After a year and half since purchasing a lot, and countless banks who said "we don't loan to self-builders", we have finally gotten approval for a construction loan! In an effort to build a huge home on a miniscule budget, we had decided to act as our own General Contractor -- but most banks are very wary of dealing with "owner/builders" -- in fact, since the banking fallout, even banks that used deal with self-builders have told us that "they don't do that any more". But after much search, Normandy bank has taken a chance on us.
Monday morning we officially broke ground on our new home. Sanders is our full-service foundation and excavating contractor, and they brought out the big equipment.
By the end of the day Monday, we couldn't even see the building site for the big piles of dirt.
But there was definitely a big hole hiding behind those piles of dirt.
But the discovery the next morning of our hole taking on a little water has lead to our first cost overrun. The amount of water was not drastic, and it didn't actually interfere with their ability to continue working -- but being August, and it hasn't rained in about a month, if we're taking on water now, we're really in trouble come next spring. So we made the decision to add a second sump pump pit.
Here are our footings and sumps in place:
With gravel in place and the forms delivered, they are ready to set and pour walls on Monday.
No comments:
Post a Comment