March 1, 2008

• Pam just updated with some great photos/video of our activities the last week. Don’t forget to scroll down to check those out. 

  Here’s the latest on the house build;

  A week ago Wednesday (2/20) we finally poured the concrete.  I arranged for eleven trucks full of concrete, a concrete crane, and a large group of workers to show up at 6:00 AM that morning.  We technically aren’t supposed to begin work till 7:00 in the neighborhood but knowing the size of the pour and the forecast of rain in the late afternoon I decided it’d be easier to say sorry to my neighbors later.  I pulled on to the job at about 5:45 and everybody was already there getting in to position and the three trucks were starting to line up to the crane.

  The crane itself is pretty impressive as it can reach up to 110′.  It has a giant hopper that the concrete trucks back up to and unload the mud in to and then conveyer belts take it to the end of the boom and dump it.  There’s something inside of me that loves being on construction jobs with big equipment and lots of action…love it! Here’s some pictures of the festivities.

  

   

  

  The pour actually went great until the rain came with a vengeance in the late afternoon.  Unfortunately we had just finished pouring the garage floors but fortunately the main pad was already dry enough that it didn’t suffer any damage.  I’m thankful for the group of guys I had as they waited out the rain for about an hour and it ended up clearing enough that we were able to salvage the garage concrete.  It turned out great!  In all we poured 117 yards of mud.  Yikes.

  Two days later the framing crew showed up and they’ve being going like gangbusters ever since.  I’ve been very grateful to my Dad for spending a lot of time doing “on the job” engineering in order to make everything work just right.  We’ve been on the horn with the truss company making final changes in order to compensate for last minute changes and adjustments due to the concrete slab beign a wee bit off. 

  It’s now been  a week and two days since the concrete went down and we lifted our trusses today.  Getting the trusses here was a bit of an adventure as we buy them from an outfit out of St. George and they were very “oversized”.  I’m not sure how he did it w/o killing anyone as the trusses were actually hanging well in to the other lane of traffic.

  Anyhow, like the pump, it was exciting to have a giant crane on the lot lifting the heavy trusses in to place.  Pam actually posted a video of the crane in action at the end of her last post.

   

  This next week we’ll be buttoning up the rough framing, start framing in the drop ceiling/details, and start doing the “top out” of the plumbing, setting of the electrical panel/wires, and the HVAC unit.  Fun Fun!!!
  

  • 11:23 pm
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