A Big Hole

People have been asking me since March when I was going to break ground. I kept saying "soon", but soon never happened. It finally happened last Wednesday, but it was delayed so I wasn't even there to see it! I had waited at the site for about two hours Wednesday morning. The dump trucks were lined up, Joe Haaf was there, the backhoe operator was there, but no backhoe. I finally left and went to work, and I guess the backhoe got there shortly after I had left. Oh, well. I had waited so long for that day and I missed it!

I'll post some pictures here, so people will really believe me. No big hitches in digging. There was a large pipe coming out of the ground which was embedded in concrete and rebar. It was meant to be a very sturdy pipe. There was a lot of speculation as to what was on the bottom end. Was it a well, or and underground tank? I was convinced it was a post for a carousel or merry-go-round. I'm not what it was for, but the good news is that there was nothing at the other end. Another small hitch was that there was a small dump in the middle of the lot that had a lot of building rubble; big hunks of concrete and some other junk. I'll have to pay extra for that to be disposed of. The third thing was that the ground is clay, not sand. There was a couple feet of sand under the top soil, but clay underneath that. The soil borings I had done, which went down 8 feet, showed just sand, not clay. I'm not sure exactly how that will affect things, but I guess sand is more stable than clay, so we would rather have had sand. Lucky I decided against a sand pit under the house, or I would have had to haul sand in for it.

Here are the dump trucks, all lined up and ready to go, but no backhoe.

Starting the dig.

Before digging.

Concrete rubble.

We're Finally Breaking Ground!!!

I’m assured that the trucks are lined up for tomorrow morning and the ground breaking will happen FOR SURE. I know I’ve said we’re going to start many times before, but the money and permit are in hand, and Joe Haaf of Rock Solid Concrete Services, who is doing the excavation and much of the building of the house, says that Tuesday, August 26th, is the day.

It's Final! Closing on August 7th

The appraisal came in at an amount I can live with, and the closing will be on Thursday, August 7th. So I'm finally going to get started. I contacted Joe Haaf at Rock Solid Concrete this morning to let him know I'm ready to go next week, and hopefully he'll be able to work me into his schedule pronto. Joe is doing the excavation, the masonry, and a lot of the work inside. He's kind of been "on hold" since May, when I thought we'd get started. But I had delays with the building permit (not being submitted in a timely manner), and then I didn't push getting the financing through as fast as I normally would have, since I knew it was going to take 6-8 weeks to get the permit. That was a critical error, as the bank suspended all construction to perm loans a few days before I was supposed to close, and I had to switch to yet another bank for the construction loan.

Now the pressure is on. There is a LOT of detail work that has to be decided (by me), things like exactly where the windows are going, where each electrical outlet will be, colors for the walls, the roof, what kind of wood for the floors and the color, etc. It's kind of overwhelming, but it will be worth it in the end.

I hope to have the actual date for the groundbreaking soon!