More Than Just Concrete

Most exciting part of my day? When we can see progress on the house from the street! Can you spot the gray foundation? This is when you have turned off the street and are just entering the property.

We pulled up today to see wood for the first set of beams and flooring supports on site. You can see me standing in the corner of the house there. You can also see our first {minor} setback if you look closely.

But first, those supports! Wood has never looked so beautiful. 

Footers Part Two and Three!

The footer trenches got filled with footer stuff, aka concrete, on Friday Jan 26th in the morning. By the time we both got off of work, we had to go check it out! The first couple of photos were Friday night when the concrete was still a bit soft and you couldn't walk on it yet. But every step of the way is progress closer and closer so we get excited for everything. 

The block for our foundation was also delivered this day.

Utilities are in!

Utilities are in! Well, most of them anyway. We went out Saturday 1/6 and there were a couple workers installing a phone line and closing up the ditch. Lots of rain in the forecast, so they wanted to make sure they closed up the ditch before it closed itself I guess.

We've got gas, water, electrical conduit, and phone line in the same ditch. Now, I understand that this is not exactly kosher, but we were permitted to run it this way. I think the big concern is keeping the electric line away from the gas line so they were installed on opposite sides of the ditch.

3/4" Natural Gas Line

I was surprised to see the gas line being entirely plastic. I've installed Home-flex stainless steel corrugated gas line with a PVC outer coating 24" under grade before. I had to run it through Carlon electrical conduit for added protection against damage.  I guess that's overkill in Tennessee? This is just a plastic hose 3 feet under ground. I guess this is how it's done here. Many people were surprised to hear that we have natural gas service. I feel so lucky! I looking forward to a clean burning maintenance-free fire place and gas stove cook tops. Might even add a gas outdoor fire pit on the back patio in the future.

Yellow - Gas Line
Large Grey - Electrical Conduit
Small Grey (actually white) - Water Line
Black - Phone Line
Red - Just some warning tape

They ran a phone line just in case we ever want AT&T Internet at our home; though Spectrum broadband cable is very good. Speaking of... While the ditch was open, it would have been the perfect time for Spectrum to come out and drop in a broadband cable line, but their installation service department is a about as responsive as a drunk turtle. We missed the opportunity, and the ditch was filled. They said the line only needs to be about 6" under grade since it is only communications rather than hi-voltage so there is no safety risk. They'll have to come out, hand dig and install it at a later date. No biggie.

I verified with the electric company's superintendent that the water pressure should be more than adequate because they just ran a brand new 6" water main down the road with 150 PSI pressure. We'll take about 30 PSI of pressure drop just climbing the hill to our house, and another 20 to 30 PSI of loss due to friction losses in 1200 feet or so of water line, but we'll still have plenty at the house; something I was very concerned about because our current apartment pressure is less than a gnat's sneeze.

I managed to sneak a photo of the contractors when they weren't looking. I think in this picture they had ran all the line and were just back-filling the trench.

So, a lot of this may not seem terribly exciting for anyone except myself, but this kind of detail helps me document and capture the whole process so if I should ever... I don't know... decide to get my contractor's license and build custom homes for people one day, I'll have a picture-perfect understanding of how it gets done.

Toodles!
Mike and Liz

When a Ditch Is Exciting

Remember when we had a pretty driveway? Well, then a ditch gets dug for utilities and it doesn't look like much anymore. But this is very exciting! Why? Because it is more progress! 

By the end of this week we should have water and electric lines up to the build site. They will also lay internet, phone, and gas in the same trench. 

The green boxes are kind of strange. They are just like big green Rubbermaid containers that will be buried in the ground serving as junction boxes for the electrical line every couple hundred feet. Not sure why they wouldn't run a continuous line from the road but we are taking our builders word on that one.

The trench was dug with an excavator and is about two feet wide by three feet deep.  Doesn't look too bad here, but then Mike jumped in!

Liz certainly wasn't getting down there (and back up easily). 

And trenches can be pretty in their own sense. Doesn't this look like a scene from Lord of the Rings or something?

We assume this is where the last junction box will be and where they will put the temporary pole for use during construction. The house build site is just to the right of this photo.

It is a good thing we have access to our property from the lot next door. The trench cuts our driveway right in half. My poor little Rogue was not getting through any of that!

Also, we are getting just about record low temperatures here in Tennessee. We are not happy to be breaking out winter coats, gloves, and multiple layers when we leave the apartment. We thought we left most of that back in Ohio! What the heck is going on?

So it is hard to see, but there is definitely ice down there. We know most of the country is getting these below normal temperatures, but we are ready for our average 47° January!

Super exciting utility pole!

Even with an ugly ditch and mounds of dirt, we definitely enjoy the scenic view every time we visit the property.

As mentioned, it was too freakin cold (especially in the shade) so Liz was ready to go home.

You have to click on this lovely panoramic that Mike took!

Until we have another update - Toodles!!! 

Liz and Mike

1/3/18 Update

Drove by and a couple disgruntled contractors were gluing together conduit, 1" SCH 40 conduit for the water line and 2-1/2" SCH 40 conduit for the water and electrical line respectively. I believe I heard the trench is about 1100 feet long. That's a lot of piping! I think the contractors were disgruntled because it's about 30 degrees out and they've been working on this for a while, sun's going down, etc...

Water line - Sure hope this is the right size. It's a long run and quite a bit of elevation gain. 

Electrical conduit

 Green electrical box near the house partially buried. Still investigating why these are needed.

Electrical conduit in the trench - Water line still above 

Long sweep elbow for smooth transition to the electrical pole. Should make for feeding the cable nice and easy.