It's been awhile since I have had a chance to post and there is a ton to report. This spring has been super busy and we have a lot of good news to share. In early spring we were waiting for a bit of red tape to be cleared on several projects. Finally, things have started working out for us and we are back to being super excited to make progress. When the builder decided to indefinitely postpone our build we were trying to roll with the punches as all our plans were flipped upside down. We put on a good face but we were bummed and defeated. All that hard work for the past three years and just when we got to the point we were expecting the builder to come and put up the shell.... COVID. The year 2020 is only half over and it is truly a weird one.
Most of our spring has been doing what is essentially large scale yard work. Brush hogging, tree removal, rock removal and general property clean up. It all needs to be done but doesn't help us move in. It does keep us busy and still moving forward towards a finished landscaped property instead of raw land. Since my last post even more brush hogging and tree removal have happened. I won't go into all of it but here is the biggest change.
Mr. Dometastic took a photo each time we cut down each tree and then made a little video. To watch it click HERE.
We decided to remove this line of trees that block our view of the fields below from what will be our large 18 foot sliding glass wall. Doing it now means we can add stump removal to the list of projects for when we rent another mini excavator for our septic installation.
Our biggest piece of good news is builder related. We had a phone call with them and (they think) they will be able to start at the end of the summer! They weren't definite but even if it gets pushed to fall we will be happy. This means that our overall timeline has been rearranged but not delayed as much as we thought. We should have an enclosed building to work in over the winter! This is a huge relief!
Our phone call also gave us some direction on what we can do to keep moving forward. This summer we will concentrate on installing the septic, having the underground propane tank installed, installing the generator and doing even more of the rough electrical prep and rough plumbing that goes under slab. We made sure to double check with the builders on anything that might be in their way if we try to do projects a bit out of the normal order of things.
With this good news were are able to get started right away on the under slab stuff. Originally the builders wanted us to wait to put risers in for all of the plumbing and electrical. That's why we just buried the long runs last fall. The riser pipes get in the way during the messy shell construction process. They make it difficult to drag hoses around, get in the way of the lifts and make the clean up of off spray much harder. They suggested a compromise to help us keep moving forward without adding too much difficulty to shell construction. We installed the risers but just barely to the surface.
They will still have to work around them but if we dump fill around them to make mounds they shouldn't snag the hoses. This past month we spent many hours of hand digging down to the long runs we buried last fall but that part is done. Putting in more rough plumbing means we had to do another water pressure test. This required us to dig the exit pipe back out of the fill we just put against the straight wall. Most of this digging was thankfully with the skid steer!
We knew we would eventually have to dig all this up but didn't expect to be doing it right away. The good news is there were no leaks and we passed our inspection. We still need to work on the electrical conduit. In prep for electrical, we painted out all the lines for the walls. This was a fun exercise that made us make a few adjustments to the size of some areas in the master suite and our kitchen pantry.
Last post I showed our utility trench project that extends the utilities at the barn to the house. We haven't made any progress on it due to more red tape in regards to the propane tank installation. Our friend recommended we choose a propane company to work with and get their input on how we ran the propane line. We installed a conduit through the foundation specifically for the propane feed.
The propane conduit is the 2 inch line on the left in this photo.
The installer we picked came out to look and let us know that code only lets you go into the house through the foundation if it is a commercial building. Residential buildings have to have the feed come through above ground. So that means it can go through our conduit but it has to come above ground, through the shell of the dome, back down inside the living space to go under the slab. This seemed incredibility silly to us but we also don't want an exploding floor. It has to go through the wall of the dome shell (also concrete) and under the concrete slab. The change would be, exposed conduit on the exterior and interior of the house before it goes under the slab. The installer said it has something to do with being able to detect a leak. He didn't know why detecting a leak is not important in a commercial building.... I asked. The installer tried contacting the town for direction since our house is an unusual situation. He couldn't get a clear answer and was getting sent from department to department.
It seems no one in the town he talked to knew how to answer the question. He was getting no where, so we decided to wait for our plumbing inspection and ask the inspectors familiar with our project. We are still not sure what the code actually says (we think that the rule is for homes with a basement) but the inspector listened to us, doubled checked the code and said installing it the way we planned was fine. We are going to put in a special upgrade pipe inside the conduit to reduce the risk of a leak but it seems worth it to us. We had an alternate plan if it had to come above ground but luckily we don't have to change anything.
The surveyor came out and staked out our septic leach field and tank location.
These two flags are one end of the leach field trenches. If you look close you can see the other end 80 feet in the distance.
He then resolved the paperwork issues with the health department. I received the letter from the health department that we are approved for the septic and then submitted a permit to construct. That's when we realized our septic installation was going to be super expensive. The plan calls for special septic approved fill used to raise the leach field. We knew the plan called for raising the area, we just weren't prepared for the cost of the fill. The plan calls for the leach field area, which is about 12 feet wide by 80 feet long, to be raised and flattened 2 feet with the fill. Apparently this is the most expensive fill you can buy. It costs about $600 a truck load. If we follow the plan exactly it means about $12,000 (I am being conservative) of special dirt in addition to the stone required in the trenches. That is just dirt... then there is the cost of everything else.
Now for the good news to counter the extra special dirt problem. We spent some time talking to the health department and to our soil engineer. They came up with a different plan that eliminates the need for the special fill. This is a huge relief! We then met with the Sanitarian on site to ask questions and iron out exactly what we would need to do during the construction. We have gotten the go ahead from him to start as soon as we like and we will be receiving the approved construction permit.
Now that we have managed to cut through all the red tape in our various projects we are able to schedule a one week mini excavator rental to dig a long list of projects. The next 2 weeks will be full of ordering supplies needed to get things going the week of July 1st. Until then we still have trees to cut and under slab electrical conduit to run.
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