I have a foundation!!!

Heather, Jeff, and Darren came to help out this afternoon. Thank goodness! I was thinking that I would have to move all of the slabs by myself (the well guy said he needs more room to turn his 30ft vehicle with the well drill). Watching those two work, you wouldn’t realize how freaking heavy some of those slabs are. He-man Jeff was just tossing them over his shoulder and heaving them out of the way like it was nothing (kind of like when he was helping with the bobcat and pulling trees up by the roots). Meanwhile, Darren was moving nonstop, one slab after another. I’d be pretty tired and sore right now if they hadn’t come out. While we were doing all of that, Heather was chronicling everything with the camera.

They then helped me finish the slab prep – rebar, plastic, getting the gravel at the right height (another simple, simple, simple thing that Hester’s screwed up).

Tobasco doing his part

Darren's therapy:



Me and my water obsession. I have been reduced to scooping water our with an old yogurt container! This is where my Georgetown law degree got me (that I'm still paying for, btw). At least the water is down to the yogurt container level rather than the 5 gallon bucket level.

Foundation fiasco, parts 12 & 13

Last time Hester’s was out, I asked Deborah to measure the footer in the front to make sure that Mason had dug it out deep enough. I could see that it wasn’t as deep as the surrounding footers, but thought it might still be deep enough to pass the inspection. For some reason, I then forgot to double check, which I finally did on Friday. Of course, it was only 21” to the bottom instead of the 24” that it should have been. I pulled up the rebar, dug it out even though I’m not supposed to disturb the soil once the termite treatment is done, and corrected yet another foundation mistake.

Today, I decided to measure the distance from the gravel to the string showing the top of the slab, just to be sure. It is supposed to be 4” minimum. They had it between 3 and 3 ½. I’m not sure why I got even a little upset, but I did. Just a little. Expecting it to be wrong helped, I suppose. Not really that big a deal, but certainly something I shouldn't have had to worry about. I'm wondering what exactly I'm getting for the $2550 I'm going to have to pay them. Maybe I should charge them for my own labor!

I definitely need to be there when they pour the slab. Who knows how many ways they could find to screw that up?