Power, pour (soon), and preliminary landscaping

This week was met with not much progress.  The topographic survey was submitted and accepted.  I'm told we'll get a basement pour in on Tuesday pending inspection so that's good.  We're in a holding pattern on the house until the basement can be poured.  Soon.....

One thing new is that the landscapers at Great Oaks Landscaping have marked trees for removal with white tape, and the scope of their work area with blue and pink tape.  I spoke to the HOA board member in charge of approving landscaping plans and he requested that I submit preliminary plans before July 7th so he can have some time to tour the property.   I requested these plans from my planner  at Great Oaks, Geoff Fornari and it looks like they're on the ball to deliver.  HOA rules state that any tree that's greater than 6" in diameter, 4' from the ground needs approval for removal.  There are a few big trees that we'll be taking out to make room for retaining walls, paths, and pool.

 Many of the perimeter trees will be removed to create a cleaner boarder and driveway.  It's a shame when the larger trees have to go.  I'm not sure what the policy is about keeping the wood.  I really need to find someone to cut the trees into chop-able logs.

 They marked the trees for removal with red and white ribbon and metal tags.  Very professional approach.

 The edge of the work is marked by pink and blue ribbons.  I think this is mostly used to mark the wetlands areas where we'll need a silt fence.  Some of the trees marked for removal are already dead.

Unfortunately, some of the trees that will be removed are nice oaks.  I think there are two or three that we'll be removing.  I really hope I get to keep the wood.

 DTE delivered on the meter.  I though they were going to put one on the main box and one on the EV panel, but they only installed on the main.  There are two sockets hooked up to the main for construction purposes, so I guess that's okay for now.  This will save some costs since we won't need to run a generator anymore.

Saw this group of bucks walking around the property.  Maybe I'll get some antler shedding.  I don't mind them now but I'll have to find a way to keep them away from our landscaping plants.

Next step is the basement pour and some curing time.  When the surface is hard enough, they'll set up temporary shoring for the first floor and start to mark out the pass throughs for HVAC, electrical, and plumbing.  I'll have to make sure to be there since there are some specialty pass throughs I'll want for networking, security, and sound.  Soon after that, we'll be able to get the first floor pour in.  When that hardens enough, they can start to assemble the first floor walls.  There will be a minimal cure time on the first floor since they want it hard enough to carry the weight of the second floor.  I think there's enough work to keep the builder occupied until the second floor can be poured.

Red tape, red paint

    Looks like we've hit a temporary snag that will cause a little delay in the basement pour.  I guess when we initially applied for our building permit, the person who usually handles the permitting process was on vacation.  Because of this, we got approval on our build without obtaining a topographic survey of the build site.
   When we applied for the permit to pour the basement, the missing topo survey was discovered so there's a temporary halt placed on the build until we fulfill the requirement.  Ken called out our surveying firm to schedule a topographic survey and submit it to the county.  Until then, we can't complete any tasks that require a permit.  Luckily, DTE was still able to install power and some smaller tasks were completed.

 Here's where that pit was dug near the front of the property.  There used to be two pylons here, but now there's one.  DTE was required to obtain permission from the DEQ and bore under the driveway since it crossed over a designated preserve culvert that passes under the driveway.  You can see the remnants of the trenching in the back ground, and a cute Frenchie named Chloe in the foreground.

   Here's the only pylon near the front.  It's labeled "Charter" so I'm assuming it's for Charter cable.

   Shot of the driveway.  The sand on the left is all that's left of the trenching process.  Maybe when we level this, we'll be able to flatten out the mounds and have some space on the sides of the driveway.

   Approach to the house.  DTE coordinated with Consumers for gas, AT&T for telephone (never going to use it) and Charter for cable.  From what I understand, they're in different depths in the trench with electrical being the deepest.

    Here's the ground transformer cabinet and a pylon for telecommunications.  One cable enters the box and two leave to power the house main, and EV charging/geothermal

   You can see some of the coaxial on the left of the picture.  The core was about 18 gauge and there was probably a 1/4" of insulation surrounding it.  Very hefty coaxial.  I couldn't find evidence of it leading to the house, but it will probably be installed later with a trenching machine.

  Here's the top of the telecom pylon.  I'm guessing both AT&T and Charter goes in here, ready to be connected to the house.

    Here's the path through the "Front yard" that the trenching took.  I think they dodged enough tree roots to not cause any major damage.  We really want to keep all these trees.

  The power is connected but the meters aren't in place.  You can see that one line goes to the house main on the left and one goes to the joint boxes for EV and geothermal on the right.  The DTE coordinator said that the meters should go in this week and we'll finally have power on site.

  Here's the mega gas meter.  The pipes are way larger than what I have at my current house because we said that we're going to be installing a back up generator and possibly a pool heater.  It sits on the corner of the house, under the turret/porch.  There will be a retaining wall coming off this corner.

   The crew took this "down time" and painted all the steel with rustoleum.  You can also see the exterior course of ICF that was added to the first floor.  This will allow the first floor concrete pour to go to the exterior ICF and tie in with the rebar spikes in the basement walls.  The first floor ICF walls will also tie into these rebar spikes, so the whole structure will be tied together.

    No pouring in the basement, but all the beams and posts are painted.

   I can't wait until there's some concrete in here.  I think everything has been accounted for.

 They started installing some of the LiteDeck that will go on the back porch and gazebo.  They also constructed a short retaining wall in the unconditioned storage space that will be under the deck.  The area on the right will be full height, around 7 feet.  There will be 3 feet from the top of the wall to the ceiling.  This will allow for some longer items to be stored under the gazebo and deck on the left.

  Here are the two kinds of rebar that will be used in the LiteDeck floor.  Two of the thicker pieces on the left will be placed in the "beam" areas of the floor.  They're about 5/8" thick.  The thinner will be placed in a normal grid on top, in the slab and are about 3/8" thick.

Hopefully the "as is" building permit will be approved soon and we can get the basement pour in before July 4th.

Basement prepped for pour. Electrical starting up.

I was greeted by this welcomed site:

DTE has cordoned off the area around the power stub next to the driveway.  This is the head point where most of the utilities (cable, power, gas, telephone) will originate from.  You can see the flags for AT&T in the background, leading up to my neighbors driveway.

Here's the pylon for something.  It's a thick cable and I always thought it was for the power until I saw the thing sitting next to it.

I'm not sure I noticed this before, but it was probably covered by a cylindrical plastic cover.  I'm not sure what it is, but it looks much more "electricy" than the other one.  Maybe there are two power pylons in this area.

 Here's further down the driveway, closer to the house.  It's where the 50 KVA cabinet will go.  I was told there would be one cable coming into it, and two coming out that will hook up to the two meter boxes on the house.  One for main house power, one for geothermal and electric vehicle.

 That's the pedestal for the power cabinet.  My guess is that it's going to be sitting on the wood.  I'm not sure what all the trenches are for, especially since they're not deep enough to run utilities in.

Here's a closer shot of the cabinet.  I know there are some interesting workings on the inside, but I didn't open it up.

 Here's the conduit that will be run.  I'm not sure if this is just for the section that crosses the designated conservation area, or if this will run from the cabinet to the house.  There's a good amount sitting here, so I think it will be used in a few places.

 They did some work leveling a ramp to the main garage door and filling and leveling the inside of the garage.  There were tracks through the back door and back yard.  No barrier around the big oak tree in the back.  I think they used a small bobcat so the weight shouldn't cause too much distress and soil compaction on the tree roots.

 They used some of the fill sand in this area for the garage and maybe the basement.  There's a bit more they can use up against the greatroom wall since we'll be putting in the access doors to the area under the deck there.

 The basement has been prepped for concrete and is awaiting inspection to pour.  You can see the light rebar grid that sits on the plastic sheeting.  Underneath that is 3" thick expanded polystyrene foam sheets for insulation, on top of pea gravel drainage.

 Here's the area where the stairs will come down.  Since it carries the rotunda shape from 2nd floor to basement, it was decided that there needs to be a concrete pad poured to carry the weight.  This and the elevator shaft seen in the back left are the only two structures that will support beams all the way to the 2nd floor.

 Here's a close up of the layers in the floor.  This is the sill for one of the walkouts and you can catch a glimpse of the ICF wall foam.  The gravel is an example of the pea gravel used for drainage and it was placed on top of the native sand.  The white is the 3" EPS foam used for insulation.  The black plastic will prevent any material float from getting to the concrete slab and the rebar grid will be impregnated in the concrete slab.

 The slab carries into the elevator shaft.  There's a pad under here anyways so there's no way to have a pit here.  Would have been a great hiding place.

 Here's a shot backwards, looking at the workout room.

The slab will be about 3" thick so the windows will be about 33" above  the slab.  Floor to ceiling will be 9'9".

Here's what has been built so far.  Nothing new on the outside, but hopefully soon...

Finally some movement, and some bad news.

Getting worried about the time table, we called a meeting with the framer, who is now acting as general manager for the build early Monday morning.  When we drove up to the house site, I was greeted with a utility marking vehicle so it looks like DTE is moving on the power installation.  Last week I received an email stating that they obtained DEQ permission to bore across the designated conservation area that crossed our proposed driveway, at the additional cost of around 1k.  I wonder what's going to happen when I want to install a driveway...

The framer was there with a three man crew, moving some pea gravel into the basement and preparing the foam underlayment for the basement.  He explained that the pea gravel will be the first layer, placed and compacted.  Next will be the 3" polystyrene foam for insulation, then a visqueen tarp for radon and particle abatement.  Last will be the 4" concrete slab.  The stairs leading down will be the only load-bearing structure that will extend to the first and second floor and the footing will be a monolithic pour four that footing.  Each step will require inspection permitting but he's targeting Wednesday for inspection, Thursday for concrete pour, so when I visit the site this weekend, I'm expecting to see a concrete basement.

We also discussed some realistic time tables for completion.  In his experience, a house this size would take a year and a half for full completion, well outside of the 8-10 month build our builder initially quoted.  Best case scenario for completion is Thanksgiving.  Most likely it will be by the end of the year, which means a winter move and attempting to sell our current house in the worst time of the year.  This information really took the wind out of my sails, so we resolved to try to have all our decisions on point when the need arises so we can minimize delays.

 They've removed the garage door frame buck supports in anticipation of the garage floor prep.  A steel beam will be placed across this opening since it's too narrow for proper ICF load bearing.  This door also still needs to be raised one more ICF course to raise the garage floor as desired. Any gap between top of the door frame and the beam will be filled with a wooden beam.

 Here's the small door sans buck supports.

 You can see some of the pea gravel placed.  All of the form-a-drain that was damaged during the initial sand fill was replaced properly.  You can see that the recent rains caused the sump crock to float up a bit on the very right of the picture.  The area around the wheel barrel is where the stair footing will be.  It will support the load of the stairs all the way up.

 The future exercise room still needs gravel.  Here's the power bucket they use to deliver it.

 Full shot of the exercise room and all the pea gravel that is still needed.  The final slab height will be 3" above the current door sill.

 Future home theater area.  Foam panels need to be laid, but inspection is needed required before that can take place.  I guess they want to make sure the proper depth of base material is used.

Last look at the rough ins before they're covered in concrete.