Muddy mess

Even though it's almost the middle of April, amazingly, there's still some frost in the ground in the basement.  I think it's there because some snow fell in the basement before it was sealed up with the LiteDeck, then they put some fill sand in, covering the snow and ice.  It's not really visible, but you can tell it's there because the fill sand is still like quicksand.  Moisture isn't going down.

 As you can see, test holes were dug in different parts of the basement to try to determine the state of the frost under the fill sand.  It's not really visible, but if you could feel the sand, you could tell that it's hard and crunchy rather than... sandy.

 You can almost make out the difference in water content/texture between the fill sand (smoother) and the base sand (lighter).  In hind sight, putting in that fill sand so late in the season wasn't a great idea.

 Not only is the non-compacted fill sand retaining water, it has settled a bit, allowing the once supportive temporary bracing to float above the grade.  This obviously won't work out well even if the sand was stable enough to support the weight.

 The beam has settled into the pocket, so at least there's some good news there.  No need to cut the post and reweld.  No need to heat the ground to try to get the frost out from under the footing.  When the slab is completed, this heaving obviously won't be a problem because the heat of the ground will be trapped under the insulation layer beneath the slab.  We're sitting a few feet above the highest recorded water table, so I don't suspect water will rise up from below, freeze, and heave the house.

 More floating supports.  The fill sand compressed a few inches.  Despite this, they'll still need to scrape it level and compact before adding any other layers.  I'm not sure about the order, but there needs to be gravel, visqueen that's tied into the form-a-drain for water and radon abatement, 3" foam for insulation, then a 3" concrete slab.

 Meter boxes have been approved.  Now to get a move on with planning and digging the trench from the box.  The path of the trench will cross under the future driveway at one point, but it will be deep enough not to interfere with a good base.  One issue that arose is that there's a culvert that passes under the proposed driveway that connects two DEQ designated wetlands.  The DTE coordinator says that we might need to bore across that area since the culvert is technically part of the wetlands.  I'm not sure what this means for the future driveway either.

 A closer look at the temporary construction circuits.  Two 20 amp fuses.

 Connected to two double gang sockets.  It will be nice to finally have power on at the build site.  So far the build crew has been using a generator, which costs a good amount of money to run.

Here's the temporary box connected to the main meter box.  Again, I'm not sure why there are two.  You can see the copper ground in the foreground of the picture.  This is just connected to the two meter boxes and terminates in a spike in the ground.

Still frozen

Live by the ICF sword, die by the ICF sword.  The basement soil (sand?) still has frost in it but the beam has finally settled back into it's pocket.

 The electrician installed the main meter box for the house.  I didn't know it would be so big, but I guess that's the way it is.  You can see the little guy hanging down from the new box.  It's another construction plug, so it won't be there in the end.  The conduit just terminates in the ground, ready for incoming lines.

 Here's a shot of the main beam sitting back in the beam pocket.  As show in earlier posts, there are two rebar pins holding the beam, but no other mechanical fasteners.  I'm sure this pocket will be filled with concrete eventually, but I'm not sure if there will be any other mechanical fasteners.

Looks like the DTE coordinator is hard at work.  The trench will contain electrical, gas, cable, and telephone.  Yeah, we'll probably never use the telephone line coming in, but I guess it should still be wired.  This spool of coaxial is new and belongs to the cable company.

The basement is starting to thaw, but it's a muddy mess now.  The sand that was brought in is saturated and sits on some frozen ground so the water isn't draining down.  The plan is to prep and pour the basement before the first floor pour so we can have good temporary shoring for the first floor pour.  That means that the basement needs to dry out, warm up, and be prepped with rough in basement drains for future expansions.  Time is ticking.

Cold weather is still here. Electrician stopped by.

The cold weather decided to stick around a little bit more.  We've had some warm days, but not with enough consistency to allow for slab construction.

Here's the kicker.  With the LiteDeck in place, the inside of the basement is like an icebox.  What does that mean?  There's frozen ground in the basement that isn't melting very quickly.  We've unblocked all the openings to allow more airflow and hopefully warm the ground inside the basement, but it has accumulated enough water and melted snow that it's like an icerink in there.  So much so that the post that's holding the main beam has lifted a bit and the beam is not sitting in the pocket.

Our options are to wait and hope the frost melts under the footing and drops the beam back down.  If that doesn't happen, then any pockets under the footing have been filled and we'll have to cut and reweld the post to the beam.  All I hear is "delay, delay, delay".

 I've been in talks with the DTE coordinator about pulling power out to the house.  She requires electrical boxes to be installed before she surveys the site to determine the route through the property.  My neighborhood only allows for underground utilities.  There's a power junction up the driveway near the street, but a trench will have be dug about 200 ft up the side of the driveway to a ground transformer cabinet.  We'll have that as far from the house as we're allowed, about 100 ft.  From there, two lines will run to the house.  The above picture shows two meters and a construction circuit, but it doesn't show the main box.  The two meter boxes you see there are for electric vehicle charging and geothermal.  DTE offers reduced rates for these services so separate meters are required.

 Just a picture of how the wrap around porch beam terminates into the house.  The standard pocket isn't there, but the post in combination with the mechanical fasteners should do the trick.

Here's a shot looking at the gable end of the garage.  You can get a feel of the height difference from this angle. Since getting around this side of the house will be difficult, we're thinking of making a little deck around this part.  Even this will offer a nice view.