Day 1 - Dig a Hole

So I lied. I know, not the greatest first impression. "From the Ground Up" suggests from the beginning, completely, and thoroughly. When it comes to building, that means permitting, planning, building, and that one time that one dude over at that office just wouldn't call you back. Or so I'm told. I don't know, this is my first day. But we're being literal here, so this blog will recount the building of the house in Fayston, VT from the ground, up.

To be clear, this blog is written for you, the reader, whoever, wherever, and whenever you are. You may even be me! However you wound up here, my goal is that you will enjoy your read and that you will learn something.

This is the job site. That's Joey's truck to the left; Joey is the general contractor on the job. The lads toward the back are Nate and Kevin, the excavators. Nate is driving the long-armed digging machine (that's the technical name), and Kevin is down in the trench.

The trench has two levels. I don't know why yet.. I think I'll find that out later. Things to note regarding the trench are its dimensions, width, and evenness. Nate and Kevin outline the trench before digging. Dimensions: Check. Joey and I will be setting footings in the trench, so Nate and Kevin dig the trench wide enough for the footings plus extra space on either side of the footings for me and Joey to work. Width: Check. For evenness, Nate and Kevin have a laser level. That's right. That thing on the tripod, to the right of the stick with the orange flag on top (you might have to zoom in for this one. Maybe squint a little. No, not that much.. don't hurt yourself), is a 360 degree laser beam cannon (also the technical name). This thing is unbelievable. It levels itself out on the tripod, spins in constant circles, and pulsates lasers at high frequency. Imagine a helicopter propeller spinning just before takeoff. You know how it starts spinning so fast that you can't really tell where the propellers are anymore and it just looks like one big fuzzy circle? It's kind of like that, but LASERS! Anyway, the point is that, down in the trench, Kevin has a long stick with a sensor on it that beeps when it sees the laser. So what he can do is he can walk around in the trench, put the stick vertical on the ground, and if the sensor beeps, he knows that he is at the right depth. Evenness: Check.

These are the footings. We will be pouring concrete into them. They are two feet wide all the way around. There is not much to say here other than that the footings must be plumb, level, and square. If you don't know what plumb is, like I didn't, plumb is the up and down version of level. This is how you make sure vertical things are not leaning side to side. Plumb, level, and square checks keep your boxes boxy, just how you like them.

Most of the footings are in, and we will focus on plumb, level, and square tomorrow. A note about the environment.. Do you see the water in the trench? It was not there when we started. This is what can happen if the ground is wet. The Fayston, VT area got 18.5" of rain in July. To put that into perspective, August is, on average, the wettest month in VT at 4.11" of rain. Wow! Two things: if it could be wet, have rubber boots handy. You can most likely find them at your local hardware store. Have rubber boots handy anyway. They're handy, and footy! And two: bring a pump. Joey has a pump that we will use tomorrow to pump the water out. We'll see that when we see it.