Mud Sills

I went to Sacramento for a long weekend (Thursday - Tuesday). Kory's crew installed pier footings for and dug out some of the basement tailings for additional footings. These will support the floor and live loads for the main level of the house.

Josh's crew started to install the mud sills in preparation for the floor panels that are coming in next week.

Ready for a Floor

We're ready for the basement and garage floors to be poured. Just need a little good weather. Josh will be bringing out the first of the lumber to be installed on Monday. The mud sills.

Tailings and Pea Gravel

In preparation for the garage slab and basement floor, tailings (sand) and pea gravel were put down. For the tailings, in the basement, we used "Stone Shooter." 40 yards of tailings were thrown into the basement using this truck and conveyor belt, and only needed minimal leveling. The driver controlled everything, including moving the truck around, with a control box around his waist. The largest remote control vehicle I've seen. Joe also received permission to backfill the drain field. The system was pressure tested, and covered.

Gutter and Sewer Drains

Before finishing excavation, we installed the gutter and sewer drains.

Septic Tank

The septic tanks arrived today. This seems like a lot of work, just so we can continue to pee on the ground.

Backfill Continues

The garage backfill took up more dirt than we anticipated. When we were digging, I was thinking of ways to get rid of the extra dirt. As it turned out, we needed to bring in 50 loads. And we will need more when we do the final excavation work. Water-proofing the basement was completed, and we added apron drains around the footings to prevent water intrusion.

Garage Backfill

We used 6' walls for the garage. This was done to minimize the number of stairs between the house and garage. It also allows us to build an "ADA" compliant ramp. The fill in the garage had to be compacted, so the slab won't crack. The concrete is only 7 days old, not nearly enough time to cure. So, on the exposed walls we added pea gravel to keep the pressure of compaction off the walls. It must have worked, no cracks in the walls.

Trash Pump

After talking to Joe Fazio and Rod the plumber, it was decided it would be best (and actually cheaper) to install a trash pump in the basement. Do this and we wouldn't have to dig a gravity drain through hard pan to the septic tank. Below floor drains were also installed to prevent upward seepage into the basement floor.

Foundation and Basement Walls

It took a week to strip and clean the forms. Kory used all the forms he had, plus borrowing from others to finish the house and garage. And it took quite some time to clean and remove.