My House: Weeks 3-6 of Reconstruction

I skipped a few weeks of updates (Week 1 and Week 2). Why? Nothing intentional but things slowed down as holidays occurred (Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Years, Hanukkah and more) and we had a few record breaking cold weeks with ice storms that made it unsafe for crews to work outside without risks to their health and safety.

Relevant but we are still working on the foundation. Week 2 from 11/22 before Thanksgiving focused on excavation and dropping some trees. Well, a lot has happened since then:

• The Redi-Rock wall was completed yielding a 650 square foot patio that we did not have before
• The pavers were placed but the sand that keeps them all straight has not been done
• basement copper for our propane was replaced with black iron and organized to support a propane dryer, stove, on demand hot water heater, forced hot air furnace and our propane tank was relocated
• The foundation was fully dug out and they DID hit ledge so we had a $4,000 overage in our contingency that had to be tapped for a crew to hammer at it for a full day and get us the space we need
• Footings were poured on the 11×40 foot addition
• Walls were poured, some 9 feet tall and some 11 feet tall due to the slope of our property
• Drainage was completed, rubber / asphalt was sprayed onto the exterior walls for sealant and drainage went back to the underground piping that goes to our culvert
• Vapor barrier and insulation for the slab was put in place
• Shaping of the rear yard was completed and some backfill against the foundation walls was done
• A new culvert was added in the back yard draining out to the seasonal brook
• Prep was performed for perimeter fencing and a 10×16′ gravel pad for the back yard shed

It doesn’t feel like much for 4 weeks but given we didn’t get 2 weeks of progress due to below zero temps, holidays and ice storms, it’s pretty good. I just green lite a $100,000 or so payment to my general contractor so that means we’ve hit $117,000 spent and therefore 25% of our $450,000 budget and the bank has ordered an inspection but the building inspect is happy and we’re happy even if the project is about 2 weeks behind schedule but that’s just winter-things.

Here are the last 4 weeks of Videos:

Here are some photos from oldest to newest since the last update:

Here are some iPhone photos of the last week that are not on Flickr:

What’s next? The next week (January 5th – 11th) should be pretty exciting. The temperatures will start cold and get warmer by end and week peaking in the 40s but my GC has big plans. They’ll build the 2nd floor deck over the poured concrete, heat and tarp the space for a 4″ slab pour on what will be my garage along with cutting a hole to enable access from the basement to the garage. They’ll be pulling off the solar panels, beginning the 200 amp service upgrade and I hope finishing the pavers out front with the warmer temps.

The week after, they are hoping to yank off the roof, demo the front wall and put on a new truss system and once that happens, things will speed up with crews working daily to make this into a home. We’re still aiming for a March completion date with everything but the rear shed, fencing, grass and landscaping and finally a new asphalt driveway by April. Winter means we’ll have snow until April but most of it will be melted by then so we can have grass seed growing strong by May.

I do hope to keep these updates as weekly but the track record isn’t looking great at the moment.