Post date: Apr 2, 2015 1:40:26 PM
Yesterday we (Eli, Jake, and I) laid the outlines of the house on the ground.
This was not quite as simple as it sounds, for several reasons. The pile of brush that had interfered the previous day was reduced to several lumps of charcoal, so that was out of the way. But we had to move the house westward to keep the shower within the property setback. Still seems simple.
However, if we just moved the house three feet west, the corner of the garage would interfere with the culvert under the driveway. So we pulled 3’ south from the culvert (to allow for engineered fill and footing) and ran a line east-west, using our iPhones as a compass.
How do we know that the compass app on the iPhone is correct? There is a mountain peak due north of Taos that is known to give a good ‘north’ reading. And our iPhones agreed with it. Amazing what modern technology can do that even the Taos Pueblo natives knew a thousand years ago!
Then we discovered that, although we had dug out three trees previously thought to be in the house (not good), yet another clump required removal. So Eli got into the backhoe and pulled these out. Jake cut them into pieces that we could easily carry, and we hauled them off to the side - hopefully out of the way - to let them dry for six months so we can burn them later.
Then Jake and Eli staked out all the corners (there are 14!) and Eli spray-painted the outline on the ground (after I raked away the leaves). Bill, the architect, came and looked it over, suggesting a different route for the sewer line, and seemed happy. [By the way, the cost of construction is directly correlated to the number of corners. Bill did reduce by two from the original.]
Why is the sewer important enough to warrant special attention? The neighbor’s builder raised that house 18” to lift the sewer pipe above the under-floor insulation - causing the roof line to exceed the limits in the covenant. I don’t need that problem. In addition, we may have to remove even more trees to dig the sewer trench, and I’d like to keep as many as possible.
Before we quit for the day we determined where to store the 200 cubic yards of excavated earth, and how to get to that location from the house location. It is not far (on the south side of the building lot) but, again, we don’t want to remove any more trees. There is actually a good location, and we can separate the topsoil (which looks good) from the subsoil (yellow, sandy stuff), of which I have only seen evidence from the parking pad. Most of the parking pad will be removed - I will have no driveway.