Finished Grading, Footings, Plumbing, and Water

Building a house is a great exercise in learning to let go. Let go of control. Let go of perfection. It's never going to be perfect and I really have no control. No matter how hard I try to control things so that there are not any problems, problems arise. I'm learning to accept them and move on. Keep moving forward. What's done is done. A master class in Zen.

Some pictures of the progress so far thanks to my amazing team of dedicated workers:

All the dirt that got dug out is being put back in.

New dirt being brought in to build the house pad up. The height of the house was decided by my drainage and grading engineer. There is some height to prevent the house from flooding from rain runoff and it looks a bit awkward from places because my neighbor's property to the north is much higher than my neighbor to the south.

Smoothing it out

 The hole made from the soil test

Finished. Just to get dug up again for footings and plumbing.

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Spray painting house outline and footings (cement frame in the ground to support the foundation and load bearing walls)

Digging out the  house edges for footings. Royelio (in blue) is in charge of the concrete work.

Digging trenches for drain plumbing. Water in trench was from heavy rain.

 Digging to attach drain to sewer

Brother plumbers, Joel and Jose

Water main line. Bottom to top: fire sprinklers (bottom left), garden sprinklers (right), pressure regulator and house water (top)

Water line from meter

"Pass" sticker for plumbing from city inspector

Grading Begins & Independence Day

Grading started this morning. I'm having the graders dig up the dirt extra deep where the new house will sit because there was a house on this lot years ago and there might be things underground that could cause settling problems for the new house or sink holes...like a septic system or a pool that wasn't properly demolished, etc. So going this deep insures I have a solid base to build up the pad for the foundation.

 Watering the lot to control dust. In Arizona's Maricopa County, you must have a dust permit if you are going to disturb more than 4,356 sq feet of dirt.  The lot is over 20,000 sq feet, so I needed a permit. Getting the permit was another application that was about 20 pages long and has strict instructions for controlling dust. The permit is $795 and is valid for up to a year. The main way to control the dust is water. Lots and lots of water!

By the afternoon...

Staking and ...

The sewer is almost finished. They just need to patch the street. Water meter is in and street patched. The man who is in charge of pouring my cement foundation, Roy, was out to stake the corners of the house for the grading company. Applied for a county dust permit on Thursday (an intimidating 12 page application) and received the permit via email that same evening. Very impressive! There can be up to a two week wait. Should have a date soon to start grading. Went to another window company (Weather Shield & Semco) appointment on Friday and should have a bid next week sometime. I'm still not sure on color.

I received a letter from a neighbor concerned about his property becoming flooded from my property's runoff because my property is higher than his and also somewhat sloping toward his property. Replied to him explaining a bit about the grading plan and, hopefully, easing his mind a bit. It's probably going to be very annoying for all my neighbors, in the coming months, to live next to a construction site and it's important for me to keep the peace with my new neighborhood. This may prove to be quite a challenge.

Permanent sewer access lid

Water Meter

Roy, staking the corners.

Windows

When the slab is poured it's time to order the windows so I've been looking around and getting window quotes. A couple of the main brands that are front runners are, Windsor Windows and Weather Shield. I was going to use the cinnamon colored (more like a rust) windows on the street side of the house and then a bronze or black on the rest, but the more I see homes with the cinnamon windows the more I start thinking I might want the whole house to have the cinnamon color.

Here's a house in the neighborhood that has the cinnamon windows. Love the color of the house and roof tiles too.

Another

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The windows and doors have a pine interior and an aluminum exterior. Here are some examples. The new great room will have three12x8foot, 4 panel, doors. The rest of the windows will be double hung, fixed picture, and casement. Some examples of the patio doors...

 windsor

weather shield

Folding doors would be gorgeous, but would blow the budget through the roof!