The county requires erosion control in the form of silt fences. So we used a row of hay bales and a 30" high plastic mesh screen to hold back any sediment from the berm. (Nancy is standing on the berm in one photo.) We'll place another silt fence just below the garage, when we get some of the dirt repositioned. Sacred ground in this whole exercise is the drain field, which must be placed in undisturbed soil. So there is a patch about 60 ft wide and 30 feet deep between the berm and the garage that is no-mans land.
The basement is rather large, now that we have a hole in the ground. It measures 32 ft by 26 ft. It will have a staircase in one corner, wine cellar (?) in another, a utility room for the radiant heat boiler and tank, whole house vacuum, and electrical panel, and a bunch of storage space for all the extra junk we dragged up from Denver. I can't imagine how much more stuff we would have had if not for 4 garage sales and offloading stuff to neighbors and friends.The concrete guy, Don (K&D Concrete, Port Townsend), will use a pumper to place most of the concrete. That way the pumper ca
n park near the garage and pump from the delivery truck to the forms. The long (E-W) dimension of the house and garage is 88 ft, so there was no other way to get the concrete in place.All told, we'll need something like 70 cubic yds of concrete: 12 yds for the footers, 10 yards each for the basement and garage floors, and 38 yds for the basement and stem walls. Concrete is going for about $92/yd delivered. You do the math; its about the same price as a used 2005 Hobie 18 (sorry Tom).
