2007_08_08 Sub-floor - Deck support footers and Ready for drain field

The sub floor is done I think and now they are pouring the footers for the deck supports along the front and side opposite the garage side. Below is the view from the front of the house. You can see the sub-floor is finished. The square "hole" is where the elevator will be. The rectangular one toward the middle is where the stairs will go down (from right to left) from the 1st floor to the basement.


The picture below was taken when I was standing in the area where the dining room french doors will be.



The next one is from the great room french doors. Not much different, but here it is anyway! Note the back hoe and the bulldozer down there. I had 2 more from the master bedroom, but you've suffered enough for now. More later though I'm sure!

Basement from front of house to back. We'll probably wall off the area directly in the back and use it for storage. All these temporary supports come out later when the permanent support posts go in.

Shadows and light. Barbara ought to love this one since she's into shadows and light!

There was no work today on the septic system since Jerry's wife broke her hand and had to have surgery today to put a pin in it. He'll finish up either on Thursday or Friday. Here is one picture of the area where the drain field will go down the hill from the back of the house. Jerry (Bailey) is supposed to finish up the septic system either Thursday or Friday for sure.

There is a guy coming to do some inspections for the lender in the next couple of days. He called tonight to get directions.

Once the deck support footers (see below) are done they will start putting on the deck that surrounds the entire house. Right now there are 14 holes that have had concrete poured in them. The ones on the garage side and behind the house are not yet done. The ones behind the house would get in the way of the back hoe, etc getting out and the truck that delivers the septic tank itself so those will be done later.

I won't get up there tomorrow since I'm going to take the Jeep to B'ham to get it detailed. It is really in need of some cleaning and shining. Rose and Merrill have a "guy" who does a good job so we're taking it to him.

2007_08_07 Subfloor-deck materials delivered-pipes connected to water meter

There was more progress on the subfloor today, but they got only about a third of the way through. It should be finished in the next few days.

The next big thing will be putting on the deck. The deck materials were delivered today and moved down to the site so they'll be ready as soon as Steve's crew finishes the subfloor.

The wood for the deck is pressure treated pine by YellaWood manufactured by Great Southern Wood Preserving in Abbeville, AL.

If you live in the South you probably have seen the millions of TV ads for YellaWood. Jimmy Rane is the man behind the company who makes/made Osmose treated wood. Their yellow tags resulted in the TV ads having Mr. Rane in yellow shirts using yellow (or yella) for everything from yellow walls to yellow telephones and him answering the phone became "Yello" etc. He has made untold millions with the growth of his company. He is an Auburn grad who has gone on to get advanced degrees from Harvard, etc so although he portrays just a good ole Southern boy in his TV commercials he is a marketing genius. (He's also now a member of the Board of Directors for Auburn University.) I took the picture of the YellaWood sign because it's so well known around the South due to his TV ads with virtually every head football at every major university in the South.

Scott connected the water pipes to the water meter himself. At first he didn't know why there was almost no water pressure down the hill even though gravity alone should have created pressure even if it had not been connected to the water meter at all! After checking several things he discovered that a valve or something that had just been installed was inexplicably filled with some Styrofoam-like material. Once that was removed water flowed just fine. Whew!

The septic system guy (Jerry) did some grading etc today, but is not finished yet. He will not be available tomorrow (Wednesday) so it'll be Thursday before he's back to work. He may finish then or it may take till Friday. It was over 100 degrees here today. They said that the heat index was supposed to be around 110. Brutal!

2007_08_06 More sub floor preparation and clearing area for septic system

Today the septic tank man, Jerry Bailey, backfilled the dirt that was piled up in front back around the basement walls and Scott's crew (headed up by his brother, Steve) continued working toward trying to get ready to put the sub flooring in for the 1st floor, and Jerry (the septic guy) began clearing the small trees in the back where the septic tank has to go and also down the hill and to the right where the drain field (they're using the Infiltrator system) has to go.

Below is the view from the place where the driveway will branch off from Scenic Peak Road toward the house. The gravel pile to the left is left over from when the basement gravel was put in before the concrete was poured. It'll be moved somewhere until Scott can decide where he wants to use it.

There was a small-diameter pine tree (about 60 feet tall) that I had him remove and also an oak about 15 inches in diameter that wasn't healthy since more than half of its trunk was missing (hollowed out) so I had him remove both of them since I don't want pines and I didn't want the oak falling on the deck someday. You can see the oak below and the pine at the far left in the picture. They're both gone now.

Below they are putting in a 2 x 10 board. Then the 2 x 10s going crosswise can be put in.

You can see below that three of the 2 x 10 inch boards are "laminated" together and they run from front to the back of the house.

He cleared out a fairly large area (maybe 100 to 120 feet or so) down the hill and then perhaps 60 to 75 feet toward the right.

He removed mostly trees and brush that were 6 inches or so or smaller, but I had him get rid of a 8 inch pine tree and an oak that was about 15 inches or so but it was not healthy and perhaps 60 percent of its trunk was missing and it was going to fall soon and I'd just as soon not have it fall back toward the deck. Below he's digging up the roots of the pine.

Jerry pushed all the brush and trees far to the right and down into a small ravine so it doesn't show at all.

Tomorrow he will dig the hole for the septic tank vault and also for the drain field. To get the truck down to where the septic tank goes he'll have to sort of rearrange the dirt at the back of the house to level it off then after he gets the truck back out he'll push the dirt back where it was.

From above the house you can see where the elevator and inside staircase will go. The square in the foreground is where the elevator will go and the inside stairswill from the basement to the first floor will be back in the middle going left to right.

Also, the last picture is how the view toward the back looks after he removed all the trees. Not much different from up high.

2007_08_04 and 08_05 Preparations for subfloor and Clay's visit on 8/05

On Thursday and Friday they started working toward putting in the subfloor for the 1st floor. There are temporary supports holding things up for now.
On Saturday 8/04/07 Kathy got to go "into" her new "house" for the first time so the first time she was in the new house was on our 34th wedding anniversary!

She's back again on Sunday (08/05) for another visit!

Clay drove for 3 hours to get over here on 08/05/07 at just after 8:00 this morning so he could see the construction, eat breakfast, and drive back home to Georgia. This will be his last chance for a while since their 2nd baby is due 8/24 and he'll need to be around home for a while after this.

We've left a message with the builder to see what is going to be going on tomorrow (Monday 8/06), but we haven't had a reply yet so we don't know if we're going back over there in the morning or not yet.

Clay got to meet Ruby and Tuesday (the 2 neighborhood dogs that Kathy has dubbed Ruby and Tuesday) today. He also helped me cover up some of the logs again since a stack or two had been uncovered (again!).

Someone (the workers I assume) had taken one of the "tarps" off the logs and used it along with a sheet of fiberboard or something that they folded the tarp around on the ends to make sort of a tent that I guess they were using for shelter either from the sun or perhaps from rain, but they never put it back on the bundle of logs!

The things that are most upsetting to me so far, however, have been:

1. The amount of trash (bottles, fast food trash, etc) that they just throw into the edge of the woods even though I have started putting trash bags up there AND

2. Every time any concrete job is done they continue to dump leftover concrete and perhaps whatever they have washed off of their equipment wherever they feel like it whether it's in the driveway or where landscaping may some day be. It is now about 12 to 14 inches deep in the middle of the driveway at one spot as well as several inches thick in lots of different spots all around the house.

If it was just in the driveway it wouldn't be so bad, but unless it gets dug up with a backhoe or something from all the other places it's going to leave a huge mess under whatever dirt or landscaping is eventually there. The place in the driveway juts up so abruptly in one particular spot that I can't pull the Jeep over it for fear that it rips out the gas tank or something.

Scott said that he'd make sure that the driveway stuff gets removed, but he'll need to get rid of all of it somehow though. I think that Scott said that he is planning to somehow break up the huge pile of it in the driveway with some heavy equipment, but it's about 5 times as bad now as it was when he last saw it last week!

Oh, well, he'll take care of it somehow between now and later so maybe I shouldn't worry about it, but it's beginning to make driving over it dangerous for anything other than with a work truck that has plenty of ground clearance and it's hard to walk on safely due to its extreme irregularity so I expect someone to trip and get hurt! I can't believe I haven't taken a picture of it! I've taken a picture of everything else!