Excavation Mods and Electrical Inspection

After Mark was setting up the footings forms, there were two areas that needed additional excavation so I was able to take care of it and now can say that excavation was one of the many trades that I ended up doing :-)

Here's the view looking down to one of the marked out areas that I need excavate.

Even though I had a long arm on the mini, I couldn't quite get too close to the edge as it would exert too much pressure on the walls and possibly cave in.  Thus, I had a lot of manual digging.  I pulled out as much as I could with the mini and then shoveled the rest into the bucket and then climbed back up to to dump it.  That was definitely a workout.

 The remote temp pole needs to be inspected by L&I before the electrical company will hook up temporary power.  The first time I failed because the meter box I'm using (provided by framer) is an above ground only and I fed the service lines from the bottom.  The electrical connections were correct but the wires had to enter from the top even though the power is coming from below ground.

I had already purchased the wire (3) 2 AWG and didn't have alot of excess so I had to try and route from top while still leaving the minimum required by electrical company (they wanted 5').  I used (2) LB connectors and some conduit to piece it together.  It wasn't pretty, actually really ugly and it truly bugs me because I'm kind of an neat and orderly person.  I call it frankstienish but the inspector said it just has to be functional.  So be it, I called again and this time it passed so I should have power within 5-10 days.

I also worked some more on the silt fence and have about 180' installed, staked, stapled, and backfilled.  I'm just waiting for the first deer or elk to rip it apart.

Foundation Footings

Well, we received the permit so we now can move ahead with the foundation!!  It took about 5 weeks to get it so that was pretty fast and there were only a couple issues to be addressed.  The engineer had to write a letter to justify the snow load calculation and the designer had to to add a CO detector and insulation under the stairs.

The foundation guy, Mark, is ready to go and setting up the boards for the footings.

The soils up here are amazing and even after raining for a week, there are no puddles except for one small area that is compacted from the trucks.  This means no run off or erosion but the county still wants to have a drainage plan that is engineered ($1000) and pay them a drainage fee ($1900).

I used the 12" bucket on the excavator to dig a shallow trench to install the silt fence to prevent erosion ... which I will bet I never get any dirt built up against the fence.

Even though the silt fence comes up stakes at 10' apart, the county requires wooden 2"x2" stakes every 3'.  I  purchased 8' fir boards, cut them in half, and then cut angles to drive them in the ground.

Big Big Hole

Well, they finished in two days and I was completely amazed at how big the hole was and how much material was piled around.  I knew it would be big but this was crazy big.

The area is now ready for footings and pier pads

View from rear of house looking toward front

Little Big Hole

The permit should be ready within a couple days but I went ahead with the excavation so we would be ready for foundation once I get it.  Dean and crew started about 8am and said they would be done by end of next day.  That is good news but they sure make bank ... to the tune of about $150/hr if they finish tomorrow.  Everyone says they are the best so that gives me assurance.

The day before, I marked out the house with the foundation guy but when Dean showed up, we had to remark as there was a mistake.

Cutting in for the basement

First cut completed

Close up of first cut completed

There was so much material moved that they moved about 100+ yds to fill in the driveway entrance.  This was awesome because the entrance and the house are same ground level but there is about a 2' dip in between.  Now it is a nice flat entrance all the way from the street to the house.

Spreading out material to raise driveway

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.