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 I'm loving these day-by-day photos. Keep 'em coming.  (EDIT: last page has a photo of the freshly-poured foundation)
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Nov 15, 2016 19:20
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Your driveway is looking good.
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Nov 15, 2016 23:45
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Crotch Fruit posted:Your driveway is looking good. I am very happy to say it's nowhere near that steep. About 1/4 of the driveway is now graded to close to it's final, and it's very manageable.
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Nov 16, 2016 13:49
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Did they find anything interesting while digging, like dead bodies or treasure or dinosaur bones?
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Nov 16, 2016 17:31
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kid sinister posted:Did they find anything interesting while digging, like dead bodies or treasure or dinosaur bones? A bunch of steel-reinforced concrete pieces that got dumped there (makes decent fill I guess). A couple hundred feet of some sort of plastic tubing. A bit of glass. But pretty boring overall.
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Nov 16, 2016 17:40
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Foundation.  The walls are gigantic.
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Nov 21, 2016 22:25
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Kawaii. I hope your basement is well sealed!
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Nov 22, 2016 03:27
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Did you happen to check into the difference between poured and post-insulated versus insulated form? I've always wondered how much more expensive it is here in Massachusetts; we've toyed with building and I was curious.
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Nov 22, 2016 17:39
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peanut posted:Kawaii. I hope your basement is well sealed! As I understand it (and with the disclaimer that I live in California, land of no basements because they'd collapse in an earthquake), sealing is the less-important factor; drainage is more important. Not that sealing isn't valuable, but water's gonna get in somehow anyway, and you need a way to deal with it.
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Nov 22, 2016 17:56
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Tim Thomas posted:Did you happen to check into the difference between poured and post-insulated versus insulated form? I've always wondered how much more expensive it is here in Massachusetts; we've toyed with building and I was curious. We didn't. With some of the price-increases we've had, we're trying to keep other pieces on-budget, so we didn't consider it. We've been giving a lot of thought to the amount of space 3 people will have in this house, and there's a decent chance we'll never finish the basement. We'll have a french drain around the perimeter and a foundation drain that both drain to daylight. (amusing fact... it drains towards the rude neighbor that showed up at the planning meetings) We had a good rain storm over the weekend. Even with water being channeled to the hole from every direction, there wasn't any puddles. I'm hoping that's a good sign that the ground naturally drains well.
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Nov 22, 2016 18:29
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Gounads posted:We didn't. With some of the price-increases we've had, we're trying to keep other pieces on-budget, so we didn't consider it. We've been giving a lot of thought to the amount of space 3 people will have in this house, and there's a decent chance we'll never finish the basement. Are you having a sump pump installed as well just in case? Friends of ours have a nice home with french drains all around and when we had our severe rain that flooded our basement (no french drain that I can think of), they got 4" of water in their basement, it was all ground water and came up through the drains since it was raining so hard (6" of rain in 4 hours). Might be a bit of an edge case, and I guess if you plan for not finishing your basement it might not be that big of a deal, but could be some peace of mind to have. Not sure how "standard" sump pump installs are on new construction these days. Come to think of it, having the foundation excavated out is almost the best possible scenario because there is no soil against your foundation. So I wouldn't let this be too much of an example of how things may go in the future.
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Nov 23, 2016 17:31
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I don't know if a sump would add much. The 'drain to daylight' is a pipe that goes a couple hundred feet to where the grade is lower than the bottom of the foundation. Any water there will be gravity-fed right out (I guess unless the pipe is clogged). Presumably, if ground water ever came up that high, it would be breaching the surface of the ground where the pipe outlet was. That would be epic level flooding. Houses down the hill a bit more would be completely covered. Disclaimer: it's possible I don't understand any of this well enough. Maybe ground water doesn't uniformly rise or something.
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Nov 23, 2016 17:51
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Your understanding is correct, a sump pump would only help if the 'drain to daylight' becomes clogged.
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Nov 23, 2016 17:57
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I looked it up, and "drain to daylight" is basically just where your french drain runs to. My friend has that since their lot is on a hill and they still got water. As far as I know their drain to daylight was not clogged. Anyway, just something to think about.
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Nov 23, 2016 18:09
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If you have a way to drain via gravity from the drain tile in/outside the foundation, I think you're good. Those of us that the ground doesn't drain out water fast enough, or have a way to drain via gravity need sump pumps. Our last house was on sand, no sump pump at all (and that was a ~5 year old house) and we never had an issue with water. Edit: If you have drain tile around the perimeter (in/out) you still can have a sump put in, or at least the pit. From my understanding generally they run a loop inside the house wall and a loop on the outside of the wall, and connect them between the footings. The pipes/foundation are in all in gravel, so it makes the water easily run into them. The sump pumps just hook into the inside run. If you're paranoid you could have them just add the plastic pit if you have drain tile, probably would be minimal cost (but an annoyance in the basement, depending on how you're finishing it). MrEnigma fucked around with this message at 22:29 on Nov 23, 2016 |
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Nov 23, 2016 22:25
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Concrete happily curing.  
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Nov 27, 2016 15:48
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$650 per bedroom sewer hookup fee. Wheeee.
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Nov 28, 2016 22:43
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Just explain to them that you weren't planning on hooking the bedrooms up to the sewer system anyway.
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Nov 28, 2016 23:48
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Just show them your SA account and they'll waive the fee.
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Nov 28, 2016 23:54
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 Rebar ends broken off & everything sealed. Perimeter drain.
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Nov 29, 2016 16:24
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Gounads posted:$650 per bedroom sewer hookup fee. Wheeee. No that's a dressing room, that's a walk-in wardrobe, that's a ferret enclosure, that's an office.
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Nov 29, 2016 17:04
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cakesmith handyman posted:No that's a dressing room, that's a walk-in wardrobe, that's a ferret enclosure, that's an office. Just erase the closets from the blueprints. Then it's not a bedroom!
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Nov 29, 2016 17:08
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TheMadMilkman posted:Just erase the closets from the blueprints. Then it's not a bedroom! Seriously considering it. I really do have an office with closet planned. Also got a $2100 bill from the surveyor today. I knew these were extra expenses from the start not included in the build price. Not complaining, just giving you all a sense of what it's like to build. On another note, wife and I sat down last night and reconfigured the first floor plan. Decided we really didn't want that formal dining room after all. I'll share our pencil sketch when I get it scanned in.
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Nov 29, 2016 17:20
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Gounads posted:Seriously considering it. I really do have an office with closet planned. Nice! Great choice, formal dining rooms died in the 80's... Most modern homes don't have one.
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Nov 29, 2016 17:24
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Gounads posted:
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Dec 2, 2016 14:59
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Crotch Fruit posted:Why is the foundation wall missing a section here? Oh poo poo. They forgot it. It's for a door / bulkhead
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Dec 2, 2016 15:21
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Thought so, just thought it looked too narrow for a door from the picture, thanks for clarifying.
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Dec 2, 2016 15:33
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Gounads posted:Concrete happily curing. I don't remember if you posted something about this before, but roughly what length and width are we looking at here? The lens distortion makes it really hard for me to judge dimensions. I'm glad things started moving otherwise, you must be really thrilled! 
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Dec 2, 2016 15:43
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Hollow Talk posted:I don't remember if you posted something about this before, but roughly what length and width are we looking at here? The lens distortion makes it really hard for me to judge dimensions. About 33'x44' - add on another 20' for the garage for a total of around 33x64 I've been doing panoramas because a single shot captures so little with my phone. I think seeing the bigger picture is worth the distortion Crotch Fruit posted:Thought so, just thought it looked too narrow for a door from the picture, thanks for clarifying. It looks narrow because those walls are 9' high.
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Dec 2, 2016 15:56
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Gounads posted:$650 per bedroom sewer hookup fee. Wheeee. as a non-american, I dont understand why the number of bedrooms would influence the cost of sewer hookups, care to explain to an outsider?
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Dec 2, 2016 17:01
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Klogdor posted:as a non-american, I dont understand why the number of bedrooms would influence the cost of sewer hookups, care to explain to an outsider? More bedrooms means more butts a-poopin', which means they need a bigger sewer hookup.
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Dec 2, 2016 17:04
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Klogdor posted:as a non-american, I dont understand why the number of bedrooms would influence the cost of sewer hookups, care to explain to an outsider? What Safety Dance said. It's a form of an impact fee. You have a larger impact on the system you pay more. Huge McMansion with 8 bedrooms and baths would need more infrastructure support vs. a 2 bedroom cottage. He's at least lucky to have access. If you're too far from utilities it's not uncommon for a company to tell you you're out of luck... because they won't make back the investment to run the utility to your property.
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Dec 2, 2016 17:45
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Safety Dance posted:More bedrooms means more butts a-poopin', which means they need a bigger sewer hookup. I always figured the size of the pipe would be pretty much the same for any normal residence, or is this one of those one toilet per bedroom thingies ? I'm used to one or two toilets per house, so no matter how many people live in one, there's kind of a limit to how much would be flushed at the same time.
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Dec 2, 2016 17:46
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It's a dumb cash grab especially since your water bill probably has a sewer remainder fee which is charged on top of water cost since most water used in a house goes down the drains eventually. For my usage amount, the remainder is double the water cost per 1000 gallons.
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Dec 2, 2016 17:54
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Wait why would a 4bed 2 bath house be charged more than a 3bed 2bath house?
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Dec 2, 2016 17:58
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Because they can. In theory the more butts a poopin means more of everything going down the sewer from all the water consumed in the house, more capacity needed at processing plants, etc. Just because you all choose to poop in a single bathroom doesn't mean there is any less volume. Also, they can.
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Dec 2, 2016 18:24
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FCKGW posted:Wait why would a 4bed 2 bath house be charged more than a 3bed 2bath house? As above, more people can live in a house so more utility needs to be provided for.
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Dec 2, 2016 18:58
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Gounads posted:About 33'x44' - add on another 20' for the garage for a total of around 33x64 Thank you, that helps me visualise things immensely! I like the panorama shots otherwise.
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Dec 3, 2016 02:50
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Lest you think it's all about utility greed the same generally applies to septic systems, they need to be designed based off the amount of planned bedrooms in a house not the amount of bathrooms. You can have all the bathrooms you want no one cares, one person can only poop so much(and shower, and dirty dishes etc) no matter how many toilets they decide to place in their house..
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Dec 3, 2016 09:47
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Elem7 posted:Lest you think it's all about utility greed the same generally applies to septic systems, they need to be designed based off the amount of planned bedrooms in a house not the amount of bathrooms. You can have all the bathrooms you want no one cares, one person can only poop so much(and shower, and dirty dishes etc) no matter how many toilets they decide to place in their house.. My current house has a septic rated for 3 bedrooms even though it has 4. When selling, I have to list it as 3.
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Dec 3, 2016 14:33
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