After the little escapade with the loader last week things were looking up on Friday. We were able to clear the dirt out of the foundation area we had piled up and re-graded the floor into a semblance of level. My brother came by after work to see what he could do to help and as I was showing and telling him about the track from Thursday he noticed a leak on the loader. No big deal I thought, it always leaks. Then he pointed to the puddle and this time it was REALLY leaking! After a bit of investigation it looks like the front motor mount backed out causing the motor to really vibrate the main hydraulic pump on the front causing the main bearing seal to start to fail. Only way to fix it looks like pulling the front of the loader off. Ugh. I think I can get by with pouring more hydraulic fluid in every day for awhile and hope for some downtime to fix it later. I’ll cross my fingers.

Saturday I took the day off from the house to work on finishing up a handicap access ramp at church and then went shopping in the evening with Sally to get items for the house construction, upcoming birthdays, etc. and Sunday afternoon I got a brief nap before company came for our weekly small group from church.

Monday started off slow with a bit of a timeout to adjust my CAD plan to show dimensions off of my baselines to make laying out the footings easier. Once that was done, I picked up Aric and we went down to the farm and put together a couple of trailers for work around the farm. That took us to noon, so I was starting to feel like my day was shot. Once we got to the site we spent the afternoon setting up a good set of reference lines across the site and marking all of the remaining footing lines.

Meanwhile, Aric was busy cleaning up the edges of the hole with the excavator and was blindly burying the dump truck and backhoe.

Tomorrow we should finish digging the footings. If Aric is running the excavator, watch out for your toys! J

Well the inevitable happened today and things did not go according to plan. Originally I had planned to finish digging the footings today and begin setting up forms on Friday. After a good start of finishing the North, East and West footings, I decided to switch over to the loader to move the pile of dirt out of the middle so I could lay out the interior footings and dig them next.

Well I had been delaying using the loader until David came over to help figure out how to adjust the tracks because they were a “little” loose but I decided to just take it easy and turn slow. I guess habits are hard to break because on the second load I turned hard and slipped the track right off! Argh! Well I tried a few things to try to force it back on but was pushing it farther off instead. Needing more help I called Jeremy to come give me a hand.

After trying various options like using the excavator to try to help push it back on while slowly turning it we finally decided to take the plunge and separate the track. Someone had helpfully welded the king pin in so I had to grind that off before we could push it out. We tried beating it out with a sledge hammer but weren’t making any progress so we made a few calls to see if we could get a press and were told that those pins were put in using a 100 Ton press! Not to be deterred, we got our own 100 Ton press and managed to get it out!

We finally got it all put back on and tightened up around 6:30 and called it a day. Maybe tomorrow we can finish digging the footings.

On a brighter note, the first load of steel is coming tomorrow. Sounds painful.

Let me begin by apologizing to those of you who faithfully re-read the post below! L Your perseverance has finally paid off and you will no longer be suffering from déjà-vu all over again.

First, a brief update on the house. Dig, dig, dig. Wash, rinse, repeat.

Second, a slightly longer update on the house. Since the last update we have been slowly cutting the hill down to size in order to fit the circular driveway in front of the house on the same level. Once that cut was complete, we began excavating for the walk out basement. After literally months, we are finally at finish grade for the basement and began excavating the footings today. Here is a brief timeline showing progress:

April 19, 2008: Here’s the original hill looking toward the North (this will be the walk out basement side).

Here’s a view of where the driveway will go:

July 1, 2008: We finished cutting the top of the hill and began the first stepped cut for the basement. Most of the dirt from the first cut will be piled on top to be used as backfill once the basement walls are completed.

July 15, 2008: First basement cut is complete and second has begun (each step is ~4’ wide by 4’ deep to prevent cave in).

August 4, 2008: We’ve had lots of help. Here’s Chris digging the final step down for the basement (he sure looks like your typical piano teacher!).

August 5, 2008: We’ve finally finished cutting the basement and getting ready to cut the footings.

One item I don’t have any pictures of is all of the equipment breakdowns. L I think Sally is on a first name basis with the guys at Williams Oil in Tacoma as she gets hydraulic lines rebuilt for both the dozer and the excavator. One of the really dusty days a couple of weeks ago saw me covered in hydraulic fluid due to a fitting on the excavator splitting and spraying me from head to toe and then a small fracture in one of the main hydraulic cylinders on the dozer sent a fine mist over me for 20 minutes until I could pinpoint the problem. Naturally, the dirt clung to me really good and Sally thought I looked like Pig Pen all grown up. :O

Here’s a sure sign of progress…I have my tool belt on!

Since we are getting close to building up instead of digging down, we’ve started to get materials delivered. Last Thursday the footing form/drains arrived. We’re using 8” Certainteed Form-a-Drain for all the footings which function as both the footing form and the permanent foundation drain. For the deeper footings, we are scabbing on 2x4s that we will reuse for the window and door bucks when forming the ICF walls. Monday saw the delivery of the basement wall forms from Polysteel. We are using the 8” PS3000 for the basement and the 6” PS3000 for the main floor. Basically these will be assembled like Legos with rebar and then concrete poured into them to create a high efficiency, dense, strong and quiet wall for the entire house. Everybody chipped in to help unload the 53’ truck that was completely packed with forms.

I had to take a few hours last week to make a construction entrance that would allow full size semis to make the turn into the driveway. Even so, there was just enough room.

Judah and Liesl move bundles to the rear of the truck.

Sally and Michael help unload and stack.

Here’s the best pic I could find of Aric and Jon unloading. :$

Well we should be seeing progress of a different sort soon, so I will endeavor to update more frequently.

Today we technically “broke ground”! While I wouldn’t call this our “official” ground breaking, we couldn’t resist testing out the “new” excavator. :)

Of course, Michael isn’t the only one wanting to take it for a spin. Sally takes a turn to show how it is done!

Well after nearly 4 years, we are finally moving on our building permit! We successfully submitted our permit on Wednesday, January 9th!!!! We are making steady progress and checking the status online almost everyday. So far we have either passed or been determined not to need review for the stickiest areas of drainage and impervious surfaces! Good news indeed!

As of today we are at week 1 of an estimated 5-8 week review process and 6 of the 13 steps for the permit are completed! Wahoo!