Excavation Complications

Now that the land is cleared, the excavation crew has arrived. The city held up our permits for a week because they weren't satisfied with the drainage plan, so now we're pulling from our contingency budget (on day 1!) to dig a trench filled with river rock so that the property drains in the right direction. In lucky news, that solved another problem on the other side of the house - so I suppose it's all good.

It's baffling to me how complicated this process has already gotten and we've only just begun.

The city also happened NOT to have our sewer records on file, so a team came out today (more unscheduled money) to scope the sewer in order to locate the pipes. We need to make sure they're not hit while the crew digs, but also that the main line is near the new bathroom so we can tie in easily.

With all this going on, we had LOTS of trucks and machines here today! Excavator digging out the new foundation, a dump truck to haul away the dirt... we are the talk of the neighborhood.

he twins' preschool class decided to take a field trip to our house. Many cute 4&5 year olds came to meet Bill the Builder and see where the tree used to be.

Check out the work in progress: