Every approval has a catch. We received dome plan approval from the health department ... sort of. The plan was approved but we have a list of requirements to fulfill before getting a septic permit. It seems that when we had our site plan created and all the soil tests done things did not accurately get recorded on the plan.
We did have 3 revisions to the layout so we are guessing that at some point the picture and the data stopped matching. Unfortunately this involves having the surveyor and engineer back out again.
The good thing is we do not have to complete the list right away to have our building plans go to the next stage of review with zoning.
The weather is finally dry and nice out. The last few weeks have been tiring and all about dirt and rocks as we prep the barn foundation. When we excavated the barn foundation we dug up a huge boulder. It is big enough that we couldn't pick it up even with the big rental excavator. When we got rid of the main dirt pile we found it again. Now that we don't have that excavator we have no way to move it other than to push it with the skid steer. The skid steer can push it around a bit but it is much to big to move very far. This made us decide to leave it where it is and build a retaining wall using the rocks we dug up. It is a happy accident! One big boulder made us sit back and evaluate what to do with the back wall of the barn. In the end we now have a flat raised bed area for the chicken coop that covers up much of the ugly foundation wall. In the photos it is difficult to tell the scale of things but the bed on the high end is about 5 ft high (maybe a bit taller) and the larger rocks are about 3 ft high. The big boulder is mostly buried under all that dirt.
It took us about 2 weekends, one crushed finger, a bruised foot and a bunch of weeknights but we have everything roughly how we want it to be before we start the barn build. The wall does not look like a fancy manicured stone wall but in the end we think it will fit in with all the other stone walls on the property much better. We tried to estimate how much a stone wall company would have charged us to build a wall this size. We are guessing that it would be about the same as the cost of building the barn. We are sore but rocks in Connecticut are free and in ample supply!
The foundation is finally backfilled and the interior is prepped to compact. After we compact the grey sand we will install rubber mats in the horse stalls and pour the slab for the storage area.
All our building supplies for the barn are scheduled to be delivered this upcoming Saturday morning. We have scheduled to take a long weekend off work and hopefully can make good progress.
The good thing is we do not have to complete the list right away to have our building plans go to the next stage of review with zoning.
The weather is finally dry and nice out. The last few weeks have been tiring and all about dirt and rocks as we prep the barn foundation. When we excavated the barn foundation we dug up a huge boulder. It is big enough that we couldn't pick it up even with the big rental excavator. When we got rid of the main dirt pile we found it again. Now that we don't have that excavator we have no way to move it other than to push it with the skid steer. The skid steer can push it around a bit but it is much to big to move very far. This made us decide to leave it where it is and build a retaining wall using the rocks we dug up. It is a happy accident! One big boulder made us sit back and evaluate what to do with the back wall of the barn. In the end we now have a flat raised bed area for the chicken coop that covers up much of the ugly foundation wall. In the photos it is difficult to tell the scale of things but the bed on the high end is about 5 ft high (maybe a bit taller) and the larger rocks are about 3 ft high. The big boulder is mostly buried under all that dirt.
The foundation is finally backfilled and the interior is prepped to compact. After we compact the grey sand we will install rubber mats in the horse stalls and pour the slab for the storage area.
All our building supplies for the barn are scheduled to be delivered this upcoming Saturday morning. We have scheduled to take a long weekend off work and hopefully can make good progress.
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