Wasting no time! Jeff, the excavator, created the trench for the foundation footings. For sure this was the first time he's ever dug in a circle!!
Next, Steve, the guy who's building the foundation and pouring the concrete got to work and began to lay out the batter boards. Yes, I'm learning a whole new vocabulary - cuz I needed a few more words in my repertoire! 😂
Given the layout of this foundation, for sure the team's brains hurt with all the calculating and measuring. I bow to Steve's expertise, it's dazzling to watch in action.
I don't know if I can adequately convey how exciting it was for me to see the first form boards go in...which represent each of the panels in the house. The first installed was the front door panel - it made it come to life even further.
From there it went pretty quickly as all 14 panels are like pie pieces...get the center line set, create a grid of snaplines to double, triple and relentlessly check measurements against the plans and you've got it!
It honestly hurt my brain to look at it at this stage...well, it still does but...this is level. My brain does not see level, yet it is. It reminds me of those old movies in school teaching you about perspective where a person is in a box, that looks like a normal room but when they walk they seem to shrink into a really small sized wall. Anyway, it's a trick of the eye where there is slope. Here is what this effort is aimed at creating given the high side of the slope is about 5 feet higher than the downside.
So there'll be a stem wall at the low end that's over 5' high and a shorter one on the high end.
That begins to explain these form boards.
Next they filled the trenches with rebar that is bent into long box shapes. They have some wicked tools that aid in all that...in the meantime I bought a generator to power all the tools cuz we don't yet have temporary power but I have two great account managers at PG&E hustling on my behalf to get both the temporary power going and the permanent in play - turns out the existing transformer on the property needs to be upgraded so we won't get perm power as quickly as we imagined but it's all good.
The electrical and plumbing subs came to the site yesterday and we worked out the plans for the conduit, chasers and plumbing for wastewater, greywater and water that will go under the slab and be stubbed up through it. First a waterproof membrane like landscape fabric will go down on the existing base, then the electric conduit will go on that and gravel and perhaps some sand will be used to fill in the circle whilst the pipes are laid into it and drilled out the future stem walls and footings. All that will be compacted before the slab is poured.
The current fantasy wish is that we will pour the slab in mid-late October so we can get the shell here in early November. I love mythical timing.
In other good news, the week ended with the septic plan having been reviewed without pushback and we should have that permit cleared within the week! There is a bit of a horse race on to get this work done before it begins to rain here. It's flowing though!
Awesome team, fortunate logistics, and favorable weather. Life is pretty damn generous.
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