Day 110: Garage Floor

Friday

Today we got the concrete poured. I had been anxious to get it in and was getting nervous that it wouldn't happen this week. Nothing like waiting until the last day of the week. Our flatwork contractor, who's been great to work with, came out yesterday and got it all formed in and the pans and rebar set. This morning before 6:00 AM the concrete trucks were rolling and they were putting it down.

It's a bit hard to see in the picture above, but we have about a 3 inch slope from west to east in the garage floor to ensure that it drains appropriately. With the suspended floor, we opted to not have a floor drain, so it is important to have the slope in the floor to drain towards the doors. You can see the keys in the floor for the three garage doors.

The picture below shows the bracing under the floor. The floor is supported by three steel beams, as discussed in a previous post. On top of the beams rests a steel pan. The steel pan, and the rebar in the concrete slab, support the weight of the slab. However, while it is still curing, bracing is required for additional support. It will all be removed next week to create one big open room. I'm getting excited for my future shop.

Daily Stats		Hours Worked			Cost
	Day	Trevor	Family/Friends	Contractors
Today	110	0	0	24
All Time	110	98	93	452.5	$13,496.75
Summary of 7/25/2014		Work Done Today
		Poured suspended garage floor
		Materials Used Today
		concrete
		Who Helped Today
		Contractors On Site
		Vanderford Construction

Beam Me Up

Tuesday

We required three steel beams in to support the suspended garage floor. They were 12 inches tall and 26 lbs per linear foot, or W12-26. They were also about 24 ft long, making them about 600 lbs each. Fortunately, the outfit we bought them from, Jones Metal in Kansas City, also places them upon delivery. Thanks to Kim, we have a few shots of them going in:

The beams rest in beam pockets that were formed in the concrete when it was poured. The metal pan for the concrete will go on top of the beams prior to pouring the suspended floor, which should happen this Friday if all goes well.

Daily Stats		Hours Worked			Cost
	Day	Trevor	Family/Friends	Contractors
Today	107	0	0	2
All Time	107	98	93	412.5	$13,496.75
Summary of 7/22/2014		Work Done Today
		Materials Used Today
		3 beams, W12-26 x 24'
		Who Helped Today
		Contractors On Site
		Jone's Metal

Day 106: Built Like a Tank

Monday

A septic tank, that is. We now have a place in which to store our "less desirables". Our septic guy, Gary Ivy, a Holt neighbor, but this bad boy in for us on Monday.

Mandy's comment: "I didn't know it was square." Not to pick on her too much, but's actually more rectangular, but she is correct in that it is not round.

The lines on the right run out to our laterals. I'm not really sure what the line on the left is for, but I plan on finding out.

Daily Stats		Hours Worked			Cost
	Day	Trevor	Family/Friends	Contractors
Today	106	0	0	8
All Time	106	98	93	412.5	$13,496.75
Summary of 7/21/2014		Work Done Today
		Installed Septic tank
		Materials Used Today
		septic tank
		Who Helped Today
		Contractors On Site
		Gary Ivy

Day 102: The Joys of Septic

Thursday

Somehow Day 100 came and went without a ceremonial post or celebration. Looking back at my original schedule, I'd planned on being much farther along at this point. But such is construction.

This past week our septic guy has been out putting in our system. It consists of a buried tank and several buried lateral lines. He's installed the lateral lines and has dug the trench part of the way from our house out to the tank. I never thought I'd be this excited about a septic system!

Daily Stats		Hours Worked			Cost
	Day	Trevor	Family/Friends	Contractors
Today	102	0	0	8
All Time	102	98	93	394.5	$13,496.75
Summary of 7/17/2014		Work Done Today
		Materials Used Today
		Who Helped Today
		Contractors On Site
		Gary Ivy

Day 97: Fun on the Floor

Saturday

We had a busy Saturday! We didn't make any progress on the house build, but did make a lot of progress on preparing to get up there. As our move is about 2 weeks away, we worked on packing up part of the basement. We got the toy area under the stairs cleaned out and boxed up. Only 12 more rooms to go.

I also moved the motorcycle, yellow go cart, kids bikes and scooters up to Kearney. Fewer things to move later on. Reed and I were able to get the yellow one running. It had been given to us and needed some work and new parts. We put a new engine, torque converter, front tires, chain, and throttle cable on it. We also patched the rear tires and did a lot of other adjustments. It's now plenty fast. The first time I started it, I had the choke setting wrong and it immediately did a wheelie. I managed to grab the back frame and rotate it back until the wheels were off the ground, and then Reed got in and hit the kill switch.

While we were up at the land, the kids modeled their new garb. When Steve and Kim bought the farm and subdivided it, they named the subdivision "Kimberly Park Farm". Here the kids are sporting KPF getup in prison orange, our official color.

We then went and checked out the progress. With our basement floors finished, the kids were anxious to put them to use. We have about 3,500 sf of concrete for them to play on. Perfect for scooters and bikes. The girls also rode their bikes along our 1/4 mile gravel drive for the first time. We figure they'll make that trek daily once we're settled in.

Day 95: Flatwork is In!

Thursday

Yesterday I talked with our concrete guy and asked him if we would be pouring concrete today. His response was: "if it's not raining". There was an 80% chance of rain, depending on which weather site you trust. I went to bed praying for a dry day.

Fortunately, my prayers were answered. The storm blew south of us and by 7:00 this morning concrete trucks were rolling into our land.

They used a pumper truck to get the concrete down into the basement and the areas beneath the suspended garage and safe rooms. You can see the top of the pumper's boom in the pic below taken from Steve and Kim's house. Kim was milking goats when they showed up, but fortunately wasn't wearing her normal pink pajamas.

Then they went on to smooth out the concrete. I haven't seen it yet, so I'm hoping they got it nice and smooth. Steve and Kim were nice enough to snap pictures for me as the work progressed.

Daily Stats		Hours Worked			Cost
	Day	Trevor	Family/Friends	Contractors
Today	95	0	0	16
All Time	95	96	93	370.5	$13,496.75
Summary of 7/10/2014		Work Done Today
		Poured flatwork in basement
		Materials Used Today
		Concrete
		Who Helped Today
		Contractors On Site
		Vanderford Construction

Day 94: Geo Continued + Flatwork

Wednesday

Today we got three major things accomplished. First, we increased the size and levelness of our front yard. Our concrete guy needed a larger area for the cement trucks to park while pumping concrete into our basement floor, so he leveled out our front yard a bit more for us.

We also got the rebar in for our basement floor flatwork. It's good to see it in. We should now be ready for pouring tomorrow.

We also got three new long trenches installed for our geothermal. These complete our loop for our 6-ton system.

Daily Stats		Hours Worked			Cost
	Day	Trevor	Family/Friends	Contractors
Today	94	0	0	16
All Time	94	96	93	370.5	$13,496.75
Summary of 7/9/2014		Work Done Today
		Rebar installed in basement, front yard grading, geothermal ground loop
		Materials Used Today
		Rebar, geothermal HDPE pipe
		Who Helped Today
		Contractors On Site
		ECS, Vanderford Construction

Day 92: Backfill, Grading and Geothermal

Monday

The couple of months have featured a lot of dirt moving. We've moved dirt for the driveway, the basement, and the electric line. We've also moved a lot of dirt back into the holes we or others dug. Most recently has been backfilling. I've already posted a few times about our backfilling efforts. However, the exciting news is that we're more or less finished with backfilling. We still have some grading to complete, but we're pretty much done with moving dirt in around the basement walls.

It took a lot of trips up and down the hill with this little Bobcat, but we got there. All those trips served the dual purpose of compacting the dirt on top of itself.

Today we also had progress on another dirt-moving-front. Our geothermal subcontractor, ECS, came out and started excavating and installing our ground loops. Geothermal is an efficient means of heating and cooling your home using the ground as a heat source. At about 6 ft depth in Missouri, the ground is the same temperature year round (I think around 60 degrees F). In the summer, the geothermal system pumps heat from inside the house through a ground loop and transfers the heat to the earth. In the winter, the system transfers heat from the earth into your home. It uses a refrigerant, like a heat pump. Its all electric and is very efficient. You can either install a vertical ground loop, which drills down like a well, or a horizontal ground loop. We opted for the horizontal loop, since we have plenty of space.

Daily Stats		Hours Worked			Cost
	Day	Trevor	Family/Friends	Contractors
Today	92	1	0	8
All Time	92	96	93	338.5	$13,496.75
Summary of 7/7/2014		Work Done Today
		Grading, Geothermal ground loop started
		Materials Used Today
		Who Helped Today
		Contractors On Site
		ECS

Day 87: Go Kart Trail

Wednesday

With the 4th of July coming up, we planned on having a group of friends out to the land to cook hot dogs and play outside. I wanted to get the go kart up and running and get a decent track in. I used Steve's mower and mowed a path around the perimeter of our meadow fairly short. I did about 4 passes with the mower. It's about 2,145 ft, or 0.4 mile.

I think Mandy was more excited than the kids to have it ready, though Will's pretty pumped as well.

Daily Stats		Hours Worked			Cost
	Day	Trevor	Family/Friends	Contractors
Today	87	1	0	0
All Time	87	96	93	338.5	$13,496.75
Summary of 7/2/2014		Work Done Today
		Mowed go kart trail
		Materials Used Today
		Who Helped Today
		Contractors On Site