2007_08_15 Septic field done- Electricity in- More decking

Alabama Power trucks came today and put in a transformer on our power pole and hooked up the power to a temporary pole beside it. It has electrical outlets on it that the construction crew can plug their saw, nail guns, etc into so they won't have to use the gas generators so much. They were happy today! It was a lot quieter after that.

Below you can see the transformer and the temporary pole at the bottom right corner of the photo.


Below is a view from the front again. You can see that they now have "doors" where some of the doors will go. The front door is in the middle. The one to the left is an entrance from the outside to the laundry/mud room/pantry combination that is just between the front porch and the kitchen. Further to the back right you can see where the French doors in the bedroom will open onto the screened room on the back. What you cannot see from here, but will later, is the door that will open from the side of the great room onto the screened room so that you can get to the screened room without having to go through the master bedroom.

The septic system was completed, inspected, and the dirt put back over it Monday after I left, so today (Wednesday) it was already done. The view below is from where the French doors in the great room will be down the hill where the septic system was installed. The deck will eventually go on here so you won't be able to see straight down to the ground. You'll be looking further out toward the cleared area.

Below I'm standing down the hill looking up toward the house. You can see that the septic guys finished their work and covered up the Infiltrator system and smoothed out the dirt that had been piled up on Monday.

They also continue to make progress on the decking. Since the septic guys had removed their heavy equipment they were able to put in the remaining concrete footers for the deck support posts in the rear of the house so that the rest of the deck should be clear sailing now. They may finish it as early as Friday afternoon at this rate if things go well.

The shot below is standing in the end of the great room looking west toward the screened room. Now you can see the door that will be there. Before someone asks, the angled boards are just braces to hold them in place for now.

Steve is getting the 2 x 10 deck floor joist aligned before nailing it with a nail gun. They are gradually getting closer to the back of the house. It's hard to see him, but Roberto is standing below Steve.

This little short log has the strips of rubbery material on the bottom log to help provide a better seal and insulation between it and the log that will fit onto it. One of the 6' French doors will go to the right of this log.

Can you see the green marks in the picture below? No? Make an appointment to get your eyes checked. Oh, you can? OK. Stay with me now because this is explained after the picture below.

The bottom logs have (underneath them) a threaded metal baseplate that is fastened into their bottom surface. and go up slightly in a hole. These holes go through all the logs all the way from the bottom of the wall to the top.

Once the wall of logs is complete, a very large threaded metal rod is placed through the log wall through those holes and it screws into the baseplate that is on the bottom logs. Then a large spring is put over the rod and a flat 2 x 4 is put on top of the top log with big washers and a nut that screws down onto the threaded metal rod. It is tightened until there is no space left between any of the coils of the spring. It is fastened in that tightened condition. Since all wood shrinks as it dries out over the years (and logs are ... well ... wood and lots of it) they will shrink some as time goes by. As they shrink and settle as a result, the giant springs keep enough downward pressure on the log wall to keep all the log joints held tightly together without having to require any attention from the owner or builder.

Now, remember the green lines? No? OK, either remind me to give less detail or make an appointment to get your memory checked. If yes, then you've been waiting for this:

The green lines mark where the metal baseplates are located. There are some other holes too, but the green ones are where the metal rods will end up going.

Below Brandon is in a prone position so he can put pressure on the deck board with his feet while Randy nails it down with the nail gun. They make sure that they are all tight together. Again, as they shrink there will be some small gap between them so I guess they want to start out with them being tight.

It was only 105 degrees today. Not as bad as the 108 yesterday according to the guys. Whenever a small cloud would give a few moments of shade it was a reason for celebration.

They hope to finish the decking by the time they get through on Friday, but that is just a guess at this point.

Kathy and I have plans tomorrow so I probably won't go back till Friday.