Katie lends a hand

Martin Luther King day today was sunny and warm (57 degrees), and found us at the home site working.
Lest anyone think James is the only one working on the house, here are pictures of Katie and Becky patching divets in the foundation with Krikrete. Katie is shown below, doing the same patch work. We think she will be the youngest construction worker this project will see!

In this photo is James filling in geothermal trench #1 with
his Boy Toy (he says his resume can now include "heavy equipment operator"). Next on the list is digging geothermal trench #2, which will coincidentally lay 3 feet under the trench for bringing in power and cable (the geothermal lines lay 5 and 6 feet under, for the outgoing and incoming lines, and the power conduit only needs to be 3 feet down, given the mild winters and shallow frost line). Note the blue sky in the background, so rare in January around here.

While James filled in the trench, Becky and Katie used kwikrete to fill in divets in the foundation. (The cross braces that held the foundation forms in place had plastic cones at each end which get removed after the forms come down, leaving a ~1-2 inch cone-shaped indent in the foundation wall, which has to get patched to prevent leaks tracking along the metal brace left inside).

This last picture shows what we were patching, I took it in Nov while they were building the forms, showing the metal cross-pieces bridging the forms; the plastic cone that is eventually removed is the grey triangle on the right, and the 2" spoke of metal has a head that holds the brackets for the forms, and is removed when the wall is poured. You can also see the rebar inside the wall; the bars are 12" apart, which is closer than usual, because of the high wind we can expect on top of the mountain here. (As the foundation guy said, there is no way this house will blow off the mountain in a storm!)

We also added a layer of rock on a soft spot on our road this week; until it gets compacted down the only vehicles that can make it up are 4WD or AWD (thank goodness for the Jeeps and Subarus that we drive). We think there is a spring under the road where it goes past our downhill neighbor that is undermining the road at the same spot their septic line goes under the road. Also on the list this week is to redo the last few feet of the road: currently the last 30 feet are at a 16 degree incline, which has proved daunting (and impassable for delivery trucks).

Geothermal trenching, part 1

Here's a picture from last month of the inside of the basement after we poured the foundation (the wheelbarrow is there for scale). Those 12 foot high walls are daunting. It took until the very end of December to get all the forms taken down from pouring the foundation, what a huge project that was. After that we get to fill and patch the concrete where the various metal pieces went in, and waterproof parts of the foundation. Fortunately, since we are building on a hill, much of the water (rainfall etc) heads downhill and doesn't pose much of a flooding threat. Unfortunately, the flowing water itself can cause problems (keep reading....)

These photos are from yesterday: the trench is 6 feet deep, to carry the geothermal lines away from the house and back. (Part of the heating and cooling system for the house is a geothermal heat pump, which uses pipes set 6 feet underground to collect and distribute heat and cooling, at an even 50 degrees from the ground temperature, to help heat and cool the house). Since the lines need to be 6 feet deep, they needed to be laid under the electrical lines, which only need to be 4 feet deep, SO, we had to get this set in first. James dug a 150' trench, 6 feet deep, off the west side of the house. The blue tubing lays at the bottom of the trench, and the return tubing going back to the house has to lay a foot higher, pegged into position with metal stakes. James and I spent yesterday afternoon placing the stakes. The left photo is the trench running along side the house; the right photo is James down in the trench at the other end. We had a system of ropes and harnesses and ladders to keep him safe while he crawled through the trench to pound in the stakes. The pictures were taken before the rain started; shortly after that it got quite wet; by the end of the project, there were several inches of water running down the trench, with a few spots where the water was 2 feet high and over the top of his boots. (We have pictures of him emptying the water out of the boots). We were both spattered with mud by the end. Definitely one of those days when we have to keep the goal in mind; we are still trying to dry out clothing.