Rough start...

Started our dig Monday the 15th. We were 1 week behind due to heavy rains the week before.

Calamity didn't wait long to strike as we hit a natural spring while digging our sun room. By Thursday we had the footer poured in the main basement area but have not poured anything at the sun room location. The water from the spring has made it a muck pit. Still discussing options on what to do but may lose the sun room altogether (will be very disappointing). The condition of the dig all week was very wet and sloppy in the basement. Hopefully it doesn't cause future issues with the footers that were poured but everyone is pretty sure they will be fine. Our neighbors graciously allowed us to trench our gravity drain across a small section of their property to get it dumping into a big ravine. Big plus on that one!

 One shiny new electric pole in the distance.

back sun room (swamp) with some useless gravel at the moment.

Garage footer trench into main basement

Garage area.

New electric service installed.

Buddy guarding vehicles.

Me wondering what kind of fish to stock in my new expensive pond.

Footer forms laid up around the garage.

Basement forms going in.

Roman Aqueduct. (Get the idea I hate water now?)

basement footers poured (minus Sun room).

Buddy contemplating a new career path.

Footer drain pipes in place. Need gravel.

Buddy and a porta potty. 2 of my favorite things!

Almost ready to dig the basement!

So our excavator has done an amazing job on our sloped lot making a flat area for the house. The plan is start the basement dig on the 8th. Of course that requires Ohio weather to play ball - we'll see.

Tonight my wife had her first coffee in our new sun room!

Can you dig it baby?

Broke ground yesterday on the lot prep. Gotta love the smell of dirt in the morning! Certainly fun to watch a big dozer doing it's work. Stay tuned for more!

Loan closed - Ready to start soon!

We closed on our loan yesterday so it's official! Weather permitting, our excavator should be starting the lot prep in 2-3 weeks. Can't wait to see that dirt moving!

So after a long delay, we have found a new property to build on and have gone through the whole process again. Bank's appraiser has given the green light and we should be closing our loan on Feb 25th. My excavator will then be starting the lot prep sometime in March so if anyone is still following this, I'll post pictures along the way.

And through the magic of Photoshop, this is what our house will look like on the lot:

Appraisal Woes!

Just found out the appraisal for our loan came in significantly under the amount we need to build. The culprit was the lot we chose. With several additional development costs beyond the standard lot (massive tree removal, slope excavation, and sewer "impact fee"), the appraiser couldn't justify all the extra expense. We can't justify all of it either to just pay the difference on top of a large down payment.

No fault of the bank and certainly no fault of Wayne Homes. The appraiser was fine with the cost of the house itself.

Back to lot hunting. I know better what to watch out for next time to avoid this appraisal issue.

To be continued....

Preconstruction Meeting

Yesterday was our Preconstruction meeting.
Very long day for us but very worth it. Meeting our Field Manager was good. I think we're going to get along very well over the course of our build. After the lot meeting it was back to the main office.
Most of the time was spent going over changes we wanted to house and colors we had picked previously. We also made final changes to options/upgrades.
We determined our PPI amounts and now our lender should get the final numbers so we can set an official closing date. Getting excited!!