Let's Start Building

We have officially started on this build! This is a huge step for us, and we’re so excited to see this home come to life.

We started by breaking ground. It took a couple days to get the hole completely dug, but it looked so great when it was done. It also looked huge 😂. We used an excavator that has awesome attention to detail and does great work. It’s important to have a good excavator because this is the base of your entire house. You don’t want a messy dig otherwise the rest of the foundation could be affected.

After the dig was complete, the concrete company was up next. We needed footings first and then foundation walls. The footings are done as essentially the base of the entire building.They provide contact with the ground while lifting the foundation walls off the ground to help prevent water and moisture from seeping into the foundation. So the concrete company spent a couple days putting up forms for those and then pouring the concrete. The next day they came back to strip the forms because the concrete was set. This was our first real look into the layout of the house. We could start to take the layout from the blueprints and place it into the foundation based on where the footings were. After they took the forms off, the excavator came back to put some gravel down as a base for the basement floor.

After about a week or so they were able to come back and spend a few days putting up the forms for our foundation walls. Once the forms were all in place they had the concrete poured for the walls. Again, the next day they came back to strip the forms. After that, they were able to place our window wells for the basement egress windows and put tar on the outside of the walls (this helps to prevent dampness).

Now we won’t see much change for a little while. The surveyor will come back to do a location report so we can turn that into the county and get an inspection on the foundation. Then the excavator will come back to do the backfill. When they dig for foundation, they dig the hole bigger than it actually needs to be. This aids in ease of work for putting up the foundation walls. Once the walls are set, they put dirt back in around the outside of the walls–this is backfill.

We also need to do a few things in the basement before the concrete floor gets poured. Our underground plumbing has to be installed. We are going to do under-floor heat (radiant heat) in certain areas of the house, including the basement, so the tubing that sits under the floor for that has to be installed. We also need our steel beams put in that will help support the weight of everything. Then, I believe, they can pour the basement floor. So the next few weeks will be spent completing these action items. It won’t look like much change even though work will still be ongoing. Once that’s all completed, we’ll be able to start framing! We’ll be back to point out all these little steps in between, but the framing will be more fun to share. Until then, friends 🙂.