Weekend Work 5.19.13

Couple of random updates ...

Have been trying to finalize a dirt guy and the best one around is Dean but his price is higher than I had allocated.  The foundation guy, Mark, highly recommends him and said he trucks him to job sites a couple hours away instead of using local because he is that good.

Well, John (our neighbor building behind us) has a friend (Craig) that does clearing for commercial sites and he said he would do it for about $1200 cheaper.  I was debating and finally decided to have him meet the foundation guy at the site before making decision.  After about 20min we were done and then John, Mark, and I headed over to John's property to take a look.  Mark expressed concerns about Craig's ability to 'convert thinking' from commercial to residential.  I decided to hire Dean ... will see if that is the right decision.

Can't recall if I have talked about the septic system but all the lots were originally approved for pressure systems .  Most people have been converting to gravity as it much cheaper to install and pretty much no maintenance (I just spent $1000 to replace a new pump and refurbish the whitewater pump in my current pressure system so).  Well, the soils out there are absolutely amazing and drain so fast which is also a problem for the drain fields.  So far all my neighbors have successfully converted to and received approval from the health dept for gravity .... not me or John though.  The new guy there said our soils are border line and could go either way [Note - this is all subjective when looking at the soil, nothing scientific or objective about it] so he decided against.  I went to visit him at the office and he said I could keep digging different perc holes until I found less rocky holes or I was stuck with pressure.  Great, another $3k

Since I'm waiting on house permit (workshop permit approved), I have been just working on cleaning up various areas toward the front of the property.  On the east side, there used to be an old fire road so we wanted to landscape it so it doesn't look like we have a side road leading into the property.  I planted six trees and will worry about cleaning the area up later.  I fell two more trees that looking pretty rough and then planted two more Leyland Cypress in place - still have four more to put in.

First Fire

Through the clearing process, we have piles of burn debris that will probably provide enough fire material for years.  I had a couple small piles left over from the chipping a couple weeks ago that was really dry.

Dug a hole about 8' x 10' x 3', piled up some starter material, and then added a little bit gasoline :-)

C brought out smores and we hung out for about 1.5 hours for our first fire.  The kids had a blast but we had to do their marshmallows because the fire was so hot when it was cranking.  No closer than about 4' and you started sweating :-)

Temporary Power

The house is going to be located 250' away from the transformer so I either have to have some very long heavy duty extension cords or I need to install temporary power closer to the build.

After talking with the electrical company, doing a field visit with them, and filling out all the paperwork, they approved a remote temporary power pole up to 275' away ... so I'm just under which ultimately means I don't have to pay thousands extra.

Beside the transformer, you can only hand dig and the pit has to be 4' x 4' x 3'.

Marked out the area for the pit

 It took me about two hours to dig because it was so rocky and having to be careful until I found wires or conduit.  Luckily there was only one wire that was in a conduit in the dig area but unfortunately it was the neighbors phone cable.  I have no idea why anyone would run their phone cable right beside an electrical transformer but my electrical feed will be just 6" away from it.  The electrical company said it would be fine but I always keep a minimum of 12" whenever I can.

Next I used the mini-ex to start trenching.  Switched to the 2' bucket and went to town digging a 2' x 3' deep trench about 235' to the temp power pole location.

After I got the trench dug, spent a couple hours cleaning it manually and laying in the conduit for phone and electrical.  The phone company dropped off a roll of cable so I threaded that through as I laid the pipe but the power company will pull the electrical wire when they tie into the transformer.  I had to supply 240' of 3" Schedule 40 rigid conduit and a 3/8" rope for them to pull.

There is about 18"+ separation between the two conduits in the trench so I want have any problems with interference.

3" conduit exposed, 3/4" conduit already covered

 

The temp power pole also has specific requirements for installation as you would expect.  

- pit is same as front pit

- pole has to be a 10' 4" x 4" (min)

- meter has to be ~ 5' from ground level

- at least two braces

- I supply 10'-15' of 2 AWG

- ground rod (pounding it 5' down was hard as heck)

The black cable on the left is about 50' of phone cable that will be dug back up and extended to house when  connecting to final power.

fish and CHIPS

In an earlier post, Weekend Work 3.9, I talked about how B and I worked on chipping up about 1/3+ of the brush pile that resulted in about 15-20 yards of mulch.  Well, that pile hasn't moved and I needed to get it  completed because that area would need to be clear when I start the build.  The weather has been so awesome with lots of dry days so I talked John & Bef to come up and help us ... Sasquatch (aka S) also surprised us by coming out which turned out to be so beneficial.  

With all of us working, we accomplished more in three hours than B and I did in eight hours.  Two people were always feeding the beast and all the others were pulling branches and piling right beside the chipper.

Always has to have the camera on her, Bef

The place I rented the chipper from last time wasn't available so I had to get it from Home Depot.  Not only does it chip, or rather shred into larger pieces, they wouldn't match coupons or discounts.  I ended up paying about $50 more and the quality of the chips are much worse.

We'll end up using this pile more on the pathways and in the landscaped areas in the trees that isn't right beside the house.

The pictures don't do it justice.  The pile is over 6' tall and 30'+ wide with probably 40-50 yds of mulch.  Amazing this whole area in the picture surrounding the mulch pile was a massive pile of branches and is now gone.

Want to Spall

You probably remember seeing those 4"-8" angular rock on driveway entrances to new construction.  Those are required as a means to knocking off dirt/debris from vehicles before they leave the property.  These rocks are called quarry spalls (crushed basalt)

 My site plan calls for having an entrance a minimum of 15' wide, 20' long, and 12" deep of quarry spalls (4"-6").  I think I brought in at least 20 yards to cover the area and ended up going a little longer on the drive anyway.

 I used the excavator with the 3' bucket to scrap down about 12" and then used the blade to level everything out.

I tried using the mini-ex to grab the spalls and spread out but it made it tough to grab without pushing the bottom layer into the ground.  So I ended up using the dingo to scoop up buckets and then I could control the dumping as well.  After I was done, jumped on the mini-ex and rolled back and forth until pretty flat and level.

Construction driveway entrance completed

The Appraisal Arrives

Sorry it's been awhile since I've posted but have very busy with work and working all the details on the house build.   I will start posting updates tonight but will start with the appraisal.

I told the bank to just give me a phrase "the eagle has landed" if it is good news when they hear.  Well, they sent an email with the appraisal and it said "you better sit down for this one" .... so you can guess where this is headed.  I was already sitting so I opened the email and the appraisal was like 30 pages long so I scanned quickly toward the bottom (thinking the value would be listed there) and couldn't find it.  Went back to the top and started reading - the value was $3,000 over what we wanted and everyone including the bank truly expected it to come in $30-$50k undervalue.

All I could say was Thank you Lord.  I was trembling inside because it was a miracle it came in so high.  God is great!!

Evidently the bank has internal appraisers that also review it to make sure it is legit and can stand up to any scrutiny by upper management - they said the guy did a professional job and the lengthy report was because he had some much supporting evidence.

Now that hurdle is behind us and the bank wants updated financials of everything to finalize the construction loan.  I also tweaked the numbers as I had to put the provide the last budget to the bank.  For each line item (there are about 50), I had to state the total amount, the amount I am paying in cash, the amount the bank is funding, the amount the bank isn't funding.

For example, under the landscaping line item:

$30,000 budget
$5,000 I'm paying out of pocket (counts toward my overall down payment at the end)
$15,000 Bank is funding
$10,000 Not being funded (sweat equity I am doing)

I think putting the budget together (my detail one has over 400 lines) and the detail list of materials probably took me at least 40 hours to put together.  So glad it is done and hopefully all my work will keep us on track.  I've already found about $20k that I will be able to save by negotiating and bundling.