Gravel and Grading

June 11
Today was another exciting day where we could really start to see the house take shape and get a feel for how we will be able to use and utilize our lot.  I'm still in "Goldilocks" mode...

The house is too big ...

The house is just right.

The lot is too big ...

The lot will be just right.

I went up first thing in the morning and they were just starting to grade the lot and bring in the gravel.  The guys from Savage were super friendly.  They introduced themselves and answered the two quick questions I had.  Then we chatted for awhile about what was happening.  I could tell they really liked their work.  I like that the people who are building our home take pride in their work.  It makes us feel good about the quality of work they bring to this job and I believe it leaves good vibes in our home too.

Watching these big trucks maneuver is pretty amazing.  I don't even like to back up in our little truck and have never backed up a trailer in my life.  I also realized that I'm glad we were the first house built on our corner of the street.  I don't know how many times these trucks drove up onto the lot next door, but that can't be good for their soil compaction.  (remind me I said that when the trucks and machines are working next door making noise and dust)

I wasn't able to stay long enough to watch them throw the gravel into the basement.  They use a big truck that basically is a super conveyor belt and the driver has such good control of the flow and the direction that the guy in the pit just has to do a little raking.  We had a crazy busy day, our lights were being delivered, I had to run to Sam's Club to get dessert for our FHE group (which meant I also had to make time to clean the house before they arrived) so I had to leave just as they were getting the conveyor truck loaded up.

But, the light delivery went easier then expected (except for the damaged lights - but that's another post),  the trip to Sam's was successful and living in a small apartment means we can get it spic and span in almost no time (hmmm....back to "the house is tooo big"?). 

So, Rob & I headed back up to see the progress.  When we got to the lot there were only two men left with their front loaders working on the grade.  (hah - I had to google to find out the difference between bulldozers and front loaders - these have wheels, not tracks so they are loaders)

I had so much fun watching these guys work.  They know exactly how close to get to the edge of the foundation before turning.  They can dump their load with precision.  They work at an area for a while and when they are finished we have a lovely, useable space.

This first picture is the loader that was working at the bottom of the lot.  Here you can see he is just starting to create the pile that will be on our property line.  He'll move the dirt piled up by our gully.  He'll move the dirt piled up behind Rob's office and will attack the pile behind the family room from the bottom.

This guy is moving the dirt from the top of the lot.  He's taking the dirt and putting it near our property line and a little bit onto the lot next door. You can see he's already moved the pile behind the garage and is starting to work on the pile behind the family room.



The loader working on the bottom of the lot again.  You can get a better idea of the soil he has to relocate.  Once he had the pile near the gully area moved he started to work towards the house.  He kept the dirt out of the gully, he didn't break any of our tree branches off AND he didn't fall in the gully.  Somehow, even when he was backing up he knew exactly where he was.  I didn't see him turn around once.  He just kept moving (except when he stopped to take a phone call).  The pile closest to the family room is partially carried away and partially knocked down into the gap.  They really want to fill most of that gap with gravel so he was pretty deliberate about how much soil he allowed down in that gap.  Again, the control of these operators is astounding.  If I were responsible for moving that dirt it would be in the gap, covering the nice level gravel in the family room, or I would have backed up into the gully and fallen in. 

I thought these two pictures were fun because you can see the grade change from the garage level to the walk-out basement level. 

And, Look! 

We have our own little Alp.

Of course it didn't last long.

Here you get a nice overview of the basement floor.  With the gravel down we had a much better idea of what we needed to do when it was time to lay down the XPS insulation.  We will have to fit it around all of those monolithic footings and the plumbing stacks.  I am standing in the single car garage, looking over the wall where the tv will be.  You can see the corner of the double car garage and the outline of our cold cellar. 

This is a quick picture of the thermostatically controlled vent that will go into our cold storage room.  It will automatically close when the temperature drops below a certain level (we still have to find out what that is).  I forgot to ask if it runs on batteries.  There will be no power in that room so it must.  I am so new to the idea of having a cold storage room that I didn't even realize we had to open and close the vent depending on the weather.

Here we have a nice shot of the front of the house with the preliminary grade finished.  The horizontal black line is the approximate level of the sidewalk from the driveway to the front porch.  There will be one or two steps from the sidewalk to the porch.  (Jesse promised!)  I didn't want to have to climb a bunch of steps to get into our house and I didn't want to have to worry about shoveling them in the winter either.

The arrows indicate the slope.  The yellow rectangle is about where our front door will be.  We'll have a nice rock retaining wall where the yellow blobs are.  Hooray!  My desire for a rock garden is going to be more than adquately satisfied with this yard.  In fact, we'll have to add some rocks in the back too, next to the deck area.  I want to be smart when we landscape this yard.  I want it to be water wise and practical. 

Jesse asked us some very specific questions about the final grade we want on the lot and since we didn't realize we had control over that Rob and I were both a little caught off guard.  Oh boy!  Another thing to study and imagine and plan.  Luckily, he said we have a little bit of time to think about it. 

Anyone know a landscape architect who works for free?  Or for really good cheesecake?

Isn't this pretty?  Just a nice view of our garages, dropping down to our basement and look how lovely the valley is this spring.

Progress after a Week of Waiting

The first week of our build went quickly.  They dug the hole, got the forms up for the footings and poured them.

Then we waited. And waited. And waited.

We went to the lot every day and the only changes we noticed were the chalk lines that showed up.  One day our floorplan showed up laminated.  Since the original one that's been up there is looking worse for the wear due to weather exposure, we think the lamination is a good idea.

Rob was getting impatient so he finally asked Jesse to call with an updated schedule and a reason for the delay.  Apparently, the BIG rain we had (? do you remember that BIG rain ?  we remember a brief storm move through...) slowed down the concrete work on other jobs which then impacted our job.

But we finally got the text saying our foundation forms were going in so we headed up the hill to see.

I am fascinated to see how the details fit together.  Because our house is built on a slope the footings were at different levels in the ground.  I was wondering how they would accomodate for the change of levels and this picture shows a good example of the foundation stepping down.  It was fun to see this little hole between the backyard and the garage, but I hope they do a good job filling it in.

This is just a good overall view from the back of the house showing all the parts and pieces that need to be organized and kept track of.

Out of this chaos will come a strong foundation.

We didn't actually see this truck work but it has a crane which is used for lifting the metal "baskets" in and out of the hole.  You can see the "baskets" in the image above - they hold the pieces that are used in creating the foundation forms.  I'm sure there is an official name for them, but all the subs were gone by the time we got there.

My gratuitous large truck picture.

We Have Footings

Thursday, May 24
We went up to the lot this afternoon to meet Jesse, our build supervisor.  He seems like he will be a nice guy to work with and reassured us that our presence was always welcome on the site, as was our input. 

When we got there the footing forms were all in place and the pumper truck showed up and got situated for the first concrete pour.   It was pretty impressive to watch the pipe extend from the truck. There was just a minute where the truck bucked a little bit and Jesse said he'd been on a job where the ground was too soft and the driver hadn't set his bracing properly and when the crane and pipe extended out in front of the truck the balance and weight were off and the truck tipped over.  That would have been crazy to see and I'm glad the driver today did everything correctly.

The forms were ready and the pumper truck was ready and in place so we just needed to wait for the concrete trucks to show up. 

We only stayed to watch them pour the first few feet of footings.  The driver of the pumper truck wore a remote control unit around his neck and controlled the flow of concrete and even moved the crane with the joystick controls on the box.  See kids, playing video games can prove helpful in your job as an adult! 

We came back after running to Home Depot to order 61 sheets of extruded polystyrene boards that we will be laying down in a week and a half.  Luckily, HD will deliver them right to the lot for us so we don't have to figure out how to transport them and where to store them.  We'd love a little help laying down the foam boards (and getting them cut to fit around the plumbing and monolithic footings) and then getting our pex tubing laid down and fastened to the boards.  As of right now we are shooting for Tuesday, June 5th through Thursday, June 7th.  Those days are a little flexible depending on weather and subs.  We are already about a day and a half behind the "original schedule", but what happens on a spreadsheet doesn't always translate perfectly to real life.

Seeing the forms and concrete laid out like this really help us get a feel for the house.  Of course, it helps that I've been designing the hydronic heating plan on Visio and Rob's been designing the wiring plan so we both have the floorplan pretty well memorized. 

I LOVE seeing our trees peeking into the picture.  I LOVE that we have trees!

What can I say?  It's wet concrete.  It's our house.  It's inevitable.  This will be under the front door for ever.  After I drew it in, Rob started getting second thoughts about ruining the integrity of the finish so I smoothed it over a little with my finger.

Here we are standing at the footings to the front door of our house.  The garage wall is the long wall to the right in the picture.  All of these footings are going to support our house and keep it stable and safe.

Jesse said they will let the footings cure for a couple of days and then get the forms in for the foundation.  I'm excited to see those go in because then it will really start to look like a house.
We have a dumpster parked right in front of our lot.  Literally.  I hope I don't have to spend too much time going around cleaning up after the subs.  Today we found a beer can, the crust of someone's sandwich and this uneaten lunch.