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Contrary to the forecast, there was no rain at all last night nor today so a lot of progress was made on the home site.
We got the perimeter staked more accurately and then set all the stakes out another three feet. This leaves room for the concrete crew to work on the outside of the walls when they set up and remove their forms. Since the walls will be nine feet high above the footings, it can be pretty claustrophobic if there isn't enough room between the walls and the soil on the north side.
These two pictures show the same part of the project from two different angles. Sorry they are dark. They were taken just after sunset.
We have found a vein of heavy clay that can barely be broken with the dozer. When it is broken it comes up in sections, some as large as 15 to 20 square feet.
We have been saving the stones that were found near the surface for use in retaining walls near the front door. The large blocks we're getting out now are so numerous there aren't enough useful places to put them so they're being pushed downhill toward the dams.
Each of the stakes in the picture is offset from a corner of the building delineating one of the north-side rooms - from the right, the master bedroom, bathroom, computer/office area and laundry/utility room.
The hillside slopes to the southeast so even though the north side of each room in turn comes closer to the building's south side, the top of the back wall of each one isn't very much below the one to its east. This will help make the building less visible from up the hill toward the barn.
We are designing the ponds as we go since we had no practical way to gauge how much soil would need to be moved and be available for the pond. The plan is to have two ponds: a smaller one to allow dirt and debris to settle out, above a larger one that will be deep enough for wading. The soil is probably 90% clay so I may not have to install a liner in the ponds at all.
The soil near the front center of the building is soft. We are not quite down to the finished floor level so it may turn out OK. Going deeper to get to solid soil is not possible as that would also lower the rest of the building. Since the back wall is approaching the top of the nine foot wall already, lowering the entire floor would bring us below the soil level. And we can't lower the uphill soil level more than inches or we would have to shave the same depth all the way up the hill or install an expensive retaining wall across the entire north side.
It's getting late again. More tomorrow.
