This week, work began on excavating the driveway to connect the utilities to the street. Everything was supposed to be done by the end of the week, but it looks like we’re only about half way there. Work on the house slowed down substantially, although some window framing got done and some of the building wrap went up.
On Monday, Don put up the building wrap around the first floor. The building wrap is meant to allow moisture to exit from inside the walls, but not let moisture into the walls. I have no idea how that is possible, but apparently it works.
Believe it or not, the building wrap that you see is one single piece! It defies logic how Don managed to string up the wrap by himself, holding it up while taping it to the wall while making sure that it is flush and wrinkle free. Not to mention, it was getting windy that day.
Excavation got started on Wednesday. Tractors and diggers arrived, as did piles of gravel and engineered dirt. I missed most of the action, but the neighbors said there was lots of activity.
Buried under the dirt are water lines, sewer lines, electricity, phone and cable, each spaced apart a certain distance specified by the code. The end result is a wide area that needs to be dug up even though the actual pipes aren’t that big.
The good news is that the sewer at the street turned out to be 15 feet deep, allowing us to drain into the sewer using gravity rather than a pump. The bad news is that it must have been quite a challenge to get down there. I’m guessing these big steel braces help keep the dirt from collapsing while the pipes are connected underground.
Here’s the location of my future vegetable and native plant garden, under which lie electrical conduit. I’m hoping the soil doesn’t get too disturbed or compacted, but I guess that’s far fetched.
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