Construction status (offsite, site prep, grading)

Water and sewer laterals, and demolition of sheds, trees and shrubs, misc masonry and pipes are complete. Then, the more lengthy process of clearing out minor debris (a lot of small roots and other bits) to get down to clean top soil and ready for grading.

In the masonry that was demolished were some bricks from a barbecue, brick columns holding up a shed, pavers and some brick curbs around what was a lawn and other landscaping. The bricks include some "regular ones" and some “klinkers” which we are separating and cleaning off the cement for use on the exterior of the house and landscaping. 

This is turning out to be a lot of work but we are determined to rescue these gems and work them into the house and/or landscaping, something our architects were reluctant to do during design.

We moved the foot or so of top soil off to the side of the site. This serves two purposes: it preserves the more fertile top soil for the planting areas outside the building pad, and exposes the underlying layers of various densities of clayey sand to build on.  This underlying material is much more appropriate for supporting the foundation and concrete slab according to the contractor.  We rented a compactor and spent the last week forming pads, wetting down and compacting them to the final pad elevations.

That is Joe Ponte, our very competent excavation contractor, on the front loader and his employee Enrico on the vibrating compactor.  The red clay and the dark brown top soil are distinctive.  Donner, our dog, had a funny look on his face as the ground shook but surprisingly did not panic!  When the machine was turned off, he approached sheepishly sniffing in as much air as he could take without passing out.

As a sidebar, there is now available a very affordable time lapse camera full of features in a weather proof case.
http://www.wingscapes.com/catalog.aspx?catid=birdcameras ($62 at Amazon delivered!)

I’ll put up a sample of what the camera will provide in a later post. Early results are a little disappointing. I like everything about the camera except for the optics. I guess there wasn’t much left in the budget in a $62 camera after the weather proof case, electronics, packaging, laser pointer and mounting hardware!

Here is a picture of some guy wetting down the basement/root cellar in preparation for forms and concrete in the next few days.

Keeping the earth moist up until pouring concrete both controls the dust for the sake of my neighbors and will help provide a better curing environment for the concrete.  I took advantage of every opportunity to avoid concrete (and plaster) cracking, both of which are inevitable yet can be minimized through care and planning.  I am off to go and wet everything down again now......