Day 50 : Three out of four main floor walls are up

This crew is incredible... they worked from dawn today until past sunset. After a long day in the office, we only got up there around 8pm. The guys were still hard at work setting up the south wall.

Only the West wall still missing on the main floor

Master Bathroom corner of the house

From what I have been told, they may have installed the roof trusses by the time we come back from our weekend camping trip. I almost hope that this will not happen before Monday, so that I can watch the trusses being lifted onto the main floor joists.

At any rate, by the end of next week we may have something that looks like a real house!

Day 49 : We have a main floor!

It was a miserable day yesterday with pouring rain basically all day. So we did not bother to check the progress. But today (Tuesday, day 2 of framing work), we were very curious and went to the site again.

What a surprise: the crew installed the outside basement walls, some interior walls and even the main floor. So construction is moving along again and if the pace of framing continues, the structure should resemble a real house within a few days. This is exciting!

Reference photo, 2014-07-28

View from the main floor (master bedroom)

In the lower floor, looking west

Looking into the lower floor area from the southwest corner

Day 45 : Framing material on site

Not much to report for today except that the framing material is on site now, waiting for the big day on Monday...

Day 39 : Basement slab and deck footings poured

The basement slab has been poured on Saturday. They also poured the footings for the porch posts as they could not use the precast ones due to more ledges in the ground.

One big work package is out of the way and the crew can start framing. Our builder told us this will start one week from Monday, so we are about to enter the really exciting phase of construction.  Can't wait for that...

Day 38 : Sub-slab insulation, Utility trench

When we went to the site today, the crew was working on the installing pipes for the utility lines (power, cable/telephone, sewer) from the road to the house site. Quite a few feet of PVC are going into this trench...
The alternative, using a shorter route through the woods would have created lots of headaches due to the ledges there. We also like not having another path clearcut in the woods.

Our builder told us that the basement slab will be poured tomorrow, so we will make an effort to get there and watch if possible. As preparation for that, 4" of rigid foam have been installed on top of the stones. That gives us an extra R-20 insulation value. 

The area of the root cellar has been intentionally left out to keep that room as cool as possible.

Day 34 : Waiting for the basement slab pour, Trusses on site

After some good progress initially, things have slowed down somewhat as we are waiting for the concrete basement slab to be poured (all the pipes are in). Obviously, that company is very busy as it is the peak of the building season. :-(

What else happened during our vacation week? The roof trusses arrived. You can see the main roof truss system in the next photo (the large ones plus the piggyback top ones on the left). 

The bunch on top of the large ones are actually the trusses for the porch. The style is called "scissor truss", so the porch will have kind of a cathedral ceiling!

Also, the pre-cast concrete septic tank/pump station has been delivered and installed. It is not hooked up yet:

Reference Photo 2014-07-14

Day 23 : Foundation work continues

When we went to the site today, the crew was working on the PVC pipes in the foundation. Besides the wastewater lines, the Radon mitigation pipes were also installed.

The outside perimeter of the foundation has been backfilled as well in the last few days.