The Waters Receded
At last, Noah’s Ark has found dry ground! We have officially poured concrete! Mother nature gave us a run for our money though. Per my last blog, we had just finished installing the radiant heat for the garage and were awaiting inspection, which we passed! The concrete trucks rolled in shortly after and surprise, surprise, it rained that afternoon. Luckily, a majority of the day was crazy hot, so the rain had no impact on us. The garage was complete!
We very quickly started prepping for pour #2, which is the ground level of the house. Kris leveled the dirt after the rain dried up, and we started putting in the insulation board. When we took it out after the flood, we numbered all the pieces and made a map so we could easily put them right back in. Obviously the water did more damage than we thought, because NONE of the pieces fit back in the way they came out! All the best laid plans. Boo! At least the sun was out. We eventually got all the pieces in and had to set buckets of rocks on top to flatten out the warped mess. As Kris worked on installing the radiant heat manifolds, I had the fun task of taping all the insulation board together. We were now in the 90’s and though I wanted to complain about how hot it was, I just kept saying, “I love all this hot sun! Bring it on!” in hopes of not angering mother nature. Deep down inside I was cooking to death and actually had to push the tape down with gloves on because it was burning my fingers! Is it possible to maybe have an in between temperature???
Once the manifolds were in and we got all the rebar and steel grid work done and secured, it was time to install the tubing. By this point it was getting dark, so we opted to get up at the crack of dawn to install the tubing and hope the inspector comes in the afternoon as we requested. We were back at it at 6am and were MUCH faster this go around with the tubing. A word of advice though if you ever want to install your own radiant heat, that tubing it crazy heavy and at 6am, it’s super cold and stiff! It was all we could do to bend it to fit where we needed it. My forearms were swollen and bruised just from holding the large rolls and trying to feed it to Kris! Oh, and even though we were fast, the inspector showed up at 9am!! We were super close to being finished and since he had already seen the garage a few days prior, he knew we were going to properly finish and signed off on our inspection! For a moment we could slow down and breathe!
Just kidding! There was no time for breathing when we found out our concrete crew wanted to come in 3 hours instead of the next day! Ack!! Back to work finishing up the tubing install, hooking it up to pressure test, put in the thermostats, wrap the plumbing…and anything else we needed to tidy up before the pour. We were just finishing up as the concrete trucks rolled in and before we knew it, the huge nightmare of pouring concrete was over! No more tarps and no more hauling buckets of muddy water. Hallelujah!!! Kris and I are still physically recovering from the last few months though.
Now we get everything cleaned up and we move to the framing stage! As we began getting our lumber order ready, we get a call from the septic crew saying they’re ready to start our project! Ummm, ok let’s do it! The highly recommended father-son team showed up bright and early the next day and dove right in. I had no clue how extensive this septic system was! They dug trenches and holes everywhere! We were completely amazed at their precision and speed. Guess that’s why they came so highly recommended. In 2 days they were done and passed inspection! Wow! Now for lessons on how to maintain this beast of a system. First, we learned how to check the tank to see when it needs emptying. As you’ll see in our pictures, it’s highly recommended that you do NOT climb into the septic tank as you might die! Haha! Are there really people out there that feel the need to climb into an in-use septic tank?? That rule seems pretty easy for me to remember! Second, rinsing the filter once a year. Kris has informed me that it’ll be my job to maintain what I call the poo filter! Umm, I hope he reads my blog, because he’ll find out that job is actually going to be his! Sorry honey! I’m pretty sure I’m gonna be really busy that day….every year! Lastly, we will need to occasionally monitor the water flow to the leach field, which seems pretty easy. Perhaps I’ll volunteer for that job!
Now we’re ready for framing! The lumber is ordered, the roof trusses were delivered last week, the steel is on it’s way and we are actually looking to have a framed house within the next month! It seems almost surreal still. Things are at last cruising along! Even though the fast pace is stressful in it’s own way, we are very ready to see this house turn into a home!
*Check out all the craziness of the last month on our House tab!