Monday, August 21, 2017

Foundation, Stem-wall, & Slab

 

This is the result of the 'fill' being placed as shown earlier. The beginning of the 'forms' for the footers and foundation.


                                                   Footers and foundation complete.



Our house is built on a 'stem wall'.  This a method to securely raise a building off of the base elevation.  It is a course of cinder blocks that is then filled with fill dirt.  It is an alternative to a slab on base elevation or a 'crawl space'.








Stem-wall filled and compacted.




Concrete slab poured.


Finishing the concrete.




Thursday, August 10, 2017

Site Preparation - Eagles & Rain!

We signed our construction contract in early August 2017.  When our contractor went to get a permit, we (and he) were shocked that our land was in an 'Eagle Protection Zone'.  This would not allow any 'outside' work to be performed between 10/1 and April of the next year.  This called for a big decision about whether we should proceed this year or wait until next.  Our contractor thought he could get it 'dried in' by 10/1 (many knowledgeable people were skeptical). We gave the go ahead, thankfully he had the roof on by October 1st-ish.



First step - a culvert and crushed concrete on the driveway to allow equipment to access the property.



'Scraping' the topsoil off the building site.   The stake with a flag marks a corner of the house.  While we had a 'site plan', the precise location needed to be coordinated around some of our treasured oaks.  It took two hot and humid days.  The first day was a disaster and Joyce said she would only come back with a written plan of action.  I put a plan together and day two went much better. 😇



                                                                       The rains came!



If you build a house in Florida,  plan on spending much more than you could imagine on fill dirt.







The road to our east had a massive 'hole' that was impassable much of the year.  This is in the early stages of repairing this part of the road so we could access our property from the west (better road).