Setbacks

I had every intention of getting this put together and posted yesterday,

but as they say...

"The best laid plans of mice and men often go awry".

There is much to tell about the happenings of the week of 

September 23rd through 28th here at The Bungalow.

Let's get started, shall we?

Dave got several floor joists set.

And then...
our inspector came out to see if Dean's work on the rough plumbing was up to snuff.
It was, of course, and passed with flying colors.
However, when he was here he took a look at the floor joists, and although he didn't need to at that time, he called our attention to a few things - two of those things being a bit frustrating and the third being nothing short of thrilling.

Frustrating thing #1.
Inspector Mike said we needed load-bearing microlam headers
over the windows in the east foundation wall.
Dean emailed our engineer because this detail was not specified in our engineering plans.
The engineer said that we only needed microlam headers over the larger, north-east egress window;
the smaller windows are fine. That was good news because Dave
already had the joists down over the smaller window, but not the egress window.
So, I guess we were only held up a little on this one, but the thought of taking out two
floor joists to correct the issue was a bit unnerving.

Frustrating thing #2.
We'd secured all the plating with 2" washers on the foundation bolts. Inspector Mike said they needed to be 3". We checked the engineering plans and, sure enough, the specs called for 3". We'd just assumed the washers that came with the J-bolts could be used.
This meant that the floor joist on the south end of the house that was already installed had to come off.
*grumble*grumble*grumble*
So, I went out and bought 97 new washers and Mr & Me changed 'em out in the dark that night;
well, all of them except for the south and north ends, which needed to be counter-sunk
and the counter-sink holes needed to be made bigger.
They're all done now.

The third item that Inspector Mike brought to our attention was that the header for the
basement hall could be hung up, INSIDE the joists with joists hangers instead of
between the two stud walls on either side. This means that we have a flush ceiling transition
into and out of the hallway INSTEAD of a head clearance of only 6 feet and 4 inches!
Dave had installed it correctly, but didn't know we had this other option. I was SO THRILLED.
I told Inspector Mike that if we both weren't married I give him a big, giant smooch for
letting us know we could get rid of that low spot.
He didn't have to let us know - he wasn't here for that.
Dave undid his original work, removing the header and, with help from his son Michael,
re-installed it in the floor joists above. I'm still giddy  over the fact that we won't have
that drop in the basement ceiling, which is already low to begin with.
If you go back to the first photo you can see the second installation of
that beam just above the blue ladder. It makes me SO HAPPY.

Moving right along...
I helped Dean with some final rough plumbing connections, setting the slope for it and
getting it all buried. He then wet it down real well to get it to settle and compact.
I'd show you a photo of the pipes sticking up out of the dirt down there in the basement,
but it's dark and I don't have one so you'll have to use your imagination or just take my word for it.

And....

our favorite excavator team came back to fill in our mote system
and level out our garage floor.

And they brought in several loads of rock and road base.

They also laid the conduit for our electricity hookup, tore out the ancient concrete pathway to the front porch and took out the old, tired, overgrown shrubs in the front beds.

Can I just say again how wonderful it is not to have to hike up and over that huge 

mound of dirt or around the motes to get to our vehicles or the mailbox. 

It's awesome. 

In fact, we can even park "in" our garage! 

There are no walls, of course, but we can park in it. 

YAY.

Okay.
It's late.
Let's wind this up.

On Saturday Mr rented a mini track-hoe to dig for the deck roof footing,
the front gable footings and the basement window wells.

YES, of course, he had FUN "playing with" little excavator.
However,
he dug up a couple of
"surprises"
 and not the good kind of surprises.

As he was digging just under the north-east basement window where the
old furnace/storage room was he hit metal!
Heavy metal.
About a foot underground he discovered a large, steel box about 5 feet long
by 2 1/2 feet wide by about 3 1/2 feet deep!
It was full of liquid.
Turns out, it was the oil cistern for the original oil-burning furnace in the house.
That explained the odd copper tubing coming into the house on that wall that Dean hadn't understood.
The old tank had been there since the house was built in '55, but probably hadn't been used in over 25 years. It apparently still had a bit of kerosene still in it, but is mostly it's full of water.
So, we've got to figure out what to do with the contents and get a larger machine to
pick it out of the ground because, even if were empty, the thing weighs a ton.



When he went to dig out the footings for the front gable and porch overhang support,
he found that the old, concrete front porch had a 3 foot foundation wall.
We were not expecting that.
The foundation wall sits right on top of the location for the footing.
It's not a minor complication.

When the sun went down Saturday evening and it was too dark to work anymore and Mr was just too worn-out anyway, he was disappointed that we hadn't gotten more done than we had. He thought we'd have all the window wells in place by then, but there are only two that are installed so far.

These posts have turned sloppy.
There is just so much to do and about all I can manage with this blog is throwing it together.
Despite that, I will continue to post so we can keep a record of this adventure we've undertaken.
I'll go back and edit later when I have more time
and I really have no idea when that'll ever be.

Thanks for stoppin' by if ya did.
G'night.