Ready for plumbing

The basement is now ready for the rough-in plumbing. We are hopeful we can get this done and work on laying the radiant floor tubing this weekend.

How did he do that?!!!!

I nearly had a stroke tonight when I pulled up to the site to find Dwayne, sitting on his tractor, wedged perfectly in the covered porch area! I couldn't imagine how he got the thing in there in the first place and surely didn't know how he was going to get out! I said before that he continues to amaze me in this construction project, and tonight was no exception. As it turns out, this was one of many trips in and out of this spot tonight. He was using the tractor to dump rock into some low areas in the basement. (BTW, there is not a single mark on any of the ICF forms!)

Jonathan's house

We picked up this little tykes house through freecycle, a very neat organization worth checking out. His house went up much quicker than ours!

Our first big cut!

Dwayne and Brad, our ICF rep, making the first cut out for the basement door. The plan calls for french doors but for now we had to have some way to access the inside of the house.

A family affair!!!!

Tonight we spent a lot of time spreading around the rock in the basement (see previous post!) Everyone got in on the action and the kids were a big help! Even Jonathan was screaming he wanted to help and grabbed a shovel!

Experiences in home building!

We are continuing to learn soooo much about home building! For example, last Monday night (one week ago) Dwayne painted this sign and put it in the exact location that we wanted the rock to be dumped (which happened to be the center of the basement.) Tuesday night we went to the site prepared to spread out the rock in the basement. To our surprise, the driver had dumped the rock right at the top of the driveway. Mind you, this was twenty TONS of rock we are talking about! Needless to say, Dwayne was highly upset and called for more rock, explaining to the dispatcher what had happend and where exactly he wanted the rock placed, explaining that the driver would need to drive past the first load of misplaced rock and around the ramp to the basement where he would plainly see the ROCK sign. Much to our suprise, Wed. evening we went to the site to spread rock and there was the second twenty tons of rock about 30 feet past the first pile of rock and nowhere near the basement! Unbelievable! Now we had forty tons of rock in places we didn't want it and no rock where we did! SOOO, after an earful from Dwayne and specific instructions for the driver not to dump the rock without Dwayne or I present, we hesitantly ordered another twenty tons. I briefed the kids on the situation and waited for the call to run out to meet the driver. Sooner than expected it came and out the door we went, not even giving Jonathan time to put his pants on! I told the kids to move quickly to the car as these drivers could not be trusted to wait on us to dump the rock. We wouldn't be gone that long I said, we just need to show the driver exactly where we need the rock to go. Little did I know!!! We sped to the property with visions in my head of a third rock pile being placed on near the portable garage and a husband who now had permanent veins bulging out of his head. So you can imagine I breathed a big sign of relief when I saw the truck waiting on me. The driver was very nice and explained that he would be bringing the next two loads of rock as well so I would be able to show hime where to dump and go back home (we needed three, so we had two more coming to replace the two that had been wrongly placed). I smiled and thanked him and told him we would watch him dump the first load so Jonathan could watch the truck work and jumped back in the car. He quickly drove down the ramp where he proceeded to quickly get stuck in the mud!!!! "Would you like me to dump it here?", he asked. I thought he must be joking and ignorantly laughed along. "No way, Dwayne will go ballistic!", I said, still not realizing he was serious!! Once I realized he wasn't joking I quickly called Dwayne, then the dispatch. She assured me that the driver was not joking and that our only two options were to dump the rock where the driver was stuck or call a tow truck to come and pull him out at the additional cost of $200.00!!!! So two hours later, the kids (Jonathan still had no pants on!) and I watched in disbelief as the driver dumped ANOTHER 20 tons of rock where we didn't want it! Now we had a total of 66 TONS of rock right no where near Dwayne's beautifully painted rock sign!!!! Thank goodness Bill Jones was able to bring a Bobcat out and move all the rock! We could laugh about it by Sunday, but Friday afternoon it wasn't too funny!!!!

Progress!

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Originally uploaded by dmcook216.

Our ICF rep came bright and early this morning to help us start stacking blocks. We stack the first two courses, then the plumber installs the rough plumbing, we install the radiant floor heat and the basement slab is poured before we continue going up with the rest of the walls. These first two courses are the toughest, although they still went up fairly quickly. They really are very similar to legos- the tops and bottoms snap right together!

A view from the back right corner

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Originally uploaded by dmcook216.

Dwayne, Bill and Brent playing grown up legos!

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Originally uploaded by dmcook216.

The blocks are suprisingly light!

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Originally uploaded by dmcook216.

The kids can easily lift and move them, but today they had friends out to play so they were too busy having fun!

Dwayne tying up a corner

We have footers!!!!

Completed footers
Originally uploaded by dmcook216.

After several weeks and a lot of work, we finally have completed footers! The concrete truck was an hour and a half late, but even so, the crew poured the house in an hour. Our ICF rep is coming tomorrow (on Saturday!) to help us stack our first two courses of ICF block. Now we can really see the house starting to take shape!

Dwayne and Aaron inserting rebar

Dwayne and Aaron inserting rebar
Originally uploaded by dmcook216.

I continue to be amazed at how Dwayne is just taking to building this house! When the crew had finished the first side, he grabbed Aaron and the string and started setting rebar. I asked him if he knew what he was doing and he obviously did- they were so quick they had to wait for the crew on the last side (and the crew was quick!) You can see from the finished picture, that the rebar is very straight!

The crew starting the pour!

Starting the pour
Originally uploaded by dmcook216.

Footers are ready for concrete!

Footers are ready for concrete!
Originally uploaded by dmcook216.

Well, a week after the trench footers were poured, the rest of the footers are finally ready for concrete! While the forms were easy enough for us to put together, there were a lot of details that took a lot of time- cutting the forms to fit in some places, leveling, hooking up the crossover pipes (which required more cutting of the pipe), tying up the rebar (which required MORE cutting of the rebar) and finally spreading out the gravel. If we were to do this again (which we don't plan to do!), I would definitely choose a house with fewer corners, instead of the dozens we have now!

Form-a-drain close up

Form-a-drain close up
Originally uploaded by dmcook216.

Here is a close up of the footer forms we are using. Unlike traditional footer forms, these stay in place once the concrete is poured. They are slotted and hollow, so that any water that may come up to the house will enter the form through the slots and travel around and out through a drainage pipe. The black line you see is a pipe connecting the two forms to eliminate any hydrostatic pressure. It's a very neat product!

Putting the tractor to good use

Putting the tractor to good use
Originally uploaded by dmcook216.

Dwayne's new toy has come in very handy so far in this project. The latest use was putting the gravel up next to the footer forms and spreading out that big pile of gravel you see behind him. Plus, I think he has a lot of fun playing around on it!

The "secret path"

The "secret path"
Originally uploaded by dmcook216.

The kids were so excited to find this "secret path". It will actually be an eventual ditch used to drain any water away from the house, but they had a blast running in it since it was over their heads and not too visible unless you are right upon it.

Garage and porch footers after the concrete

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Originally uploaded by dmcook216.

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Originally uploaded by dmcook216.

I think I've actually played on one of these before- you paid money, they gave you a foam mat, and you slid down it! Remember those water slides?!

Lots o' concrete!

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Originally uploaded by dmcook216.

The crew was really fast. As they had told us the night before, the first truck showed up at eight and they started right away. By 9:10, they had finished the garage, the porch and about one-fourth of the daylight basement. (This including a concrete bath by Buddy, our dog, who jumped right into the garage trench! I would have loved to get a picture of that, however, I was afraid we were going to have a concrete statue if I didn't get him rinsed off right away!) At this point they had been through two concrete trucks and had to call for a third! I believe they could have finished in an hour and a half (maybe one forty-five) if they hadn't had to wait on the third truck. These guys were fast and smooth! If only all aspects of the construction project could move this quickly!

Home construction- Day 35!

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Originally uploaded by dmcook216.

The guy pouring our footers told us he would be able to get to us late Friday evening or first thing Saturday morning, so you can imagine our surprise when I called to him Thursday night to confirm, and he told me he planned on starting the pour at 8 am Friday morning! Dwayne was tied up with a planning and zoning meeting Thursday night, so the only option was to head to the site EARLY Friday morning to finish up a few details before the concrete truck came. Dwayne is used to being up and out at the crack of dawn, but me, being a homeschool mom, not so much! I did manage to get there in time to hand Dwayne a few things and snap a picture or two!

Daylight basement trench

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Originally uploaded by dmcook216.

The square trench is where the covered porch will eventually be and the straight trench marks the walls of the basement. I think all the rock piled on the square is going to be in the way of patio furniture!!!

Garage trenches

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Originally uploaded by dmcook216.

These are the footer trenches for the garage. They have one step down that you can't see on this photo. You can, however, see the remains of our construction canopy in the background! Where we are on a hilltop, it seems like the slightest breeze is all it takes to destroy the canopies. This is the third one in a month!

Front porch footer

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Originally uploaded by dmcook216.

This was a tricky one- there are four step downs for the front porch. It's hard to tell from this picture, but the front porch is a wraparound, so you can see two steps here and then the porch turns to the right and the other two steps are there. Hard to believe it will all be level eventually!

Getting set

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Originally uploaded by dmcook216.

Kenny Masters cutting rebar and Bill Jones getting his laser level ready to go! We are fortunate to have knowledgeable friends who are willing to help us out!

In the trenches

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Originally uploaded by dmcook216.

We finally have a driveway!!!

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Originally uploaded by dmcook216.

We have finished the driveway for now, so we have our own (driveable!) entrance to our site! I'm sure that our neighbor's, the Hart's, are as happy as we are!!! They have been great about us using their driveway but I'm sure they will be glad not to have us coming and going constantly- we have awesome neighbors!