Grading and rough-in inspection prep

This week brought the near-final grading of the property, removal of the silt fence at the south of the cleared area and the setting of 18 1/2 tons of rip-rap for erosion control.

 In addition, there was work done to finish up the HVAC and plumbing in preparation for the rough-in inspection for framing, HVAC, plumbing and electrical which is scheduled for Monday.  The framing crew also worked on the soffit, facia, frieze board, and walls/ceiling of the garage. We haven't taken pictures since they got the walls up on the garage which changes the look significantly and it becomes a very gray house now.  One thing we did notice is there's a perfect space at the inside of the garage where the roof meets the soffit that allows for birds and bats to enter the overhead space of the garage so we'll be blocking all that up with either netting or blocks.  It isn't that we don't want to provide a home for the bats but their droppings would make a nasty mess of that overhead space.  We'll build bat houses for around the property at a later date (the framing crew did have a bat fly out from under the soffit one day while they were working.

Here's the view of the front of the house before the grading was completed on Monday

And here's how it looked after grading.  What isn't evident in this picture is that the water flow continues to go down the slope and across the front of the garage.  The grader put a gravel bar across to slow down the flow and it proved its worth on Tuesday when the rains came.  The water did not wash any of the freshly graded soil away.

That's a pile of 18.5 tons of rip-rap for the erosion control along the South side of the cleared area.

You can see the slope has been cut away slightly here - that was in preparation to remove the posts for the silt fence and then the silt fence.

This is the final grading completed viewed from the opposite side of the clearing.  Note that rip-rap is now placed to slow any water flow that may occur but on Tuesday there was little to no erosion from the rains.

Here's the final grading done under the West  roof over the deck area.  The cement "blocks" (called lugs) on the side will hold the pressure treated ledger board which defines the level of the deck. The opening you see to the right is the French door and the deck will be about 3/4" below that opening.

A little more progress made on the retaining wall - you can see a small bit of the "recurve" where the wall curves back into the hillside where it will terminate.

Another view of the back of the house after the clearing - you can see the two ERV ducts on either side of the opening in the walk-out basement.