Casita Update - Big Piles Of Dirt
Aug. 1st, 2022 10:14 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
elizillaAbout three weeks ago, the county finally issued our building permit. It arrived with red circles and arrows. Our drawings showed what they call a frost protected shallow foundation and the county crossed it off, with a note that the footings need to be 42” deep. Cue a week of scrambling, where I learned more about them than I ever wanted to know. It turns out there is ONE GUY who does all the plan reviews AND all the inspections. That’s why it took so long. He reviews plans and schedules his inspections from 7:30am to 9am, then spends the rest of the day in the field. His voice mail is always full so his phone bounces to the attendant, but there is no attendant so it bounces back to his voice mail. He does not answer email. Eventually I found someone who answered their phone up there, who could not help me with my problem, but at least knew what time I might find the building inspector in his office. So, one morning I got up at 7:30 and rang his phone over and over until he got sick of the ringing and answered. I was prepared with all the references, chapter and verse from the building codes, and he agreed we can build as planned. He was quite decent, actually, and I feel hugely sorry for him, but I gotta get this done, I can’t just let it slide because he is ridiculously overworked. They need to hire more people!
Next up was Miss Dig. They’re the people who mark the underground utilities. Once again, more multifaceted than I ever knew. They want every subcontractor to call in their own ticket. The caller gets a logon to watch the ticket progress on a website. The foundation guy wanted me to call in on his behalf so I did. In my ticket there were a dozen utilities. Four are five are not even in my town, so they don’t have to come out, but we are supposed to wait till they mark it cleared. And some entities are in the list several times, like Comcast. The utilities are also understaffed and behind schedule, and since they are utilities, customer service is not their priority. My ticket took five days to clear but the plumber’s ticket never cleared, instead it got a note from one of the utilities, that the property owner kicked them out. Not true, but of course there’s no one to talk to about it. The plumber eventually proceeded, since my ticket was cleared, but he was not happy about it.
The only underground utility item under the casita is a derelict AT&T cable which was cut long ago, and which they replaced rather than repair. We already knew that, but it’s good I am here to reassure each crew that finds it. I know when they find it, by all the cursing! It has been cut in a few more places, but nobody seems interested in just pulling it out.
The foundation crew and the plumbers have now dug up our whole backyard, and piled a lot of dirt on the neighbor’s property. (We have their permission). The foundation is dug and half the forms are up. The plumbers trenched to our basement wall, where the sewer and water lines will punch through to connect with the existing utilities. They hit a snag last Thursday. They needed to drill four holes in our basement wall and the concrete turned out to be much tougher than expected. I suppose that’s good, right? But it meant an extra day of work. It took two guys all day last Friday to drill the holes. And the fancy drill is lubricated with water, so we had a puddle in our basement utility room.
Three of the holes are for water lines. Cold, hot, and return. Those holes are small and were temporarily plugged with rubber bungs. The fourth hole is larger, for the sewer line. They did not have an appropriate plug so they wrapped a smaller plug in a T-shirt to block that hole. This is all fine in dry weather, but on Saturday we became concerned because rain was forecast for today. The trench dug up a drainage swale that carries away water that runs off about 1000 square feet of our roof, and cut through the drain line from our sump pump. If it rains, all that water will flow off the roof and into their trench, and into that hole in our basement wall. And if the basement gets enough water to fire the sump, the sump will pump it right back to the trench, to cycle again! We want more in that hole than just a wadded up T-shirt! So Steve spent several hours yesterday constructing a better plug for the hole, and caulking it in.
Our worries may be unfounded, though. When the hourly forecast came for today, the chance of rain peaked at around 11am. It’s now after 11 and rain is no longer forecast. Whew! There are five guys here with two trucks and they are working away out there!
Next up was Miss Dig. They’re the people who mark the underground utilities. Once again, more multifaceted than I ever knew. They want every subcontractor to call in their own ticket. The caller gets a logon to watch the ticket progress on a website. The foundation guy wanted me to call in on his behalf so I did. In my ticket there were a dozen utilities. Four are five are not even in my town, so they don’t have to come out, but we are supposed to wait till they mark it cleared. And some entities are in the list several times, like Comcast. The utilities are also understaffed and behind schedule, and since they are utilities, customer service is not their priority. My ticket took five days to clear but the plumber’s ticket never cleared, instead it got a note from one of the utilities, that the property owner kicked them out. Not true, but of course there’s no one to talk to about it. The plumber eventually proceeded, since my ticket was cleared, but he was not happy about it.
The only underground utility item under the casita is a derelict AT&T cable which was cut long ago, and which they replaced rather than repair. We already knew that, but it’s good I am here to reassure each crew that finds it. I know when they find it, by all the cursing! It has been cut in a few more places, but nobody seems interested in just pulling it out.
The foundation crew and the plumbers have now dug up our whole backyard, and piled a lot of dirt on the neighbor’s property. (We have their permission). The foundation is dug and half the forms are up. The plumbers trenched to our basement wall, where the sewer and water lines will punch through to connect with the existing utilities. They hit a snag last Thursday. They needed to drill four holes in our basement wall and the concrete turned out to be much tougher than expected. I suppose that’s good, right? But it meant an extra day of work. It took two guys all day last Friday to drill the holes. And the fancy drill is lubricated with water, so we had a puddle in our basement utility room.
Three of the holes are for water lines. Cold, hot, and return. Those holes are small and were temporarily plugged with rubber bungs. The fourth hole is larger, for the sewer line. They did not have an appropriate plug so they wrapped a smaller plug in a T-shirt to block that hole. This is all fine in dry weather, but on Saturday we became concerned because rain was forecast for today. The trench dug up a drainage swale that carries away water that runs off about 1000 square feet of our roof, and cut through the drain line from our sump pump. If it rains, all that water will flow off the roof and into their trench, and into that hole in our basement wall. And if the basement gets enough water to fire the sump, the sump will pump it right back to the trench, to cycle again! We want more in that hole than just a wadded up T-shirt! So Steve spent several hours yesterday constructing a better plug for the hole, and caulking it in.
Our worries may be unfounded, though. When the hourly forecast came for today, the chance of rain peaked at around 11am. It’s now after 11 and rain is no longer forecast. Whew! There are five guys here with two trucks and they are working away out there!
