Day One

Day One was a stressful day for David. The "subcontractor administrator" didn't have the latest foundation plan, so there was some confusion as to what needed to be done. Luckily, with David working on-site, most of the problems were sorted out. It looks like we're getting a better foundation than what was drawn - the footers for the porch columns are now tied into the rest of the foundation. That will cost in materials (concrete, rebar, and ICF blocks, and possibly labor), but it's never a bad thing to have a stronger foundation. David did stop the crew before they dug a trench for the center beam running in the middle of the house. That will be dug in the fill dirt later.

We thought that they would use a back-hoe to dig the footings, but they did it by hand. So much for the clause in our contract that there will be an english speaking worker on-site at all times during construction. But they did a great job - 200' or so dug in one day, plus they hit a couple of tree stumps that we didn't know about.

David was hoping that the foundation would be above the septic pipes - no luck. So he spent this evening running between Home Depot and Lowes purchasing pipes to rerun the septic, and he'll be renting a back hoe in the morning.

This has happened so quickly that we have not been able to purchase the rebar for the project. Our contractor is supposed to be getting us contractor's pricing at a local lumber yard, but that hasn't happened yet. Hopefully they'll be able to "borrow" rebar from another site tomorrow and David won't be scrambling to supply rebar in between the septic work.