We now have a pad....

 Last week after the scraping of the vegetation, we were waiting for our fill to be delivered.  But nothing happened during the rest of the week....  Well we didn't go out on Friday or Saturday, and were surprised on Sunday to find a pile of sand on the lot.

It was either 3 or 6 truck loads.  Alese was counting the piles but I was thinking that it took two bumps to empty a load, so each pile only represented half a load.  In any event we had sand, and stakes with the height flagged.

Neither of us believed that there was enough sand to bring the pad up to the required height.









So, on Monday we went back, and we discovered the piles had been spread out, and were at the specified height.  Not only was the sand spread out, it was packed down hard!

Next step, forms for the foundation.

♫ We've Broken Ground ♫

Grub and Grade

April 9 was the day we officially broke ground.  Late afternoon, the back hoe did the grub and grade, taking off all the grass from the pad that will become the foundation.  All the vegetation was dumped along the back of the property line.  

Alese was working, and so was unable to attend the event in person, but I provided her with some live video via Skype, from my iPad.  I was also sending her still images via Voxer over the ~60 minutes the work was done.

Yes, the grubbing does reduce the topography, but we can't build a foundation on grass, and we need to bring in some fill (sand) to get the whole pad up so the foundation will be at 11 feet above sea level. Obviously, we can't just drop fill on top of the existing vegetation.  Now Alese is thinking we should raise the foundation another foot, given the latest UN statement on climate change.

Work done!

Alese has been concerned however, about the overall slope of the land, not wanting the house to appear to be at the top of a mountain, or dune as the case may be.  One of the changes I proposed in the site plan, was to move the start of the driveway closer to the corner of the lot, from where the photo at right was taken, which would make it a bit longer, but that length would allow for a slightly gentler slope.

Survey elevation mark.

Next step -- happens today (4/10) -- we will meet with the builder late afternoon.  A surveyor was in earlier this week, and took an elevation of the corner of the utility box.  That will give Nick the starting point for determining the amount of fill as we lay out the topography.