Septic/Cement truck/window situation - now

We got home from Brown County and went to the house site. Scott has been working on the septic system. And Dave became very concerned. A porch is going in, in front of that area you see in the middle of the picture, and in another area you cannot see.

A cement truck has to get to that area, and the only way for it to get there, is to run over the septic lines. Now, the septic lines will be buried, quite deep actually, but Dave was concerned that they would crack anyway. I told him that I told all three people about the septic and the cement truck schedule. I told the septic guy, the cement guy, and the framers. No one thought it was a big deal.




Except Dave.

And he worried. And at 1:00 a.m. (Sat night/Sun morning) I finally said, "everything we have worried about so far has been fine. They know what they are doing, we don't know what they are doing, so don't worry about it." He finally called the septic guy Sunday evening....because he was also very concerned about this.....

see all this dirt....follow the pipe to the clearing that we made for the septic 'fingers'.

It looks like this. And now that there are septic fingers in there, we were afraid we'd never get this area smoothed out again because you wouldn't be able to go over it with any equipment. And it's a big area. So when Dave talked to Scott, he said you have to leave it that way through the winter, let the soil settle, then he will come back and go over it with a machine that he has that smooths it out in the spring. Phew.....
nothing to worry about, right? Wrong....he had to change those windows.....

What windows? Well, when he was worrying about the septic/cement truck situation, I was standing in front of the kitchen window. The one that goes above the sink. And it just didn't feel right. You can see the opening in the top picture on this post. The window felt too high. But who am I to know, just the person who will be standing in front of it every day for the rest of my life! I asked Dave about it. There was nothing on the print to show how high it should be. So, we came home, measured my window height I have now over my sink. Then we looked up the 'typical' height in a book we borrowed from the library, then went back and measured the window height. About four inches too high. So, Dave spent part of Sunday re-doing that window. Problem is, he changed the bottom so it would be lower, but now, we have to decide.....bigger window or smaller window. Because when you move the bottom, you change the size of the opening. The new opening is now 40 inches. That particular window comes in 36 and 42. And should we change the other window in the kitchen to match, or leave it as is? If we leave it, then they will be different heights and it will show, especially at the top of the window, so Dave spent Monday after working changing that window too, then resizing the top of the window to make them both bigger. The reason Dave did the work rather than the framers is because this detail was not on the prints, so it's not the framers fault. The windows are fine now. I'll talk about the door later.......We're ready to go back to Brown County!

Cindy

Dirt/Basement framing/septic fingers-Now

Mom & Dad came out one day last week. I know she is thinking....

who is going to clean this mess up?

This is a huge pile of dirt in the front yard.

It looks like the basement is going to stick way up out of the ground.

I was very nervous about the way it was going to look from the street.

We just need to relax with it all. They fixed it. That's why they had those piles of dirt.
Basement framing

This will be a bathroom/laundry room.

I took this pic standing on top of the basement roof (or main floor) looking into the basement.
Those are the I-Joists they were carrying last week.

This is going to be my food pantry/root cellar.

Looking from the basement out through the I-Joists

Stairs from the basement to the main level.

This is part of the "fingers" to the septic system. There are five fingers, which takes up a lot of room and took out a lot of trees. Sad about the trees.

He stands on the finger to make sure it is solid on the ground, which has been leveled. Then he covers it with soil. You can only use this type of system if you have good elevation and very well drained soil. We're fortunate, in more ways than one.

Cindy