The Slab

In preparing for the slab for the basement, the footer had to be filled with rocks first. Here is what went wrong: communication. The excavator left the site for a different job not realizing that we would be in need. And since the excavator is expensive to move, Jerry (our grader) could not bring it back in a timely manner. Not wanting to waste weeks of time, Andrew came up with a solution: a ramp. They built a wooden ramp for the rocks to be poured onto to get down inside the footers. Unfortunately the rocks did not slide as they had hoped, so Noah sat on the rocks and pushed them downward with his feet and legs. So much for that pair of pants!


NOAH SLIDING ROCKS


SPREADING THE ROCKS

Here is the insulation that went under the slab. Noah actually decided to put two layers of foam board down to help super-insulate our house. This is the one place that would be impossible to retro-insulate if we decided that we needed more. With R-40 walls, we want everything else to be as good as possible also.


LAYING THE FOAM INSULATION


POURING THE CONCRETE


SMOOTHING THE CONCRETE


FINISHED & CURING

A Firm Foundation

After waiting for so long to see things move along with the house, it seems as though we have shifted into warp speed the past two weeks. Since Andrew and Juan arrived two weeks ago, the house is rockin' and rollin'. After the excavation was completed, the footers were poured (concrete base rectangle for the house to be built upon).


READY FOR THE CONCRETE



POURING

It seems as though something always has to go wrong, and for this step the mishap was when the concrete trough broke! Not to worry, the concrete men scrambled to chain the pieces together so that the work could forge ahead.



LIMPING ALONG


HARD AT WORK


FINISHED AND CURING

The Excavation

Today the stars aligned for our excavation. Andrew, our contractor, was back in town and had brought with him Juan, who will be helping with the framing. Jerry, our excavator, was available, and it was a beautiful sunny day. After confirming the corner locations of the house with us, and establishing a plan for the foundation depth, Jerry began to dig at the southwest corner of the house.



As you may be able to see from the picture, Jerry only had to dig about a foot down before hitting impenetrable rock -- bedrock, or ledge, as they refer to it around here. It is not uncommon in this area, which was covered by massive glaciers in the last ice age, to have bedrock very close to the surface of the soil. Until you actually start digging it is near impossible to tell how close that ledge will be, generally speaking. Fearing the worst, we asked Jerry to explore around a bit with the excavator, to try to get a sense for where the ledge was. We had some flexibility in exact house placement, so we were prepared to shift things around if necessary if it meant we would be able to dig deeper.



The ledge did drop off somewhat to the east and north, but then flattened out again. It was enough however, to make things work. As Jerry dug out the rest of the foundation, we kept our fingers crossed that the ledge would not rise up again in the middle of the house, and I breathed a sigh of relief when Jerry finished digging out the rest of the footprint with no nasty surprises. In the picture below (click for a larger image), you can see the rock all along the left (west) side with hard clay as the bed for the rest of the foundation.



Here's a closeup of some of the ledge that kept me so nervous all morning. It's beautiful rock, worn very smooth by glacier action.



Jerry finished up by digging a trench in which to lay the pipes that will drain water around the foundation out to daylight.



Tomorrow morning, Jerry will bring in a few loads of gravel to enable the concrete truck to get close enough to pour the footings. Now once the rain gods give us another break, we will be able to pour.

Making Way for the House

 
Noah has cleared the homesite of the trees. He has felled the trees, cut them into rounds, and we have been stacking them for use during future winters to heat our home. Noah has done most of the stacking by himself, but the kids and I helped with these two stacks this week. We enjoyed working with him and being on our land this week. We are also very anxious for the excavation to begin next week.
 

Home Site Clearing

Noah has been working on clearing the trees for the house to be built. Here is a picture of the kids standing in front of the felled trees (to help give some scale to the picture even though the quality is low). Andrew (our contractor) was here for a few days and helped with this.
 
And then here is the home site minus the kids.
 
In order to be able to cut up the trees for firewood, Noah first cut off the limbs and burned them. Here is a picture of the site minus the limbs. A huge difference! He has been busy and it is paying off (and will continue to pay off as we burn the wood in our wood stove in future winters!). We are hoping for a few dry days to be able to excavate the foundation next week. We have had our share of patience lessons lately!
 

Supplies

So our Quadlock shipment came into town a couple of weeks ago, the local building supply house is holding it in their lumberyard until we're ready for them. Quadlock is the name of our insulated concrete form (ICF) supplier. It's basically a lot of big Styrofoam Legos. They shipped them up from Atlanta, the trucker that hauled them here says that it was the second lightest load he'd ever carried on his rig. The lightest? Boxes and boxes of feathers. This picture is only a small portion of the forms. It's a lot of insulation. You could make a lot of disposable coffee cups with that amount of styrofoam.

Now if only we can get to the point where we'll actually start stacking those forms... I'm learning that there's a lot of waiting that goes on in the building process. We're still waiting on the excavation. The driveway is basically complete now, so we just need the hole dug so we can put in the foundation. It should be happening pretty soon now. I meet with the local code-enforcement guy tomorrow to verify that we have satisfied the setbacks to the river before we start digging. Hopefully Jerry, our excavator, can be out here soon after.