Basement Wall Started

Friday the 26th our mason started the basement wall. Made pretty good progress for 1 day. What has been completed looks pretty good. The exterior side of the wall had the mortar cleaned nicely just like the inside of the wall. Extra points awarded for that!

 Notch at the top of the wall is for glass block windows.

 My back hurts just looking at all those blocks!

 Notice big gap at back. Hoping to get sunroom caught up with the rest of the basement this coming week. We should get spring flow issue resolved during the week to get footers poured. Going with wider footer and extra rebar just to feel better about the whole thing.

 Buddy testing out his camouflage skills

 Postioning glass block where we would like them put.

Rock & Block

So our basement is coming along with gravel now over the entire floor. The sunroom is still an issue but the main basement is shaping up nicely. Some block has been been delivered and the masons are scheduled to start laying it tomorrow. We'll see how the weather goes.

 

 

We've got power Scottie! Temporary anyways.

And we need that power for a temp sump pump for the sunroom mess!

Back corner of sunroom showing where spring bubbles through (higher part). We dug a temp sump pit for the water to drain and pump out to keep it from becoming a pond again until the Soil Engineer came down earlier today. We got final thumbs up on what to do proceed with sunroom and have it waranteed by Wayne Homes. Everyone is all warm and fuzzy again - especially my wife for getting to keep her favorite part of the house!

 

 

 

Nice to stand in our basement without wearing high mud boots!

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: