This morning Ryan and Richard (and Zoey) from RK Concrete showed up to work on the foundation.  We also had 40 yards of gravel delivered and Ryan made quick work of spreading it around.   The forms that are up are now trued and level.  Later this week I will be drilling the support columns for the retaining walls and having the layout for the rough plumbing marked.  The weatherman says we may be getting rain this week so that might cause a delay.

The Trench is filled in and the whole area leveled off.

A nice layer of gravel so trucks won’t get stuck in the mud should it rain.

The clay was tough but Dozy made it through

We need to get the electrical conduit buried from the meter base to inside the house.  It was a lot harder than I thought digging a 2 foot deep trench with the tough clay.  but we got it done.  We laid an extra conduit pipe to accommodate a future solar/wind inter-tied system.

Didn’t your mother tell you to never stick a screwdriver into an electrical box?

Dozy filling in the trench

Well, it’s official.  We can now start building.  HOORAY!!!

With our “official” set of plans, layed out on our nifty road sign work table, I check measurments to lay out the forms for the foundation.

Jeff standing in the middle of our livingroom

Highway sign work table

You need a flat space to roll out the plans so I built this work table from a piece of old Highway sign.  It’s the perfect height to review the plans and take measurements.

Not having the building permit hasn’t stopped us from digging out the area for the foundation and Jeff and & I started today to build the forms for the concrete foundation/floor.  It will be one “monolithic” pour so we only need the forms for the outside perimeter.

Forms made from old highway signs

Some of the used highway signs that will become the forms for our foundation

After months of frustrating delays between the local building department, their engineer in Eugene, the Formworks people in Colorado and their engineer, (the second one they have had to hire for this project), it looks like we are FINALLY going to get our building permit.  People have been building earth sheltered structures for thousands of years but when yours is the first in the neighborhood it seems to be a challenge to get it going.