Now that the footers are completed, the next step is to pour the frost walls that run most of the way around the site. There are some parts of the foundation that use pilings to serve as a basis for a non-slab area that will consist of cedar decking. These areas are, specifically, the walkway between the garage and main house and the floor of the screened porch on the north side of the house.

The contractors spent the week putting up concrete forms and surveying to make sure everything was laid out to the right height and pin-perfect before they started pouring concrete. From the looks of it, these walls should get poured early in the week, then the forms will be stripped and they start work on the forms for the final concrete slab.

Some of the other critical work that will need to get done during this process is:

• run the water lines beneath the slab to their target locations in the kitchen and bathrooms
• run drain holes from the bathrooms into the slab that then route to the septic tie-ins
• run conduits for the electrical cables and internet cables

These all have to be run to tolerances that are very tight so the architect and the builder have been confirming all of the locations and dimensions of those critical spots this week.

We also met with the architect to go over window shop drawings, colors for door and window frames, window handles and other critical decisions. Windows currently have at least a twelve week lead time so if we want them done close to Thanksgiving, as we near the completion of the framing and sheathing process, we have to order them this week.

I had a quick conversation with the builder today and he mentioned that the septic system is in. They are pushing to pour and strip the frost walls this week and I assume the slab pour is following soon after. We are planning another trip up in a couple of weeks to take a look at progress.

We’re looking forward to going up in “peeper” season this year. We have only ever been to Vermont in “peeper” season once and it was gorgeous but completely crowded with peepers (if you don’t know, “peepers” is short for “leaf peepers” who are tourists to go to Vermont every fall to watch the leaves change from green to a crazy rainbow of colors). Seeing our property in full fall glory will be amazing. Also now that we have trimmed the trees back, we will be able to see how visible the mountain views are after the leaves drop.

We have gotten a few pictures from our builder indicating that the concrete footer layout has started. He continues to do the foam cutting and the concrete team is onsite. I can’t wait until the concrete slabs are poured. Once that gets done, we are going to have a great springboard to things like framing, understanding the height of the floor for things like drainage, views, etc.

I had a busy weekend with plenty of driving when I took the trip up to Burlington on Saturday. On Sunday, I drove down for a quick trip to Stowe and then back to PA. It was probably too much driving but ultimately something I need to get used to because, over the next 12 months, we are going to be making this trip a lot.

This week the excavation and concrete teams were working on digging frost walls, prepping foam foundation insulation and roughing out the rest of the concrete footings. Once this is complete we will get the slabs poured so this is actually a big time for the build because, once those slabs are poured, we move straight into framing.

Here are the frost walls from a distance. This view is mostly the garage section because we are going to have cedar plank decking for the walkway and screened porch sections so we need frost walls in that section.

Here is the massive chunk of ledge beneath the garage section that the excavators were worried about when we were at the site in July. They brought in a jackhammer excavator to break up this section and it resulted in some huge piles of rock. We need to figure out what the heck we are doing with those.

Here are the giant stacks of very heavy, thick foam insulation which is going to work as a shield for our shallow foundation areas.

Here is how deep these footings are being dug. If you look at the black line on that stake sticking up (zoom in!), you can see where the floor level is going to end up.

Another shot of the insulation next to the excavator.

Monday is a big day for the build because construction starts on the concrete foundation. It is about two months later than I would have liked but at least it is moving ahead. We also got a schedule for the entire project plan and, as expected given the timing of the foundation start, the finish date will be sometime next year in mid to late August. This is much later than we were hoping for since we wanted to be in Vermont during the summer getting things ready for the winter given that we’ve never lived day-to-day through a Vermont winter before. There was a lot of log splitting that was planned and that will all be somewhat rushed now or moved far ahead. I was starting to formulate plans on taking the chainsaw along with me during our trips up over the next year and chopping up as much of the wood that was set aside as possible to start the seasoning process. The neighbor has a tractor and log splitter which I might be able to borrow to move the bucks and piles around as well as use the tractor’s PTO to drive the log splitter.

In a week, I am taking my oldest kid up to college at Champlain in Burlington so I’ll be able to see the week’s progress on Saturday night or Sunday morning before driving the long march back to PA. I am hoping that we don’t have any major hitches over the next year because I’d love to start making up ground on this schedule in case we hit heavy snows or supply issues due to COVID-19 throughout the year. I don’t suspect the latter will happen because we are focusing so much on local resources. The supply lines for lumber in the midwest and western regions are stressed right now because our idiot president opened things up too early and now building materials are getting scarce and expensive in large parts of the country.

So the layout and slab work starts on Monday, the process will get rolling and the slab pours will happen around September 17th. Once those are all done – a process that will take about two weeks – we move on to framing. That phase will be very interesting and the house will start getting a real form and shape at that point. When Thanksgiving rolls around, we should have the house framed and roof framed and dried in, and the windows and doors installed. By the end of December, we should have much of the insulation done and readying for a preliminary blower test. January and February see the sheet rock and soundproofing take place and the plan rolls on from there.

So things are going to start happening and I am hoping we have a nice clean runway to completion with no surprises. After the nonsense 2020 had thrown at us so far, I think we’ve all earned it.

We got some photos from our builder of the site as it stands this morning. The driveway entrance has been graded out and cleaned up, widened at the corners and you can see a few trees left there which I like quite a bit.

Below you can see some rocks left there as well and we’re hoping to create some nice landscaping details once the house is completed. I am surprised at how much of the range you can see above the trees and, while I was never big on “views” as a thing I thought I needed, having this as the view from our office windows would be pretty great.

They left us with a collection of rocks that were pulled out during the excavation process. They range from a nice bluish, to purples and reds. We will find some good spots for them. You can see the neighbor’s driveway through the trees and a pond beyond that. The pond property is owned by the folks down the street.

During the early spring the ferns start blanketing that whole area and we are hoping that the changes to the tree line doesn’t curtail their growth next year too badly.

The next shot is our remaining piles of wood, ostensibly to be used for firewood. My plan is, over the next year, to chop those big pieces into smaller ones and have them start drying and seasoning so that they are ready for when we move in. I really wish they hadn’t left that massive tree there because I have no idea what we are supposed to do with it. I blame that problem on my wife who suggested they should leave it and the excavators jumped at the idea since they didn’t want to deal with it. Now we get to deal with it! Cool.

This last picture is the grading heading southeast. The mountain from picture one is behind those trees somewhere. Beyond the top soil piles are the wetlands beyond.

Non-pictorially, we signed the construction agreement last week. It was a slog to go through the legal stuff but it had to be done. I think, in the end, we ended up in a place we are happy with and it trigged a lot of activity on the side of the builder and project manager. Now we await the building schedule and see how we look as far as moving in and scheduling … well basically scheduling the next year of our life.

This week, we were tasked with finishing up and signing the construction contract. We met with the builder on Wednesday to discuss their finalized draft of the contract and the pricing for the fixed-cost build. Our project manager is breaking out some options for us to choose from but it looks like some of the hassle of that breakout might introduce some fatigue on the part of the subcontractors because they have to give us even more estimates but will almost certainly present us with more expensive options which we are unlikely to select. Because of that we have shut down the lines of inquiry surrounding these pricing options and are concentrating on getting the final document together.

I have the contract being reviewed by a lawyer and he should be back to me soon and hopefully we get this wrapped up early next week. The first deposit will be 10% of the proposed final cost which is a big amount but will go towards buying windows and starting all of the long-lead-time items so they are ready when the builders get to them. Getting it signed quickly will also make sure we get a slot in the subcontractor’s calendar so that we can get them started quickly and push this thing as fast as we can. Ideally we get the building framed out and roof-ready by the time the snow flies. The builder thinks we can do it if we keep the current pace.

This week the excavators dug out the septic area and leech field, worked on the driveway entrance and slopes to the south and east. We had to truck in almost $7000 of dirt to finish the pad area because there was so much ledge in the driveway they didn’t move as much fill dirt for those areas as they expected to. Hopefully the end of the week has the house foundation area ready, the septic field dug, the trenches for electrical and water lines run and all of the earth graded out. If that happens, we are ready to start concrete work which should take a few weeks.

We had to leave Vermont and the site work was still in full swing. We snapped a few shots of the moonscape and called it a day.

Today was a shortened day with no pictures because while we were there, the guy running the bulldozer and moving around the giant piles of dirt blew a hydraulic line when he hit a piece of lead (?!). We were talking to the neighbor, who had stopped by to say hello, and we heard this giant POOOOM and turned around to see stalled bulldozer with smoke and steam billowing out of it. The driver got out slowly and crankily and went off to radio his team to get a replacement. We had to leave before things got going again. Hopefully they did eventually get going again…

We also met with our builder at the site and he brought over a device that shows you the orientation of the sun at various times of the year based on your latitude and location. He mounted the device on a tripod and put it right abuot where the sliding glass doors to the porch will be and then inserted a paper insert for our area. On top of that, he placed a glass globe. If you look at the glass globe you can see a reflection of the trees in a 360’ view and, by following those reflections across times and seasons, you can see what trees might potentially occlude sunlight which is essential for generating the solar heat load needed for passive solar heat.

Using this device we figured about 6-7 more clumps of trees to the south need to go to make sure that we get ample solar gain in the dead of winter. We were glad he brought it because, even though the trees are maples and cherries, we would rather have all of these trees taken down now rather than worry about it later.

When we left today, the bulldozer operator was working on the bulldozer and there were tons and tons of earth left to move. We’ll be back tomorrow though and hopefully we have some good news.

Related to that, we should be getting a final contract Friday or Monday from the builder and his project manager. Once we sort that out, we will really be in full speed mode. They will need to order doors, cabinets, and especially windows as soon as possible and the clock is ticking.

Here is a photo comparison.

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