June 29, 2010 - Tuesday - Since we passed our "sewer to main connection"
inspection this past Friday, we can now backfill our sewer hole and get on to
something else! The soil on this property is probably the most rocky I
have ever seen. We don't want large rocks in our backfill material since
during the backfill (and over time) they could damage our sewer pipe. To
that end we are screening the dirt before using it to fill the hole.
Screening the dirt is simply the process of putting the dirt and rocks through a
screen which has holes no bigger than the rocks you want included in your
backfill. A great deal of the rocks in our "dirt" are bigger than we want
to include in our backfill. This means we generate a large amount of rocks
that we don't want! This picture shows the pick-up filled half way with
rock to get rid of. We give these rocks to David Sand and Gravel
(360-683-5680) and then Dana Davis crushes them and sells them back to us
when we need gravel. Smart guy that Dana.
June 30, 2010 - Wednesday - We usually do all our own excavation work, but this
time we decided to hire excavator operator extraordinaire Rick Vinnetti of
Vinnetti's Custom Rockeries (360-808-1108) to do the excavation for our
footings. He is reasonably priced, very skilled, and fast! Yesterday
we did basic layout meaning we spray painted on the grass the outside dimensions
of our footing trenches. This picture shows the first step in the footing
excavation and that is scrapping off the sod along the layout lines, leaving a "sodless"
area where the home will be built. Once this is done we start digging the
trenches for the footings.
June 30, 2010 - Wednesday - Typically the bottom of the footing must be below
the "frost line" (the depth at which the ground freezes in any given area).
This is why we don't place footings directly on grade (on the ground), but
instead dig trenches for them. In our area the frost line is acknowledged
to be 12 inches. Not too deep. Because our frost line isn't
that deep, our footing trenches don't need to be very deep either. But
even though our lot looks flat it isn't. We definitely want our
footings to be as perfectly level as we can get. With our lot not being
flat, you can imagine then that some areas of our footing trench will be deeper
than others. The height of our footings in relation to grade will
determine how our new home sits on the lot. In the case of this new home
we want the back patio at such a level so a person's head will not be above the
back fence when sitting on a chair on this back patio. We don't want to be
"on display" to the street when sitting on the back patio. This is the
type of consideration we make so the home will be nice to live in over time.
This decision however has to be made knowing how it will affect the other
elevations of the home. For example if the back patio is at the required
level, is the grade (this time meaning slope) of the driveway and front walkway
acceptable (i.e. not too steep)? Does the "man door" on the East side of
the garage come out close to existing grade (grade here meaning native ground
level...confusing sorry)? We eventually determine that our footings can be
nearly on grade at the back (north east) corner so we set our laser level for
this spot and start digging! This picture shows Rick coming up the east
property line from our starting point.
June 30, 2010 - Wednesday - This shot shows Rick crossing the footing trench
which will support the wall between the home and the garage. Good thing
his tracks our wider than our trenches! In the foreground you can see our
plans, stakes, and spray paint. Good things to have on hand during this
process!
June 30, 2010 - Wednesday - Here Rick has the excavator sitting where the new
garage will be while he digs the trench for the footing where the front door
will go. Look at that beautiful Sequim sky!
June 30, 2010 - Wednesday - In the Northwest, most homes are built with a crawl
space under the home. This is done because its easy and fast, and frankly
because its the way most builders here learned to build homes. "Slab on
grade" means there is no crawl space, and the floor of the home is made by
pouring a slab of concrete directly on the ground. In our opinion a slab
on grade home is much better for a number of reasons. You easily
understand the first reason if you've ever been in the crawl space of a
home! You can understand the second reason if any animals have got
into the crawl space! Other reasons will be mentioned as building
continues! With a typical crawl space home, Rick would simply come in and
dig out a big flat area in the shape of the home. Footings and stems walls
would then be poured around the exterior, and the home would be built on top of
these...leaving the crawl space under the floor of the home (i.e. behind the
stem wall). With our homes we typically want some of our concrete wall
below doorways which means some of the wall is typically below grade
(underground). This makes the home's structure MUCH stronger than a
conventional home. Because the bottom of the footing will be below the
"finished floor" (as dictated by the bottom of a doorway) we do not dig
out the interior of the home as the crawl space folks would. Instead we
determine the height of the finished floor, and then dig out the interior of the
home only enough to make room for putting the under slab insulation and concrete
slab on top! Make sense?!? What you should see then we are
done digging footing trenches are trenches of varying depths (due to the slope
of our lot) and a nice flat area in the middle where our slab will go that we
have graded to an exact height with the assistance of the laser level. It
also bears mentioning here that we also want our footings level so we have used
the laser lever to make them as close as possible to the same depth at all
points. This picture is taken from inside the garage looking North (out
the garage door) and is great because it illustrates the points above quite
well. The garage floor area (in the foreground) is at the height we want
to place our slab on...while the footing trench just behind it can be seen to be
much deeper.
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