Project evolution: before, during, and after

Saturday, Sept 4, 2010
Thursday, June 23, 2010Thursday, June 2, 2010
Wednesday, March 17, 2010Wednesday, March 3, 2010Friday, January 22, 2010
Erected frame: Dec. 18, 2009Insulated foundation: Nov. 10, 2009
Foundation done before backfill: Oct. 25, 2009 We're on the rock. About 1-2 ft of soil, clay, and sand was removed. Seems the site is a little flatter than anticipated.

During excavation: Oct. 1, 2009Before excavation: Sept. 10, 2009

Fun with sewage

Yeah! Septic systems. Everyone's favorite subject. The town sure thinks so. You need three permits out here to build your house: one for your house, one for your well, and one for your septic system and tile bed. The town inspector needs to make a special trip just to check the tilebed before it is buried. I guess they don't want your toilet water ending up in the neighbors well.

The first thing done on the house was to do a percolation test where an engineer digs a hole, fills it with water, and calculates how quickly the water disappears. It should disappear quickly, because you don't want liquid manure pooling and stinking up your yard. That gets you your permit.

Image 1 shows the first layer of coarse sand layed after the bulldozer removes the soil and tree roots. After that, add a layer of clear 3/4'' gravel (Image 2). Then, lay down the weeping tile (Image 3). Then, wait for the inspector to check the work, and bury with one layer of crushed stone, more sand, and cover with soil.

The weeping tile is actually the perforated plastic pipes shown here. The liquid fecal matter overflows in the septic tank, flows downhill, and is spread evenly over the bed shown here. The sand and gravel filter out all the crap (literally).

Mmmm. Lunch anyone?

Some landscaping

I managed to get this blade onto the back of the tractor to even out the sand infront to the porch back on May 24, 2010. I looked so happy that Lisa grabbed the camera and snapped this picture as I returned from the job.

Filling in the foundation

This is Eric with the big loader filling in the foundation, covering the drainage pipes with 1/2'' clear stone. Fortunately, Normand is working a larger project very nearby and these machines just have to rumble over for these little jobs as they come up.

I was careful to remove the wooden supports gingerly and shovel the crushed stone around the drains manually so that they stayed at the level that the plumber installed. The ones seen here are actually the drains for the kichen and the adjacent walk-in pantry.

Foundation insulation continues

Lisa points with pride to the fine job she's done insulating the foundation (not to the post anchor). In this photo, the outside is finished and the inside is in progress. She has since finished the inside.

Today, she insulates the pilasters and I line the inside with aluminum foil vapor barrier. Aluminum foil vapour barrier reflects the heat radiation emitted by the crushed stone into the space between the crushed stone.

Did I mention that she's very handy with a knife?

Electric line and septic tank

Another busy, grey day on he house site. I got up early to cut down a few trees that were in the way of the power line.

Today, we installed the electrical line. This runs from a private poll installed by Normand (the excavator) and Camille the electrician. Bell contractors came along to install the public pole (in Frelighsburg, it's Bell and not Hydro that installs the poll). The private poll holds the meter and is where the line runs into the ground. It then goes across the driveway and up the hill along with the phone line and the line between the septic tank and tile bed.

Normand also trucked in generous amounts of sand to bury the septic tank, to make a bed for the French drains, bury the power line (need 2 feet of sand around power line), and just clean up the site. It covers up a lot of the mud.

The electrician also set up a temporary electric panel for the builders. Hopefully, it will be switched on by Hydro by the end of the month. I had orignally wanted the power cable to enter through the foundation, but the electrician figured it would be better to go through the wall above ground. A vistit from Alex the builder/carpenter changed that. He preferred the foundation option. I'm now considering renting a drill to bore through the foundation.

Fixing the driveway

We needed to scrape the grass and add some crushed stone to shore up the driveway up the hill.

We added some extra stone to even out the grade up the steepest part of the hill. The bed of the old gravel road had been slightly washed out in this area. With this bed of crushed stone, we're all set to have any heavy machinery come up to the house site, and less likely to get stuck coming up the hill. Here Normand the excavator spreads out the first load of crushed rock. Lisa peeks above the shovel.

Subsequent photos show the second load arriving and the finished job.