11/14 - Drain Tile Laid and Basement Dug

Rob joined us late in the afternoon to visit the job site and check on progress. He took these great pictures. Thanks Rob!

So what has changed from the weekend? They have laid the plastic drain tile on top of the gravel septic drainfield and covered it with straw.

Checking out the progess.

Here is the proud couple standing in front of their new septic field, complete with tile. Does it get any more romantic than this?


Septic drain tile is in.

They also dug the basement. How exciting to see a hole in the ground! The first sign of progress on the actual house.



Rob shot this picture while stainding in the basement excavation facing west. Len is pointing out the west-most part of the hole where the root cellar will be under the front porch.

Len points out the root cellar.

While we were there we did a little trail maintenance. Mar bought Len a heavy-duty 4 wheel wagon for his birthday. That was loaded up with the chain saw, brush wacker, lopping shears, etc. It was late enough in the afternoon that the light was failing, so the picture is a bit blurry.



And with this post I am completely caught up on old progress. The next post will be current info when we stop by sometime over Thanksgiving weekend.

11/10 - Septic Drain Field Dug and Backfilled

On Wed. (11/8) they dug out the septic drainfield. It turned out that the sand was at 16.5 ft instead of the expected 13.5 ft. For some reason that we still have not heard, the size of the field had to be increased from 1600 sq ft to 1800. Just more money poured into a hole in the ground. They backfilled with gravel on Thursday or Friday. We went out and looked on Sat. Thank you to our intrepid photographer Marlene.


More heavy equipment!
Guarding the gravel?

10/31 - Well Drilled

After having lunch with Heather and John in Flint, Becca and Alex drove down and checked out progress with us. We arrived just as the well driller was leaving. they found water at 80 or 90 feet. They were able to pump it out at 120 - 125 gal/min. The average house uses 10 - 15 gal/min, so we have a great flow rate.

These were some BIG trucks.
This is the 5 inch well casing, capped for now.
From a different angle.

Becca and Alex joined us as we walked the loop in the woods.

Becca and Alex in the woods.
Compacting the driveway after the big trucks.

Thank you to Marlene for some great photos.

10/26 - Driveway Construction

Rob and I stopped by on 10/26 to check on progress. We were treated to the sight of heavy equipment at work.

Another load of gravel arrives, ...
... gets dumped ...
... and gets smoothed and compacted.

It was amazing to see how far a double-bottom gravel hauler load of gravel goes. It seems like a huge quantity until it gets dumped and leveled out. I think the driveway only grew 20 or 30 feet from this load.

It actually looks like a driveway!
Rob checks out the work as the edge gets scuplted.

Too bad there was real work to be done back home. I could have watched them all day and enjoyed it.

10/17 - Clearing for the Driveway and House

This is the first in a series of posts to get caught up on the project.

A month ago, 10/17 to be exact, a crew came out and cleared the brush and a few trees from the land where the driveway, house and septic field will be located. Marlene and I were thrilled that some visible step of progress had actually been taken.

The driveway will go here.
The house goes here.
And they left us the wood chips for the paths through the forest.
One of the prettier trees this fall.