There has been a lot of work on our new lot, but it’s hard to see the difference from the last time. Some large piles of dirt and roots have been hauled off. The rough outlines of the house and garage have been marked; the bulldozer operator (who works for neighbor John) put plastic drink cups on the stakes so he could see them more easily. You might be able to see them here.
It was quite cold Sunday morning when I took these pictures, so I gave the dogs a short walk down Lavender Trail, across Fouche Gap Road, and then up the other side of the gap. When you reach the end of the road, you can see our lot.
You can see the red dirt, the wheat straw that was scattered to hold some grass seed, and the light-colored gravel that neighbor John spread on what will become the drive. The tree we saved is right in front of the gravel.
From the lot, we’ll be able to keep track of what’s going up at the end of the road where I was standing.
There is a bit of extracurricular activity at the turnaround. It’s fairly secluded, so some innocuous and not so innocuous behaviors take place there.
The major development is the delivery of our house plans. This is a draft of the main floor plan.
The house will end up not oriented precisely with the compass points, mainly to take advantage of the view, but I think we’ll still get some decent solar gain in the winter. This is the drafter’s conversion of my self-drawn plan into a computer drawing. She told me that if we lived in the same county where she lives, my hand-drawn plans would have sufficed with the inspection department.
We lack two items for a building permit. One is a site plan, which should have already been supplied by the surveyor. It will show the lot and the location of the house with respect to the property lines, so we can demonstrate that we meet the setback requirement. The surveyor has done his work. He was supposed to have delivered the plan more than a week ago. I can’t understand why people will do work and then procrastinate and delay their own payment.
The second item is soil testing for the septic system. There are apparently few soil testers in this area, so I was pretty much dependent on one man. He was supposed to have contacted me several days ago, but has not done so. He seems to have plenty of work. I assume he will be more prompt when it comes to getting paid for his work.
Looks like great progress there. Pretty exciting to have those plans done. Which way is the view? I’m going to guess the best sights will be out the living room and master bed windows. It’s going to be so cool to see your first shots through those windows!
If we were going to have perc test done here, we’d have to wait until spring, I’m afraid. The soil is frozen solid at least six inches deep. Of course, I’m no perc expert: since the septic leach field will have to be installed below the freezing line, perhaps the perc testing would be done on much deeper (and, hence) unfrozen soil.
Robin — You’re right, the view will be out the front of the house, so living room and bedroom. I look forward to it.
Scott — They don’t do perc tests in this area of the county. The soil test consists of taking cores to some depth and then identifying the soil types. I had a guy out a couple of days ago. Unfortunately, he called me later and said he hit rock everywhere he took a sample. Now he has to bring out a backhoe and dig to see whether the rock is bad enough to require an alternative septic system (that is, an alternative to the regular, gravity fed type). I hope not, because alternative systems are considerably more expensive. So far, everything about this house project is costing a lot more than I anticipated, even with my experience building our current house.
It’s good to see that you have a spare bedroom for me when I visit.
Pablo — Come on down anytime. Bring the grandkid.