Transformation of the site - and Window/door delivery scheduled

The end of this week showed a significant transformation of the site - the framing crew finished one gable end, the junction between the gable roof and Clerestory section, the framing for the skylight box, and a large number of the interior walls.  Saturday was planned to be a roof sheathing day but mother nature had other plans - it started raining early and continued heavily for most of the morning.  We will now attempt for dry-in on Monday which is also rough-in for plumbing and close on the heels will be HVAC and then electrical.  Lots of decisions needed in rapid fire succession to keep the construction moving out.

  We received the confirmed delivery date for our windows set this week - it's now scheduled for 13 Sept.  Because we are getting our windows shipped at the same time as one other project Anchorage is working on, we saved a significant amount on shipping but until we get the final bill we won't know.  Part of the uncertainty is what the world Markets have been doing and the exchange rates that could impact those costs.  We did order the German tape systems so this will be an interesting experience.  I will try to photograph and video all the installations so folks see how different the installation is than typical US nailing flange installation.  As you've seen in most pictures our the window and door "framing" is concrete vice the typical lumber frames used in the US.  One thing we do have to remember is that our delivery date is based on normal customs processing - there are stories of folks who had to wait a long duration due to someone adding a gift to the container of a case of alcoholic beverages which wasn't declared on the customs form.  Now that's the epitome on the Law of Unintended Consequences!

The other change that happened was the Wilkerson crew returned with a dozer and dump truck and loader and they moved lots of earth, backfilling the house, grading the cleared area, and finishing the carving out of the East side walk-out where we'll be building a retaining wall.  We are currently waiting for an engineered solution (over 4 foot height requires that) and cost estimate for the block - we're looking at VersaLok standard size block in a mottled color (Canyon from Johnson Concrete in Willow Spring NC) that matches the soft rock colors very well.  Hopefully we'll be able to start that wall this week - and maybe get a large part of it completed.  The challenge will be placing the block, geogrid (mesh that extends 5 - 6 feet back into the ground from the wall), and backfill all by hand.  Each block weighs about 80 pounds and I expect we'll need about 750 of them!  Recommendations from the engineer were to use washed rock for the backfill and in addition we are required to have drainage installed every 25' of wall.  The interesting part of this discussion was that the wall will "flex" a bit over time - it's designed that way to prevent complete failure and the geogrid/backfill allow for drainage and flex without collapse.

The finished gable end and a view of the near-final grading from the  East edge of the cleared area.  Hard to see in this picture is the 8' drop between the camera and house.

View from the SouthWest corner of the cleared area after near-final grading. Note the "raised" deck now looks much closer to the final grade than it has in the past pictures.

View from the West edge of the cleared area - this photo shows the multiple roof lines that will be present.  Missing from the structure at this point is the garage which will attach on the left hand (viewed from this angle) corner of the house and extend North (left).

A view from the East.

View from the SouthEast.

This shows a better picture of the walk-out to the retaining walled area  from the South.  That wall at the far side is about 8' tall for perspective.

The finished framing for the skylight.  That house wrap is there to protect the beams from inclement weather and was reattached after this picture.

Looking down the front (North) wall of the house at near-final grade.  That dirt piled up is our topsoil that will go down near the end of the project.

This is the house viewed from the driveway (NorthEast).

A view from nearly due South of the entire back of the house - hard to tell in this picture but there's about 2' of drop between the house and where I'm standing to take this picture.

The next thing that happened was we decided on a geothermal contractor who will use our dry well for part of the requirement and will drill one more well for the geothermal heating.  The well driller will also drill for water for us - we've moved locations on the lot and upon further investigation, it looks like into another soil type.  The county soil survey shows 3 different types of soil on our property which may be a good thing or may be a bad thing.  The well location for our neighboring houses all seem to be in the same soil type so that may change the location of our potential well but we have to discuss with the well driller to see what he thinks.  There's always a dowser option but we have yet to find one in the area.  The unfortunate thing is they put casing in the 606' well down to 67' which means that part of the well is less efficient for geothermal.  Drilling out that casing is costly and risks losing valuable equipment and maybe use of the well.  The contractor will fill in part of the well with gravel and only use the top 350' or so. This is due in part to the standard geothermal well pumps only being good up to that depth.  We'll drill another well near (25' separation) the old well and then the water well will go elsewhere. Right now we anticipate the well drilling operation to be late in the week.  The good news is there seems to be a break in the high temp days and we may "struggle" to hit 90 degrees this week.  That's really good news because it has been insufferable for the last couple of weeks.

Well, but no water - but we do have walls in the basement and a flooring system for the main level

Today brought the bad news that we'd hit the magic mark for a well depth without finding sufficient water to use.  They drilled through a large amount of slate and some other softer rock but throughout that period, they were only able to find about 1 quart per minute flow rates.  The magic number we reached was just over 600 feet which is much greater than any of the other houses in the neighborhood drilled and they have flow rates from 4 GPM to over 25 GPM.  We now have to determine the next steps which may include fracking the well to see if that breaks enough rock to get a decent flow. Our other option is to use this well for ground source heat pump (geothermal) and drill another well elsewhere on the property  We're waiting for the fracking expert to provide an assessment and cost details before we make the decision.  What the fracking process does is blast pressure into the well at set intervals to attempt to break the rock and open channels for the water to flow into the well.  This is not the fracking that uses chemical solutions to extract natural gas from the shale and has raised a huge level of discussion here in Chatham county. (in other words this is not the same as the controversial version of fracking)

On the bright side we now have a flooring system throughout the house and they also put the entire main floor system on this morning.  Once that was done the wall braces were removed opening the house up.  Tomorrow we should take delivery of the next installment of lumber which will be sued for the stud-walls and roofing system for the house.  That will be a welcome thing since the heat wave has continued.  It's hard to imagine but standing inside a styrofoam cooler on a bright sunny day that is also over 100 degrees simply intensifies that heat.  We've been providing water and Gatorade for the framing crew to ensure none of them drop due to heat exhaustion.

The business end of the drilling rig - note the purple water which signifies shale.

This was the state of the system yesterday morning - most of the basement walls were up but the floor joists had yet to be installed

This is the view fromt he basement after the floor sheathing had been installed on 1/2 the house

The view from the front door - there will be a wall about where the seam  on the wall panels is to the right of the large window.

This is the view from the top of the staircase - most of the dirt you see will be  gone since it's the backfill for the  overdig so it will be a clean view of the woods behind the house.

Here's the view from the family room window wall.

This is the last time you'll see these bracing poles on the house.  Shortly after this picture was taken the flooring system was complete allowing the braces to come down.

This is the same view without the bracing and with all the sub-floor installed.  The missing squares of foam will be replaced in the morning before they start on the stud-wall that will again lap around the inside of these walls.

This shows that you can get a lot of bvehicles on this particular site - we had the drilling rig, the support vehicle, the grouting truck, the crane, the flatbed a pickup, a van and a sedan all on site at this instant.  All that was missing was the portable toilet service truck that showed up a short while later!

Framing and Well Drilling day

Today the framing crew started work on the interior stud walls in the basement - They framed out the spare bedroom, workout room, office, bathroom, mech room, wine cellar, and then a workshop area in the storage half of the basement.  They also installed a triple-wide LVL to carry the load from the central wall to the West wall which will have custom-fit 4" steel posts to support the load.  The only wall left in the basement is the load-bearing wall that will support the clerestory section.

The framing att the start of the day 

Here's the faming at about noon

The majority of the framing complete in the basement.

This is the three 39-foot  LVLs on the fork being moved into the door on the West end, main floor for later installation.

Sliding the LVLs into position.

The first LVL is in position and ready to secure.  Temp posts installed pending arrival of the custom-measured steel support posts.

Can you hear me now?  AT&T reception at the sight is a bit spotty - Kevin found this to be the best  way to get a "reliable" signal (thought still dropping calls).  I noticed there was a crane lifting an antenna onto the cell tower 1/2 mile from the house sight.  Maybe that will help!

 The well drilling rig showed up at 8:30 this morning and after a short delay for mechanical failure they started about 10:00.  They hit rock at about 10 feet, and then installed 68' of sleeve.  After that they hit hard slate/shale.  They had not hit water yet at about 5:00 when they departed - they had drilled to a depth of about 300' at that point in time.  Averages (which mean little) around this area are apparently 240' to 340' so we're hoping to hit water within the next 10-50 feet.  You'll see in the picture that the water (used to keep the drilling dust down) is purple in color which is how the rig operator made the assessment it was shale they were drilling.

Here's the well drilling rig - it's amazing how high they jack the front to level the rig!

More of the drilling rig

This is the water flowing from the drilling operation - the purple color is due to the  slate/shale rock. The water is added to keep the dust down.

A different perspective of the well rig on it's jack stands - this is at about 5:30 after the crew left (for the day?) with the water buffalo.