and the Plumbing continues . . .

Well . . . we're still installing the underground plumbing. I forgot my camera, so I will have to post pictures later. We have continued to be out working on our plumbing every day this week!

The plumbers that helped us out last Friday worked on our house for 7 hours! That's a lot longer than what we thought it would take, but that time would of probably been tripled if they weren't there to help. So, thank you! They finished the sanitary (sewer) line, except for a short run where they ran out of 2" pipe. That night, Adam and I went to Home Depot and bought our supply pipes and fittings. We were there for a couple hours, picking out everything we needed and trying to figure things out.

Last weekend, we finished the sanitary and set up the water test. This is where you put caps on all of the openings coming up out of the slab and fill everything with water. The pipe that you fill with water must be 5 feet above the finished floor. The point of the test is to test for leaks. If you fill everything up and it maintains the water level for 15 minutes, you pass. This test must be seen by the inspector. We attempted to perform this test ourselves . . . failing to realize you must glue the caps on, not just set them in. So, we were running around like a circus, trying to put the cap on that just flew off, without getting soaked. That was fun. Anyway, the caps are glued on now and should be ready.

We also bought the electrical conduit, to run from the meter to the panel under the house. That's in place and doesn't require an inspection. We started to dig trenches for the supply lines and get that going as well. It's much easier to put together than the sanitary, there's just more of it.

We had a partial inspection for the sanitary line on Monday. We got a partial pass - we need to add sleeves where the pipe is going through footings, and we need to set up the water test for him to see. He'll finish his inspection when he comes out to look at the supply side. So, we were able to backfill over part of the sanitary, but not everything.

This past week, we've been putting together the supply pipe and adding sleeves to the sanitary. We have most of the house finished! The sanitary is complete and we just need to supply water to one and a half bathrooms (we finished the master and part of the hall bath). We should be able to complete this on Sunday - we will be out of town tonight and Saturday. We also need to set up a pressure test for the supply - this will also test for leaks. If everything goes to plan (it never does), we will get our plumbing inspected on Monday and will have them prep for concrete starting Tuesday. This means concrete should definitely go in next week! I'll post pictures soon. That's all for now.

Sanitary Plumbing

Adam and I have gone out to the land every single day this week. We started placing the sanitary pipe and fittings on Monday and have been working on it little by little all week. We had to make an extra stop to Lowe's to buy more fittings and glue, but it's almost all together now. We just about finished it last night. Adam and I met up with a couple of plumbers that he works with at 6:30 this morning (they actually work at my company, but are currently at Adam's jobsite). They offered to look over our work and glue everything together for us - we just had to make them breakfast. This was a HUGE help! They ended up piping up a couple of things we didn't get to and had us add a couple extra vents to make sure it'll run correctly. They are finishing glueing everything together as I write, and it should be completed soon. Here are some pictures I took this morning.

This is the master bathroom and laundry room. It's all dry fitted and will probably be reorganized a bit by our plumber friends.

The kitchen sink.

The "kids" bathroom - jack and jill style.

I made a take-off of all the supply pipe and fittings, so now we're ready to head to the store and buy that side of the piping. We will be picking up the materials tonight and put everything together this weekend. If everything goes according to plan, we should be placing the concrete in one week! Things are getting exciting and all the hard work is starting to pay off. I CAN't WAIT to get out of the dirt!!

Formwork and Plumbing

Wow . . . I'm almost glad to come back to work after such a tiring weekend. Adam and I spent 12 hours working on our site Saturday, 8 hours on Sunday, and about 7 hours Monday. We're sore and tired - but made a lot of progress.

We stopped by to look at the formwork on Friday night - it looks great and we're very excited to have some wood in place on our lot.


We got out to the land at 7:30 am on Saturday. We checked the dimensions on the form boards to make sure it was right. We found one mistake - but it should be easy to fix. Then, we checked all our interior footings and pads. We had to adjust these a bit in some places, but they were overall in the right place. Then, we began to scrap the grass/weeds off our dirt. In our inactivity and rain the last few weeks, the green stuff crept up on us. So, we sprayed Round-Up everywhere, then dug it up with a shovel and removed it with a rake. Not too fun - but it worked. We also picked up trash and some tree debris and put it in the dumpster. This was Clint's job and he did great! He moved a whole tree by himself, and didn't want any breaks. We checked the elevations and moved more dirt. Then, we compacted the whole foundation again. Thus, Saturday ends with blisters and dirt everywhere.

Clint moving the tree.

Our dumpster and portolet.

Our Doc Box.

Formwork from the master bedroom corner.

Formwork from the front porch and hall bath.

Compacting the dirt.

Adam and I stopped by before church for a little bit to start marking wet-walls for the underground plumbing. After church, we researched our plumbing fixtures and marked dimensions on the plumbing drawing. Then, we got to the land and started digging plumbing trenches through the house. We started with the sanitary line. This has to have a slope of 1/4" for every 1 foot. This makes the line about 30" deep by the time it exits the house. So, we measured, ran string lines, and dug some more.

Trench for the Sanitary line.

The hired help (Adam and his dad) hard at work. I dug some too - but, admittedly, they did most of the grunt work.

I take a peak at the sanitary pipe.

Adam came out there Monday morning to do some more digging by himself. We had a family get together for Memorial day with Adam's mom's side. It was a very nice break and a fun time. But, afterword, it was time to get back to work. We picked up a couple things from Lowe's and started digging some more - checking to make sure we had the right slope. Finally, about 7 pm, we started laying out plumbing fittings and cutting pipe. We laid out the main line and the y's that branch off - for about 40 feet. We packed up about 9:30 last night.

A much deeper trench at the right slope - ready for pipe!

Adam used his truck as a work bench to cut the pipe.

The plumbing fittings laid out.

Starting to set the pipe in place. We did more - but it got too dark for photos.

It's been a long weekend, but the work's not done yet. We plan on getting out there after work every day this week. We hope to finish the sanitary lines tonight and do the supply lines later this week. Then, Adam will need to run the electrical conduit - he will be our electrician as well. Then, we need an inspection. The concrete guy will place the rebar, visqueen, and wire mesh - and then we'll place the concrete. We hope to place it next week. Yay!

Our Dirt is Getting a Face Lift!

After this long weekend, you won't be able to recognize it! We hired a concrete company to start their work. They layed out formwork today and now it's ready for us to start the underground plumbing. Adam got the pipe ordered - so, we're going to be digging trenches and laying pipe all weeekend. We also have to finish digging some of the footings.

We had a dumpster and portipotty delivered to our site today. (You have to provide these things when you bring in a subcontractor). Also, we had our first inspection! We passed the tree barricade inspection! The proof is below; you can also see the remaining inspections we need to do.



We're excited - we'll have the slab placed before we know it. I'll post all the pictures of the work we've done on Tuesday. Be looking for it - there will be a lot of change!

Working on our Tree

We have done some more work on our three oak trees. There is a branch that was hanging over into what will be our house. So, we had to cut it back. We had the help of our friend Kevin - Thanks, Kevin - and he let us use his chain saw and ladder.


Kevin cut through most of the branch and Adam pulled it down by hand.


So, here's the tree with the branch removed . . . we still need to clean out the dead branches of the trees, but that will be done another time.



We also started to put the a tree baracade. This is required by the county and they will actually come out to inspect that we did it properly. However, we ran out of orange fence and will need another 15 feet.


We also admired the water meter. We recently had the water connection turned on from the county . . . this was a mere $4,000 connection fee. Below, Adam looks at the money well spent.


And that's all we've done recently. Adam should be getting the last concrete bid in today and will decide who we're going to use.

Goals and Progress

To many of you, it appears we're not making much progress . . . and that's partially true. But, let me fill you in on what's going on behind the scenes. Adam decided that it was best to leave the formwork to the professionals. So, we are currently receiving bids back from people who will build the formwork and place the concrete. We should decide who we're going with soon and get the form boards finished shortly.

Adam is still doing the underground plumbing himself. We should be able to layout the walls once the formwork is in and get the plumbing set up over a weekend or so. We are still planning on placing the concrete by the end of May. Nothing has changed on our lot recently, but hopefully that's all about to change. After the foundation is complete, we start framing! I'm looking forward to seeing the house take shape. We will be doing this ourselves and will really need a lot of help during that phase.

So, there you have it for house news.

This past weekend, we ventured down to Orlando to visit my family. It was my mom's birthday, so we took a boat trip around Downtown Disney. Fun was had by all - here is a picture of the event.

Congratulations, Graduates!

Congratulations - Philip & Amanda. Amanda graduated last week from FSU and Philip graduates today from UF. Welcome to the real world! I'm looking forward to making the trip back to my alma mater to watch my brother complete his education.

This makes me think back to my graduation 3 years ago . . . The key speaker from the night was up giving his charge for all of us to make something of ourselves. His speech was shown in closed captioning, underneath his picture on the screen above. This was the high-tech version, that had the computer type the words out as he spoke. He was saying how he was proud to be a part of our country (he was not from here) when the word that flashed across the screen, instead of "your nation", was "urination". Everyone started laughing, which confused the poor man and he paused in his speech. Which only made everyone laugh harder because "urination" stayed in giant letters on the screen at graduation. This was, by far, the highlight of the ceremony. I hope tonight proves to be just as memorable.

As for our land - we are now ready for formwork. We're making progress, slowly but surely. No new pictures, sorry.