Progress for March 2006

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03/08/06 There has been a fair amount of progress, but it has been slow, and not particularly visible. The basement floor is been formed and there is a base of compacted gravel. There is a vapor barrier that contains an insulating pad that will be about 6-8" down from the top of the slab. The insulation will help with the radiant heating. The floor of the two car garage slopes toward the alley. By the time it gets to the garage door, it is 9 inches down the house floor level. Most garages slope somewhat, but this is more than usual. Recall that we had to move the house 2 feet closer to the alley and 2 feet higher than originally designed. The 9 inches will help somewhat in reducing the slope of our driveway. Today they are finishing up the PEX tubing that will be used for radiant heating in the area of slab to be poured. We are even putting the tubing in the garage, though we won't necessarily try to heat the garage. I think we are just about ready for the inspector to come look at things and then it's time to pour the slab. There will have to be 2 separate pours, as some of the forms from the first pour need to be removed before the second pour can happen. I'm told that the two pours could be done on consecutive days. We just need a few days when it is not raining (such days have been in short supply this winter).

03/28/06 Not a lot of visible progress. These pictures were taken with my phone, so excuse the quality. The basement floor has been poured and is curing. You can really see the slope of the garage floor next to the level shop floor. At this point we could start framing, but the framing sub that our contractor wants to use won't be finished with the previous job for a couple more weeks. We're going to do some other things like run the conduit back to the transformer, pour the supports for the front porch, and maybe start some backfilling. The contractor for the house down the alley has paved the first 40 feet of the alley. We tried to have this wait until after we stopped driving trucks down the alley, but he is not very cooperative.