Almost ready to frame (Day 51 of 273)

Its Thursday, and we're getting ready to backfill around the basement and crawl spaces on Friday. The inspector threw me a curve ball on Wednesday and said I needed a perimeter drain around the crawl space footers, as well as the basement. So off I went to Carls to buy 200 ft of 4" perforated flexible pipe with a sock on it (woven mesh to keep the fines out). This was way easier to install than the 4" sewer pipe (PVC), but you have to be careful to lay it on a gradually declining grade (no hills or humps). I ran this pipe down into the basement drain and into the sump. This afternoon we shot 12 tons (about 9 yds) of pea gravel onto the drainage pipes then Jason (a hired hand) and I will shovelled it around and raked it out into a 6"-12" thick layer. Any water around the foundation will settle here, move into the perforated pipe, and flow into the sump basin (we hope). I don't ever expect to see water in the sump basin but we have that base (and code requirement) covered now. Once the backfilling is finished, Gary Ellis and his crew of 2 will start the framing, it we'll have timber in the air before you can blink. He's thinking it will be 6-8 weeks to dry the house in, which means we'll try to roof this sucker in early February (burrr). All is well, for now.

Business is turning tough up here (and everywhere else). K&D Concrete, which did the foundation, had a couple of jobs lined up for December then had them canceled at the last minute. So Don had to lay off his staff until the first of the year, pending work. Subs that I called for estimates are calling me back looking for work. Gary the framer has one job following ours, but nothing else on the horizon. I suspect we won't have any trouble getting reasonable bids on the roof and drywall, which are the next two jobs I have to address. We'll start the plumbing and electrical (with a little help) when the house is dried in.