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11/1/05 A rainy day. They got the forms off of the first 4 feet of wall. Next it needs to be waterproofed and backfilled. Since they can't waterproof it while it is wet, they covered it with plastic to keep dry. Rain is forcast for the next 3 days, though on the morning of 11/2 as I write this, it is not currently raining. Maybe the waterproofing will make it on today.
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11/5/05 Several days have gone by, There has been some rain, which has slowed things down. I spent some time on Wednesday installing the web camera at the site. I let one of Robert's guys handle the ladder part. I attached the camera to a 4x4 and we lag screwed that 4x4 to the 6x6 of the temporary power pole. There is a box at the bottom of the pole which contains a cable modem, a router, and 3 power supplies. The plywood over the top is mostly for a sun shade since the camera points due south. The waterproofing is on the back of the wall. It's a little hard to see, but it is a black tar-like substance with a layer of fiberglass on top of it. The concrete was hard enough to back fill on Friday, but the alley was too slippery from the rain to allow the truck to get to the site. They brought in 3 or 4 truckloads of stone to pave the alley and the east side of the site. Current plans are to back fill on Monday. They have formed up the next footing but will pour it when they do the next 4 feet of the wall.
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11/7/05 Lots of rain over the weekend. Today it is snowing. Not much white on the ground at this site, but other friends around town have significant accumulation. The excavation guy came back and spread more stone on the level part of the site. It will have to be dug up for the foundation, but is necessary to get the truck onto the site to back fill the wall. You can see the truck with the conveyor belt. It can throw stone around 30 feet, but for today, it's just going a short distance to fill behind the wall. On the closeup, you can see the end of the drain pipe. It is a 4" PVC pipe with periodic holes in the bottom that removes water from around the footing.
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11/8/05 Weather was a whole lot nicer today. The concrete sub was there forming up for the next 4 feet of the uphill wall. The got the plywood attached to the outside of the wall and spent most of the day extending the rebar that is sticking out of the first 4 feet. It appears that they turned off the power when they left, shutting down the webcam. My quick attempt to turn it back on didn't get it working, and we're going to be out of town until Sunday night, so this is the last update you will get until next week.
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11/11/05 We're out of town. Today they poured the next section of wall and the footing for the front. The brought in a concrete pump. I suspect they mainly needed it for the wall, but it came in handy when pouring the footing as well. Here are a couple of pictures from the webcam that were taken when the concrete truck was there. I've also made it easier to look through the big pictures by allowing you to go directly from one to the next without having to come back to the home page.
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11/16/05 We got back to town and found a new hole in the back of our lot. The city electrical folks need to put in a transformer to support our house and the one two doors down the alley. The builders of the other house agreed to put in the transformer vault and said that they would put it in the back corner of our lot. When I looked at the placement, it was too far from the property line. I got them to move it. The painted box is the new location. On Monday, they waterproofed the back of the uphill wall (second 4 foot lift). On Wednesday, they came and back filled it with gravel. Later this week the builders of the other house will tear up the alley, and we'll spend the time building the forms for the rest of the uphill wall and for the front wall.
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11/18/05 They stripped the forms from the second lift of the uphill wall and started putting up the forms for the front wall. The hope is to pour some time next week. The contractor for the project down the alley is doing major work on the alley for about a week. First, he was kind enough to scrape some of our stone into a pile on our property. It will come in handy when it starts raining again. Now they are digging up the alley to put in a storm drain and to run conduit back to the transformer vault in the corner of the yard.
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11/28/05
A lot of time has gone by without a whole lot of progress to show. The second lift of the uphill wall got backfilled. The city came by to replace the water meter. Since we're going to have a sprinkler system in the house, we need a one inch water main instead of the 3/4 inch one that was already there. They started by cutting the pavement of the street with a diamond saw. The neighbors finished a long trench in the alley and ran conduits for power, telephone, and cable TV (two competing systems). They will have to dig it up again soon to finish the storm drain, but that isn't as deep a trench. The forms for the front wall and the last lift of the uphill wall have been almost completely finished. They should be poured some time later this week. It's my understanding that after they are done, we'll start in the back corner and work toward the street with the rest of the foundation walls.
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