7.9.2014

Jim started out the day putting some finishing touches on the newly-inspected meter pedestal.  He put sand and caution tape over the cable in the trench going to the transformer and then did some grading.  National Grid has been contacted so now we are just awaiting our turn on their schedule for them to hook up our power.

Then it was back to work in the footers - this time using some of our new rebar!  Jim has the rebar placement analyzed and all planned out to make sure our footers are strong enough to support this building. 

Of course, the rebar requires bending to go around all these corners.  Here Jim is bending a piece of 5/8" rebar.  I took a try and couldn't budge it!

This area is where we will begin placing the concrete for this first pour.  To make the connection strong, the rebar has to go into the next section so Jim made the end block in two pieces to allow for this.

He is also putting horizontal blocking connecting the two sides and to keep everything in place when we pour the concrete.

Jim bought this portable brick/block saw before we left Ohio - it's starting to come in very handy.  It amazes me all the planning Jim started way back when to make sure he had the tools he needs now.  Here he is cutting 5 pieces of 1/2" rebar at once to try and save some wear and tear on the rebar bender.

Once he got pieces cut, I was able to use the rebar bender to make stirrups that will also be placed in the footer for strength.  The end of the day was near and the storm clouds looming, so we cleaned up and Jim headed out to the barn for some supplies.

 

7.8.2014 - Our First Passed Inspection!

Today started off  promising - the electric inspector that I called yesterday called back this morning and Jim talked to him.  This guy said he would put Jim on an inspection contract that will include all of the electrical inspections needed for the project for $150 - that includes the service, rough and final electrical inspections.  Remember that the first guy Jim talked to said it would be $250 just for this first inspection!  Plus Jim liked this guy at least over the phone which is good.  He's coming out this afternoon, so fingers crossed that all goes well.

Meanwhile, we continued work on the footers.  Jim did some bracing of the forms and then he brought over buckets of gravel and I shoveled it behind all the footers to keep everything stable when the concrete is poured.

The skies looked sort of threatening all day plus we were waiting for the electric inspector to call and let us know when he was coming, so it was kind of tough to know exactly what to start.  There is a lot of equipment that we have to be careful of in the rain - like the laser level and wood stick.  We lucked out and the rain held out so we kept working until the call came in that the electric inspector was on his way.   Below Jim is working on the last section of footers for this first pour.

This guy was so nice and he was extremely impressed with the way Jim had the pedestal and all the wiring - we passed with no issues at all and got our first inspection sticker!  It was a big hurdle to get over - now we can contact National Grid and they can come out and connect everything up!  Then we will have power!

As these things always go, while the inspector was still there, the rep for one of the brick companies we've been working with dropped by with one of the brick samples that we ordered.   But we are thrilled with this sample - this is the dark color and finish we have been looking for.  We chatted with the rep for awhile about some of the particulars as far as negotiating with the supplier and delivery options.  He's supposed to get back to us next week.

 

After all the excitement of the inspection, it was back to work.  The forms are now all built - there is still strengthening to do, step repair and more gravel but we're getting closer to concrete!

The birds eye view of the footers at the end of the day.

We worked until about 6:00 and then headed into Lowe's to see about ordering the 3 other windows we have to get to meet the egress requirement.  But we didn't get them yet...since we don't have the same volume discount as when we bought all of the windows, we're going to do a little more investigating.  Thankfully, the storms held out until we were home, tired and hungry, but we certainly toasted to passing our first inspection!

 

7.7.2014

Jim left early this morning for a trip to the barn to pick up some supplies, went to the plumbing supply house to get our back-ordered items, and finally stopped at the septic designer's office...only to find it closed.  So that part of the morning was frustrating.

I made some calls this morning while he was gone to try and get a quote from another electric inspector.  The building inspector had given us this list of people to use...besides the one that Jim called originally, the other two firms on the list were basically dead-ends...one the phone numbers either came up as a wrong number and the two cellphones weren't accepting voice mail; the other firm said they don't do inspections in our county. But that person gave me the name of another inspector - I left a voice mail but we never got a call back.

Jim and I have this discussion daily...we try to work with companies and are in the market to do business with them, and people don't return phone calls or emails, don't do what they say they are going to do...it's very frustrating.  In the economy today, you would think people would be doing anything possible for new business but it doesn't seem to be that way.

I also had to track down out town highway department.  They refinished the road where our lot is a couple weeks ago...did a great job and it looks so nice.  They didn't do the shoulders yet but they are supposed to come back and do those.  They are now working on an adjacent street.  When we got back from Vermont and went to the land on Friday, we noticed that the asphalt company had apparently emptied their hopper right in our driveway apron. Plus, the hard rains we've had coupled with the fact that the shoulder isn't done has left a big ditch between the road and our driveway.  So getting in requires watching out for the sharp asphalt piles and going slow over the ditch!  I finally got in touch with someone who said they weren't working today (everyone must have taken a 4-day weekend!) but he would have them remove the piless and see about filling in the ditch.

Meanwhile, Jim came back to the land and worked on finishing up the electric meter.  You can see in this picture that the two lines that will eventually go to the carriage house and the house are in place - Jim just capped the ends until we need them.  He got the cable laid in the ditch the required way - he had to cut through all the cable to make two lines to go into the transformer.  The cable is so thick his normal cable cutters wouldn't work - he had to use a hacksaw!  He later put sand on top of the cable (not pictured).

Unfortunately, it was an on/off rainy day.  So we weren't able to get back to work on the footers but getting the electric work done was another big step.

 

7.6.2014

It was back in the footers today to assess the damage and try to move on.  We went back to making forms and got the buttress wall area all leveled and then moved down and around the corner of the side wall.

 

Jim wanted to compact the side wall again so that required bringing the excavator down and getting the compactor in the footers again.

 

 

While the excavator was in the site, Jim wanted to open up the front area up a bit and it's much easier with the excavator than crumbing by hand.

At the end of the day, we felt good - we made steps forward again.  Tomorrow we'll hopefully finish getting the forms set.

 

7.5.2014

This was definitely a regrouping day.  But which job do you start on first when there are so many? 

 

Jim started tearing apart the back of the car to see if he could at least get the window to go up and then we wouldn't have to worry about it.  So far no luck and no luck troubleshooting the problem either.  So it's back to a tarp for awhile.

 

Then Jim went back to electric work.  This is very heavy duty service cable which is composed of three separate aluminum wires.  So it's very rigid and definitely not flexible enough to easily push it up into the conduit and into the boxes.

The first cable is through!

And then the second.

Then Jim had to get things all in position and connect the wires to the meter base.

All buttoned up and finished for now!

Jim finished moving the dirt pile enough to get the excavator there. 



Then he dug a ditch alongside the edge of the site to channel water down and away from the site.



Once that was finished, he made a giant dam along the entire top part of the site.  We had one before but this one is really big and goes around the entire top and connects to the dirt pile.  So the idea is all of the water from the top of the hill would hit the dam and go around the outside of the dirt pile.  But just in case any sneaks past the dam, the ditch should divert the water away from the site.

Corinth had their Independence Day Celebration today - it had everything from a family run/walk, parade, bands, magic shows, kids' duck races, a big water ski show, and it culminated in fireworks set off from the bridge over the Hudson River.  We walked down to watch the fireworks and were pretty amazed at all the people in this little town.  We said everyone who lived there came and brought a friend!  The fireworks were really good and lasted quite a long time - pretty impressive for the size of this town.  It was neat to see the boats lined up in the water watching them too.

 

7.4.2014 - Happy 4th of July!

Happy 4th of July! 

It's been a crazy couple of days so I'll try to catch up.  Wednesday morning we headed out to Lowe's for our supply run.  Unfortunately, by the time we got back to the land and ate lunch, the rain was about to start.  I headed off to do a little grocery shopping and Jim was able to work just a little bit in the footers before it rained.  So it was a short work day.  But that was okay because Jim had things to get ready for our day on Thursday - our road trip to Vermont.

The forecast was for more rain on Thursday so Jim had set up a meeting with his new Nudura rep at the concrete company.  His old rep who he really liked and had worked out a lot of details with, left the company with no notice.  Jim had only communicated with the new person by phone and email - and wasn't real impressed and in fact was wondering if that is the direction he should go for the foundation walls.  Jim always prefers to meet in person to discuss these issues, so the meeting was set up and off we went.

We first stopped at the electric supply store to pick up some things for the meter work.  They had most things except for some conduit that Jim needs.  The concrete company was actually in New Hampshire but just over the border from Vermont.  We had to travel across the state of Vermont - it took us about 3 hours to get there.  Probably a half hour from our destination, we passed another electric supply store, so we planned to stop there on the way back home after the meeting to see if they had the right conduit.

The meeting with the Nudura people went really well - Jim met with them for about an hour and a half.  It turned out that the person that Jim had been communicating was in the meeting but he was not the actual person that Jim will be working with.  The new person was very knowledgeable and Jim feels he'll be a good resource.  Jim got all of his questions answered satisfactorily and the guy is working up a quote for us.

Afterwards, we stopped at the electric supply store, picked up the right conduit, and Jim loaded them into the car.  Because they are 10' pieces, he lowered the back window of the 4Runner and put them through the car into the front seat area.  We had passed through a little ski resort town on our way to the concrete place and we had said we would stop and get an ice cream cone when we were finished.  We parked on the street and Jim rearranged the conduit so it would lay on the dashboard and fit in the car so we could lock up.  However, when he went to put the back window up - nothing.  It wouldn't go up.  He moved the car into a store parking lot and did his best to troubleshoot but nothing worked.  And then we found out this little town didn't even have ice cream!

We got back on the road coming home - and had to stop and take a picture of this sign for all of our Ohio family and friends who always ask us if we've seen any bears!  Thankfully, we haven't and none crossed our paths this trip either.
 

As we were driving, my Red Cross emergency weather app kept going off telling us about a horrible storm moving through our home area and across the whole area we were traveling.  It finally hit us - and it was a bad one.  Horrible torrential downpours, hail, lightning - and the whole time our back window was down!  And there was no garage awaiting us at home either.  We stopped at Home Depot when we got close to home and bought a tarp.  When Jim got back in the car, he said that people in line were buying pumps for flooded basements so our back window problem didn't seem quite as bad.  Thankfully, the rain slowed down by the time we got home and Jim was able to get the tarp over the back window.  Although it was apparent our power had gone out, it was at least on when we got home for which we were very grateful.

Unfortunately, some really bad news awaited Jim when he got to the land this morning.  The torrential downpours caused major damage to all of our footer work.  Although Jim had dammed up the area at the top to try and avoid this problem, all of the rain coming down the hill managed to find a low spot, created a trench - the water poured down the hill and then just followed our forms all the way down.

 

The bottom left of this picture kind of shows where the water broke through and you can see the pathway of the water through the footers.

The water just totally destroyed the step areas...

...leaving a giant mess that will require a lot of money for concrete to fill in.  This area was so beautiful that it is just sickening to see what happened.  All of the footers will require lots and lots of hand digging all of the extra dirt out to try and get them back into shape again.



Jim also had the turnout in much better shape after the last big storm - most of it survived but again, a low spot caused the water to create a massive cave in, sweeping tons of dirt over the edge and into the woods.

The ever-resilient Jim decided to work on the meter pedestal since the footers were too wet to do anything with today.  He got to use the new saw that Kyle & Julia bought him last year for the first time to cut the stainless steeling mounting brackets for the boxes.

All attached and ready for the boxes!

 

He also came up with a plan to hopefully avoid any more issues from big rains like this.  He had to move dirt from the big piles next to the site so he can get his excavator up close to the site. 

 

He's going to dig a ditch to divert water away from the site completely - so that's going to be a work in progress over the next day or so.

So...once again, lots of damage from a storm.  We don't have rain here very often but the two big storms that we had really caused a lot of grief.  I'm thankful for my very strong husband - he's able to pick himself up, come up with a new plan, and move on. 

 

 

7.1.2014

We  may have to take stock in bottled water - another warm day today and we are drinking lots of water as we work in the heat!

We started working on the final step and lowest level today.  Jim got the back wall set and then used that to help get the corner at the right height.

Working on the step down area...

Attaching the gusset plate to hold the two pieces together.

Then moving over to the buttress wall and getting that started.

 

After lunch, we loaded the generator back on the truck and drove it up the hill to get some pails of water (hmm...that sounds similar to Jack and Jill of nursery rhyme fame!)   It takes awhile to get everything set up to get some water, but those nice cold pails of water felt amazing to use to rinse your face off.  We drove back down the hill with me sitting on the back of the truck trying not to let two pails of water totally slosh out on the way back down so that we can use them to rinse off when we want to.

 

Then Jim decided that the side wall where he did some crumbing yesterday really needed to be taken back a couple inches.  Jim said he tries so hard to dig perfectly and next time he's definitely leaving more wiggle room to begin with!  He marked the couple inches with orange dots and then brought the excavator over to dig it out. 

He could only reach half the wall with the excavator but it certainly saved us a ton of really hard labor doing the whole thing by hand.

All done with the excavator work...the rest of it, Jim used the spud bar to loosen it all up and then I dug it out while he went back to some framing work.

As will happen with hot days, we got a few stray pop-up showers.  They felt good while we were working but we had to scramble to close windows, get sensitive tools and lasers put away, and then the sun would come out until we had to repeat that cycle a couple of times.

The buttress wall area is all done and we'll be able to turn the corner and do the inside back wall next.

All finished with this section.  We are getting desperately low on supplies like more wood for forms, concrete stakes and plywood to finish off some of the step areas.  That's probably on the agenda tomorrow.



Where there's a will, there's a way. After the concrete is poured, we will put the perforated drain pipes (the ones we picked up the other day) on both the inside and the outside of the footer in case any water would ever accumulate there.  Then they will connect to the drain pipe we put in last week which will drain off into the woods.  There is enough room on the outside footer to run the pipe underneath the concrete and connect.  However, if you look on the inside wall, there is a giant rock there when the drain pipe needs to go.  Jim had tried getting it out when he dug but could tell it was really big and didn't want to have that giant hole in the footer that he would just have to fill up with concrete.

 

Jim got his brick and block saw out and decided to try and slice part of the rock off.

 

 

He made cuts in the rock...

 

 

And then took his 2 pound hammer and tried to break the slices off.

 

 

It took a lot of cuts and a lot of hammer and chisel work!

 

But eventually he got it flat enough that he thinks he'll be able to make it work.  Whew...that was a dusty, messy, back-breaking task!

 

It's always so good to clean up and come home and be able to relax at the apartment.  But the inside and outside temperatures are pretty much the same, so we are relying on fans.  No matter - it's good to be home!