The Wide Wide World of a Homestead

The main story of our lives continues to be building our new house. Yes, the rest of life goes on too such as eating, sleeping, making money, conversation (lots of that always), etc. But building a house, especially on raw land is a very absorbing activity. Since we are functioning as the general contractor and doing some of the work ourselves, there is even more to keep tabs on.















Since the last posting, we've nearly completed the utility installation. The picture at left shows Cheryl relaxing before we unloaded two 550ft. reels of aluminum 4/0 cable. For the non-electrical people out there, 4/0 is about the diameter of your thumb. A cable is made up of three 4/0 cables and a somewhat smaller 3/0. This cable was pretty heavy! We loaded these reels on the trailer by rolling them up the ramp. Cheryl and I together barely got them on!

I attended the "learn-as-you-go" school of backhoe operation on this job. I picked a particularly challenging way to start. To keep the driveway open as long as possible, we trenched to the road crossing from both directions. That meant I had to dig sideways across the road to avoid falling into a trench. The material being trenched also made it tough - hard pan blue clay. I was getting pretty good by the end of the day though!

The picture at left is Cheryl enjoying pulling one of the heavy cables into a 400ft. trench that snaked through the woods. I would have helped her but I was running the backhoe to finish trenching across the road. Cue all the women in the audience "sure he would have!" Cheryl is quite a trooper. Later I helped her pull the second cable in. We found muscles that day we didn't know about!













We can't finish the house end and turn power on yet but that will come as soon as the foundation is in. Cheryl and I labored mightily to complete installation of the power cable and backfill the trench with sand. By the time we were done, we placed 35 yards of sand in the trench. Because we couldn't directly access all the trench with a tractor, sand had to be brought as close as possible then hand-shoveled in. Glad I spent several years shoveling coal into steam engines. It was great training for this job!! Near the end of the job, we worked all the day in a steady rain to fill the trench before it caved in. Glad it was warmer then:-)







This picture shows the best part of the utility job - final backfilling of the trench. Although this tractor is pretty small, it is a diesel and perfect size for working in tight quarters.

Whew - what a relief to be done with this job. We detoured through the woods because we ran into "ledge", a.k.a. bedrock on the original route along the driveway.





We also obtained a building permit from the town this month. That gave us the green light to begin foundation construction. Our excavation and concrete contractor, Dave Cole, graded the site this week and installed forms for the concrete slab. He also built the driveway and is a real pleasure to work with. Next step is installing drain, water and electrical lines in the sand under the future slab. The septic tank will also be installed this coming week. Then comes styrofoam insulation and PEX radiant heat tubing on top of the insulation. We anticipate being able to pour the slab the first week of November.
Once the slab is cured, we will cover it up with 2" styrofoam and put it to bed for the winter. This will position us to begin construction in earnest come March, weather permitting of course. Just in time for sugaring season.







The interior view is a future look at the inside of our house. Looking out the southeast corner of our house, the view will be much like this photo. Similar to this layout, we placed 3 large windows on each side of the corner to maximize morning light entry. Sure look like a great spot to wake up in the morning!