELP THE CUSTOMER when they have questions. Don’t just blow them off. Don’t say “I don’t know” and leave it at that. Get help, do whatever is necessary. It will help you excel in your job and your companies bottom line.

Oh, and one more example. Just today I was back at one of the big box building supply stores. I was looking for roof sheathing that had a radiant barrier. This type of roof sheathing helps with cooling costs. Think of it as a giant windows screen like you put in your car’s windows during the summer for your roof. Anyways, I need 64 squares of sheathing for my roof and these radiant barriers run about $10 a square so we are talking about approximately $600 of product. Associate one didn’t know if they had the radiant barrier sheathing (or what it was) and called someone who knew about roofing products. Good call Associate two actually told me that he had just read about this yesterday. Georgia Pacific  has a product like that. Great. Yes, they can get it. He didn’t know the price. Kind of important thing to know since I need to order it this week. He made NO moves to look it up. He “just didn’t know” the price. Priceless.

$600 walks out the door. Again, to the competition. The competition who happens to have the product listed on their website along with the price. Crazy  ……

The crew worked on one side of the roof at a time. The picture below gives you a few of the “flying rafter” that was attached to edge of the tongue and groove. This was done to keep the tongue and groove from separating. While attaching the covering to the edge I stood pretty close to the edge. At the ridgepole the tongue and groove extends over two feet past the last rafter. Even so, it felt solid and never moved. On the other side where the flying rafter hasn’t been attached I could feel the tongue and groove moving a little when I was closer to the edge. Once this is all done I am pretty sure a herd of elephants could run across it without causing a problem.

If you go further back it gives you some more perspective:

The guys that we out helping are a hard working crew. Here is a couple of them up on the roof. It has been in the upper 90′s every day with such high humidity that it feels like 105 – 110. It is bad enough that work has to be done early in the morning up until about eleven or noon at the latest and then resume around five pm until dark.

My oldest son has been a great help. He helped stain the tongue and groove and move the boards around. As you can see below he has learned how to drive. Kinda scary since he isn’t old enough to have a license:

We have decided to build a small prow on the front of the house. At the side of the house the tongue and groove extends 20 inches past the last rafter. Up by the ridgepole it extends 35 inches —- 15 inches more. It is a visible difference that I really think sets off the front of the house. It is much easier to see it while standing underneath the front:

Currently there is about a two foot gap on each side of the ridgepole. We are about 50 boards short  because on Friday when the lumber company delivered the load of 105 boards Rachel and dad began staining them. It turns out that some of them had mold on them. We are working on a tight schedule  and this really caused a huge problem. We needed to finish the tongue and groove this weekend and this was going to  make that impossible.

keith

Once preparations on the ground were complete we moved to final preparation of the the three ridge pole support logs. We had purposely cut the logs too long and it was necessary to cut them to the proper height. Since the ridgepole tapers it was necessary to determine the diameter of the ridgepole at the three points where it would be supported by the RPSLs. Then we could calculate the exact height needed for each RPSL and measure and cut  . . .

Next comes the ridgepole . . .

Now we move it into place:

Up it goes.

Still going . .

It took about 30 – 45 minutes to actually get the ridgepole into place. Even with the help of someone on each side of the house, it took more than one try to get things lined up. I had to drive the forklift within two feet of the house to get the ridgepole in place and I could not see anything from the seat of the lift.

And finally we had moonrise!

Here’s the view from about 30 feet up:

While not the easiest part of the building process, requiring a lot of planning, it is definitely one of the most satisfying parts. To see this very important piece of the puzzle go into place gives you a great deal of satisfaction. While it wasn’t strictly required there was a lot of worry on my part. If this didn’t go right we could end up with a roof that isn’t correct. Fortunately it went almost exactly as planned. That is a big relief on my part.

We had some great help from some soon-to-be LHBA members. They are taking the class next month and have great plans for their future. We really appreciate their help and hope to see them again in the near future.

It’s just that our house now looks like a sailing ship from the 1800′s. Well, sort of like a sailing ship. Let me explain

In the past several weeks we worked on the walls completing the 17th course. On Friday we began the process of placing our ridgepole support logs (rpsl). This entailed taking a 30 ft long log with a 16″ diameter butt and placing it on 12″ piece of rebar sticking up from a pier block. Oh, and you had to lift the log over a 18.5 foot high wall just to make it fun. Once over the wall, it is lowered down where you can’t see it. While I had great help with my dad and wife, relaying hand signals from someone inside the walls, to someone outside the walls to the driver of the forklift makes it extremely difficult. In fact, at one point we had the second rpsl “jump off” the rebar in the foundation because I was lowering the rpsl not realizing it was not going straight down but away from wall. It’s a bit disconcerting when the front of your forklift rocks down and the back end wants to lift up off the ground.

I wish we had videoed the event. It would probably be worth a few laughs down the road. We put two of the three rpsls in place – one on Friday and one on Sunday. Both cleared the top of the wall by at most 12 inches. It was probably closer to 6 inches. Here is the second one going over:

The end result is the “sailing ship” I was talking about:

With one more rpsl and the final course of logs (the 18th) to place we are closing in on being able to cap things off with the ridgepole. There is an, admittedly small, glimmer of hope that we might place the ridgepole Sunday.

Well, one of the five that I marked didn’t get cut to the right length and one of the trees was marked unacceptable by the timber inspector. That left us with three logs. Two of them were more curved than we would like so for the last three or four weeks we have been discussing cutting one or two new trees off the property.

Last weekend we decided to cut one tree for a new ridgepole. We found one less than a 100 yards from the log staging area. In order to get the log back to the building area I had to be able to get the forklift to the area which was possible with this tree. The usable section needed to be at least 45 feet long. Estimates were made and there was even some discussion of using the forklift to tape measure the tree. Even so, it looked like it was at high enough. Dad fired up the Husqvarna and we cut down the tree bringing up a HUGE cloud of pine pollen. Good thing we weren’t allergic.

Two surprises, even though the butt of the tree was only an inch bigger than our biggest log, the ring count showed the tree was 101 years old! The trees we cut off the lot last October were 25 years old, so this one was over four times as old! The much tighter growth rings make the log stronger so this is not a bad thing.

Here is a picture showing the rings:

The second surprise was that the usable portion of the tree was EXACTLY 45 feet long. While our estimate was good enough, it would be much safer next time to actually measure and make sure it is long enough. After some limb trimming work and a bit of tricky forklift driving (and log hauling) and we had the trunk of the tree in the log staging area. Two days of off-and-on peeling and we had our beautiful new ridgepole. Here are some pictures from the peeling process:

She makes it look so easy, but trust me – it’s hard!

Here is dad squaring up the end of the ridgepole:

Our ridgepole is now ready to be treated so it doesn’t get insects. Hopefully we will putting it in its final home in a week or two.

All in all, I’m pretty happy with it. Considering we are 12 feet off the ground at this point, building with 1500 pound logs that never seem to go together quite right…two inches in a single corner is O.K. We can fix it as we go up.  As a friend told me recently “You’re building a battleship, not a Swiss watch.” Which is quite true. I am no longer concerned about messing up the house if I hit it with the forklift…I’m worried about messing up the forklift.

In the following picture, if you look closely on the right side of the house you can see the 2×4 we use to measure wall height. The top of the 2×4 is just over 13 feet high . . . just to give you some perspective of how high it is now.

The following pictures is of our friends the girder and girder support log. Rebar on the bottom and the top of the girder support log. In the following picture you can see one of the ends of the girder. There are three pieces of rebar in each end if I recall correctly.

And finally, to give you some more perspective. Here is a picture of the best log home builder in the world standing next to some of the lower logs.

I don’t have any pictures yet of the girder. In the meantime, here are a couple of new pictures.

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The weather has been very cooperative lately. It’s looking like this weekend is going to be nice as well. Time to start on the 10th course!!

I climbed on the forklift Saturday afternoon around 2:00 pm and began moving the first log into place:

Driving a forklift is an interesting experience to say the least. While the controls are not overly complicated it is a decidedly big beast.  Not only do you have to watch the four sides of the lift, there is the ability to have the lift out 35 feet in the air – either to the front or up in the air.  Minor issues like the power line that is 20 feet overhead have to be taken into consideration. However, the four-wheel turning ability allows you to get in and out of unbelievably tight spots.

We began with what are called the sill logs. These are the four logs that are supported by the foundation. They are tied into the foundation with rebar and are the largest logs in the house except the ridge pole and cap logs. The following picture shows our very first log in place:

It typically takes the most time to put these logs in place. In our case it wasn’t until Monday afternoon that we got the first log in place.  It actually only took a day of work as we couldn’t stack any logs Saturday until the afternoon so the concrete can cure and no work was done on Sunday. By the end of the day on Wednesday we finished all four sill logs. Here are the sill logs and the happy crew:

Once this was done the pace picked up as we learned more about the process. By Sunday afternoon we had three complete courses stacked:

We use some pretty hardcore tools in the building process. Here is my dad working with the Milwaukee Hole Hawg:

And my favorite, the Bosch demolition hammer. We use it to drive the rebar into the logs. It weights about 35 pounds and is essentially a mini-jackhammer. It was bad enough on the first three levels. It’s going to be lots of fun on the 20th course:

Even though it is both heavy and unwieldy it sure beats putting tin the rebar with a sledgehammer!

The rain and mud has continued to plague us. We lost about a day and a half of work due to rain.

Using the forklift only exacerbates the problem. We are going to need some serious landscape work when we get done!

By the time we got the last full day of work (Saturday) we were able to stack four logs – a full course. I am hoping we can improve to be able to to stack 1.5 – 2 courses of logs in a full day of work. Time will tell. Just not having all this rain would be a great help!

In total I had 10 days off from work. While I wanted to get more done, considering the circumstances it went as well as we could expect. I really appreciate all the help we have been getting from our family and friends.  While it would be possible to do this alone (as I know others have), working with others makes it so much more easy and enjoyable. It’s hard enough as it is, I can’t imagine doing it without help.

A special thanks to my brother-in-law Ian who took most of the pictures on this post!

On Tuesday and Wednesday, the 26th and 27th our foundation contractor began by setting up batter boards and put up line to mark off the foundation area. A bobcat was used to dig the holes for the form.

The forms we built were then placed and leveled

Here is what it looked like after:

The building inspector stopped by and inspected the forms on Friday, the 29th. We passed inspection with flying colors!!

Friday the 29th it began raining in the afternoon and rained all night. My contractor wasn’t concerned about it, but it turned the work area into a mud wrestling area.

Last Saturday the concrete was poured. The biggest issue was the 5″ deep ruts the concrete trucks left in the driveway:

Last Tuesday they removed the forms with the Bobcat and a lot of grunt work and “rubbed” the sides of the pier blocks to smooth them out.

Finally, today they finished up by leveling the dirt and tamping it flat.

Last weekend we cut down what I hope is the last tree we have to chop down.  We had wanted to have it in the back yard, but after we cleared the house site closer inspection showed that it had some limbs that were cracked. Being that close to the house I was afraid of limbs dropping on the house and such.

The tree was a 70 year old red oak. When felled we measured the diameter of the stump:

It was 28 inches across one way and 27 inches across the opposite way. Approximately 40 feet up the trunk of the tree I measured a diameter of approximately 16 inches.

I can’t stand the thought of cutting the trunk up for firewood so I am going to have it milled as red oak makes very nice wood for woodworking. I plan on building the door and window bucks for the next house out of it along with an entertainment center, a kitchen table, a new computer desk for my equipment and some bookcases. The rest  I will save for future projects. And there should be a lot of lumber left over..I am estimating there is 800 board feet of wood in that tree.

Twenty minutes after the tree is down we look over and my little lumberjack is hard at work:

I hope he never grows out of it. Only time will tell, but I think it would be great if he continued to want to help me build houses as he grows up.