Foundation Pour

It took a week and a half, with some snow, and three people working full time to form the foundation. And today we finally poured. 60 yards of concrete, 93 1/2 total yards to bury and not be seen.

Kane again supervised the pour, and approved. No blow outs, no mistakes.

Kory played with his hose. Of course this was all pumped, can't imagine the number of wheel barrow loads this would have taken. Or how many days.

Temp Power Pole

The temporary power pole was installed, inspected and approved. Apparently I didn't know what I was doing. Took the inspector less 2 minutes to approve Paul's pole, where it took him an hour to write up the errors on mine. go figure.

Forming Foundation and Basement

Forming has started, and will continue for several days. Apparently this is a big job.

After talking to Joe and the plumber, Rod, we decided it would be best to put in a trash pump rather than digging through 150' of hard pan for a gravity drain. Rod will put the pump and well in over the weekend.

Rebar Time

Started installing the rebar verticals, and spreder cleats for the forms. The rebar will be 16" on center, both vertical and horizontal. A lot of metal.

While snapping the form walls, Kory discovered there was a misalignment. We need to add a 1/2 yard of concrete to straighten it out.

Stripping forms today. Early knock off today, I have some banking business to get done anyway. Sunday Kory will snap lines for the foundation walls.

Footings Pour

The stepdowns were completed and we got to pour the footings. 33 1/2 of concrete (what's the difference between concrete and cement?).

First Inspection

Need to introduce the concrete group. Kory Cline, the boss is center left. With Chris on the left, Jeremy center right, and "Bills" on the right. Kane wasn't available to be in this picture.

Today we passed the first county inspection: the Footing and Building Site Inspection. The footing step downs weren't complete, so the inspector requested that when they were done that we take pictures of them for documentation. Also, the southwest corner of the garage was 6" to close to the drain field, but got lucky and he let it pass.

Knocked off early today, Kory had another pour to do, and wanted to take advantage of the good weather.

Kane

To true oversight of all work done on site is being done by Kane. He is a French Mastiff that allows us to throw sticks for him, and loves to complete destroy golf balls by biting through them.

A couple of issues today. First the crawl space access from the basement was not dug out, and fixing it now would require bringing back the excavator and I'm certain Joe wouldn't appreciate digging out more of my hard pan. So now we will have a 4' cement wall to hop over to get into the crawl space. Second, my attempt at putting up the temporary power pole, failed the inspection miserably. I called in Paul's Electric to fix it for me

Cline Construction started forming up the footings. The ground was so hard under basement (in hard pan) they had to use a roto hammer to pound in some of the stakes.

Other stuff for today, I got the permit from the Dept of Labor and Industries to set up temporary power. And I got the privilege of pounding in the ground stake for the temporary pole. Its six feet long and I hit hard pan after two feet. While waiting for the temporary power, we are "borrowing" electricity from our neighbor.

Also, important to note, today the honey pot arrived. So we no longer need to wonder into the trees.

Utility Trench

A trench was dug between the house and the road along the north side of the driveway for drainage, water, power, telephone and cable tv. It took a bit of trying to get PUD to deliver the power cable, so Joe finally picked it up. We were also worried about the water connection. The meter was on the other side of the property in the southwest corner. Got lucky and found another access near the power hookup.

Garage Footings Trench

The garage footing trench is complete. We will be using 6' stem walls on the garage to raise it to within 3 1/2 feet of the house elevation. This will allow us to install an ADA ramp between the house and the garage.

Thursday, with the basement dig out complete, Joe and Tony are cutting out the crawl space area. Cutting on 2' here, with a 2' stepdown, ending up with 6" at the lowest point. The final level of the house will allow you to see the green, but you will have to be standing.

No job goes without its problems. The first one is here. Joe's dump truck blew an axle inside the differential. It should be back on the road by Monday. Just in time for the concrete people to start working.

A large lot, but still no space. Joe had Tony built quite a mountain range. Before they were done, they had completed Mt. Baumgardner and Mt. Heidemann, with a yet to be named peak.

Basement Digout

The basement dig. We hit hardpan at about 3’, with 5’ feet to go. Joe put new teeth on his excavator, and they were worn before finishing the basement. A lot of work just to say, “this bottle has been cellared for 2 years, and still has a lot of tannin.”