Rain Delay

No slab yet.. the rain has caused some delay.  Yay for August on the Oregon Coast.

 

Photo by AP

Slab Prep

In order to prep for the basement slab, I am required to fill in the foundation footprint up to the top of the footings.  Originally, I was going to fill the whole thing with gravel and compact it down... this was going to take about 70 yards of 3/4 minus and about $1400.  Vern Wiles (Central Coast Excavating) suggested that I just use the clay I removed from the dig-out to fill most of it, and put a 2" layer of rock on the top.  Genius.  Not only did it save me about $1200... it also gave me an excuse to run the excavator.

So last Sunday, Dad and I went out the site and filled the foundation footprint with clay, leveled it out, compacted it down in preparation for 2" of rock.  I called Vern to schedule the rock delivery and found out he was out of town for a week.  He suggested I call Chris at Waldport Ready-Mix.... man am I glad I called him.  Apparently they have remote control trucks now, that can literally shoot gravel 50ft in any direction... and all controlled by a dude with a fancy remote control standing anywhere he wants.

This truck was AWESOME.  Note the guy in white controlling the truck... there is no-one in the truck.

Another view of the truck.  Note the gravel arc

Once the gravel was down, I used a rake to grade it

Once graded, I used a plate compactor to make it flat.  

Paul Nowak (our foundation sub-contractor) was nice enough to let me borrow this bad boy

Once compacted, I used the transom to verify grade.  It's within 1/2" everywhere.

Walls Finished, Much To Do!

Now that the walls are finished:

HUGE back wall.

Other side

Now I need to fill in the footing area with dirt and gravel in order to prep for the slab pour.  Last night, with Darren's help, we laid 5 yards of 1"- gravel over the top of the garage door opening to be able to get the machinery inside the foundation area.  This saves a TON of backbreaking work!  The plan is to work pretty hard this weekend and have the slab poured late next week.  Once this is done, the framing can start!

I LOVE dump trailers!

That's HUGE

The forms are about 90% done, but the contractor missed the deadline for a second inspection... so nothing happened today as Lincoln County inspectors only inspect on Tuesday's and Thursday's.  The contractor will be back out tomorrow to finish up the concrete forms, and the concrete pump should arrive tomorrow afternoon.  In theory, we will have concrete walls placed and exposed by end of day Friday!

TALL Walls!  10' in the back, 2' in the front

Once the walls go up, I need to fill the foundation area with rock and compact it down in preparation for the monolithic slab pour!  Foundation filling should take a few days, so I anticipate having the slab poured either late next week, or early the following week... It just depends on how long it takes someone to get out to dump the rock.  The hardest part will be figuring out how to get the rock inside the foundation.... I'm not going to shovel 60 yards of 3/4 minus by hand!

The forms for the walls went up today, it's amazing how fast $20,000 can be spent on concrete...  they had some problems with the county inspector today, so they wont actually pour the walls until Thursday.  Next week, Vern Wiles will be delivering 4 loads of rock to compact in the center to prep for the slab pour.  We should be done with the basement area, ready for framers by the end of next week!

Walls

More walls

And Were Off!

I had been bugging Josh all of last week to firm up a construction start date, but hadn't gained any traction with him on solidifying a date.  Apparently the contractor who is doing our foundation finished a job early and was eager to get going on our house....  They started last week!

We have some extended family in town and they wanted to see the site...so my mom took them on a tour, only to find the foundation footing forms were already done!  Needless to say, I packed up and headed out there when I found this out!  While I was out there today, I met Paul and his son who were doing the foundation work.  He asked a couple questions about the layout, and told me he managed to get his truck stuck in the gravel already.  As we were discussing everything, the porta-potties were delivered and the concrete truck was supposed to be there anytime.  It's starting to look like a construction site!

Facing west.

From above.