More progress on the foundation hole

"Somebody up there is looking out for you"

Chuck called PSI (the soil engineers) last night. This morning Angela came out and did a soil test, in which she dropped a heavy weight on the same spot 20 times and measured how much it gave. She said since the soil was very hard, she proposed a solution: put in 3 or 4 truck loads of pit gravel and then compact it. The soil and the rock would have a similar "give," and the slab would be less apt to crack.

This is the best outcome we could hope for after hitting rock. The solid foundation and the inexpensive solution prompted her to say, "Somebody up there is looking out for you."

Angela will come back after the gravel is installed to bless it.

Rodney is looking to finish up before Christmas, and this is a speedy solution. He will get the gravel in today. There's a chance of rain tonight or tomorrow, and he'd like to get the gravel in before then.

Rajah talked to Chuck about the possibility of installing engineered walls, instead of poured concrete. (The engineered walls are made in a factory and are stronger than poured concrete. They have waterproofing "built in." Pit gravel is a prerequisite for the engineered walls because they are trucked in as a single piece, and must be exactly level. The pit gravel allows for this leveling.) Chuck said that he would take the plans over to Precision Walls in order to get a bid.

Building our house on the rock??

Spoke with Chuck. Good news: they were able to get enough rock broken up and moved out to lay in the foundation! Hooray! Tomorrow a soil engineer will be meeting with Chuck to come up with a plan to keep the house from settling unevenly. The big X looking "rock" is what they dropped on the rock to break it up. That's a lot of rock they took out of there!

Yikes! We hit rock!

Chuck, our GC, called last night to say that they hit rock yesterday while digging out the hole for the foundation. Today Rodney and his crew are going to try to break up the rock by dropping a wrecking ball of sorts on it. We're praying that the rock will break up. If not, we'll have some decisions to make that could be potentially very expensive. Stay tuned!

More work to be done....

from December 17, 2007

As it turns out, we needed to re-mark the corners of the house so that they could dig out and level the site for the house. Then the foundation can be poured. As we walked around to see all that had been done, we decided to have a few more trees taken out -- one nice pine that would be a little too close to the house for comfort, and several smaller trees in the back. We needed more space behind the house for runoff drainage. I didn't get any pictures today of the progress they made, but I should in a day or two.

Chuck meets tonight with Rajah to finish plugging numbers into our spreadsheet. The good news he shared with us is that lumber prices are at an eight-year low, so we're really getting good deals on the materials for building. This will allow for some unseen niceties like quieter flooring and such.

End of Day 4

from December 15, 2007

By the end of the week, right on schedule, they have cleared and graded the driveway and house pad. We will meet with Chuck (GC) this afternoon to talk about what comes next. This is the "path" no more...now it is our driveway. Follow us in!

Further in...

Turning to look down the driveway across the creek

Awful big pipe for such a little creek!

Site for the house...now cleared and ready.

Keeping my tall, healthy poplars safe

from December 12, 2007

Rodney understood that I really liked this pair of tall poplar trees and I didn't want anything to happen to them...so he placed a tree guard around them for me .

End of Day 2

from December 12, 2007

Cleared down to the creek...and putting the pipes in. We're doing great and on schedule so far.

Chuck mentioned today that the plans didn't quite have the trusses right for the roof line, so he was going to go over the plans and adjust them, making any allowances needed for bearing the load. See...this is why I'm so glad we have a GC!

He also made sure that the plans were clear for Josh's room to have a little higher ceiling in it to accommodate the palladium window which adds so much visual interest to the front of the house.

Things are going well.

End of Day 1

By the end of Day 1, they had cleared the first leg of the driveway and brought in the concrete pipes that will go in the creek. You can see our neighbor's house (belongs to our GC) in the back.

Walking the property with Chuck and Rodney

from December 11, 2007

We discussed which trees needed to go to cut our "solar window" and make room for our new home.

Chuck marked the sewer taps with cones to hopefully avoid any accidental hits.

And so, it begins...

from December 11, 2007

Step 1: Make a driveway to get trucks down...

It starts with some heavy machinery and a plan. Here our grader, Rodney (intrepidly standing in front of the heavy machine), and our G.C., Chuck, are discussing how to get started. I trust these guys to do a great job!

Soon to be breaking ground!

(from December 9, 2007)

I'm so excited!

The grader comes out on Tuesday to begin clearing and grading the driveway and house pad. We took a walk and marked trees to be removed with orange paint for the house, solar window, and driveway.

The plans are starting to fall into place, and they will be submitted this week to the county for approval. Then we can apply for our permit to build and begin!

CMUD apparently came through sometime recently and cut a swath through the property to show where the sewer easement was. It was so weird to be able to walk the back of the property and see through the trees. Of course, it's much easier now to see through from one end to the other since most of the leaves have dropped. A couple of neighbors from the development came through walking the easement. I think I may need to get and post some PRIVATE PROPERTY notices on the trees near the developments around us. Just to get them used to the idea that WE own that forest behind them. I don't mind allowing some thru traffic if I'm asked to families that we know, but I don't want every one just coming through because they can.

I'll post some pictures from Tuesday as soon as I can. It'll be cool to see the progress. Get ready...here....we...go!

Down a little, over the creek and up the hill to our house...

Just down, over and up, and you'll be at our front door!

This is the little "creek" that runs across the property. Our driveway will go over it and up the hill a little. The rains over the weekend made it so there's actually some water in it!


After we clear away a few (ahem) trees...this is where our house will go :-)

Building a House...or Little House in the Big Woods...

(Entry from October 25, 2007 - moved from Yahoo 360 blog)

We decided that this blog could be a good place for keeping up with what's going on with our house building project!

We've bought 5 acres in the middle of Mecklenburg county...nestled on a quiet road, down a very quiet driveway, past two wonderful neighbor families! Our nearest neighbor, who is a general contractor, is building our home for us.

We've chosen a modest home that is based on a passive-solar, Sun-Plans design. See this website for the house, although we've made many modifications to it since we live in Charlotte, and not Colorado or Canada! http://www.sunplans.com/html/houseDisplay.php3?house=Four_Seasons_6&page=first_floor_plan

If funds allow, this home will also have photo-voltaics to decrease our need for power, thus hopefully helping the local load as well. At least on sunny days, this should be helpful!

We haven't broken ground yet, but our goal is to do so in the next couple of weeks. We've been talking to the utilities companies, in the hopes of getting those in the plans before we clear trees and put in the driveway. Lord willing, we'll see progress soon. As soon as I can, I will post pictures of the lot as it is (beautiful hardwood trees and all), and then later as things progress, more pictures of the construction phase.

Hope you'll plan to come visit us when it's done!

Psalm 127:1