Saturday, December 5, 2009

Little Ado about . . .

For those who have accompanied us on this adventure, there have been bouts of frenetic activity, separated by long periods of regular life. November was one of those frenetic months. Much was accomplished on the home building front. Amazingly this happened during the same month that Kirk went to Vermont for a week and we all got sick with the flu! We think it was the swine flu but we're not sure. Thankfully we are all pretty much back to normal.

Anyway, here's pictures of this month's progress on the home construction. Jayne has also been getting us ready for Christmas so there's a pic of her doing the decoration too.







Installing the drainage lines under the slab - one chance to get these right!

Excavation for the septic tank. Bedrock or "ledge" as locally known made it hard to get the tank deep enough. We got it, barely.





Dave Cole and company pouring concrete on November 2. What a beautiful day for the pour. Part of the mix was a little wet, causing delay in the finishing process.



















Kirk is back in his favorite spot - a trench. We finished the last 100ft. of the underground electric and cable trenching and installation to the house. Kirk installed a temporary mounting panel for the electrical service. This allowed us to finish the electrical service and get construction power. We can watch cable TV too! Right - like there will be time for such things.












The house construction materials arrive. Now we can get started building in earnest.

The electrical service finally got hooked up last week. It has been a lengthy process dealing with the local utility and inspection approval. But we persevered and now there is power on the site. We elected to install a customer-owned pole mounted service and then go underground. This means most of the electrical service is owned by us, simplifying dealing with the utility. This pole is about 130ft. from the utility line. The remaining 550 ft. is underground. Definitely more visually appealing and worth all the hard work.











A Mainer's favorite and most versatile tool finds another use. Why mess around with carving knives when you can grab the Husky I always say.






We also completed installation of the septic field. Not shown is a picture of the well just drilled. We got water right where our dowser said it would be. 120ft., 8 gallons per minute. We haven't had the water tested yet but this is a very good sign of a great well.