Start of Week 2: Site dig and start of Foundation layout

Hey all, we are into week three tomorrow and things are still going according to plan (thanks to Ivar for the MS Project planning software!).  Over the Easter weekend, I met with Dave (remember he is the lead contractor) and we measured the house outline in the newly cleared job site.

It is critical that we get this right, one degree either way or the house could be looking at the woods or we are perfectly dialed in on the money shot view.  It took a couple of hours and I think we did it.  Karen came up on Saturday and double checked everything (QA manager), getting her approval was nearly as hard as getting the building permitJ.  She asked me to paint the exterior with survey paint, then mark approx. where each room is planned.  As you walk through the job site and into the rooms you do get a different perspective which creates thought provoking conversation.  It was a worthwhile exercise, thanks dear!

It was a beautiful day here Saturday, high temps near 70 and the baby blue sky in full display which comes around little so often and reminds us why we live here in this part of the country—it doesn’t get much better than that.  Eagles were having a gay time and after I moved the grass  a couple of them landed in the bottom portion, I think they found a field mouse for lunch! I mow every two weeks in the front part of the property; especially this time of year.

Next week the big excavator gets a change out; Matt takes the “thumb” hook off he was using to grasp and pull trees down and the big 3 foot scoop goes in its place.  I have to laugh; I told Matt that the 3 footer will be taken off shortly after he has the top two feet of topsoil removed.  The ground is hard as cement (remember my geology lesson from week 1), so we will have to move to the two foot bucket.

I am telecommuting from the job site next week (Monday and Tuesday) and we should have photos which clearly show the job site boundaries.  We may even get the foundation contractor here later in the week; but I don’t want to get ahead of myself.

Below is the job site picture ready for dig.  If you double-click on the photo it will enlarge.  I use Photostich to merge 3 photos to one panarama.  Look carefully for 4 stakes with greenish color survey tape hanging from it--you will see our perimeter of the job site.  The photo taken is very close to what you would see from the living room/outside deck.

It’s starting to get exciting now!  Have a nice Easter everyone.

Big Day 19-April....we are County Permit Approved!

And as a good friend of mine once said, that's a big yippy skippy!! 

Dave my lead contractor says we will have the site ready for measuring the foundation on Friday so goal would be to have the site dug next week in preparation for the Foundation contractor to start setting forms.

This makes my day!

Week 1 - Site preparation and tree removal

The first week at the Camano hacienda was pretty busy (if you are looking for construction pictures read no further, not there yet :( ) ... however; this was a big week at the hacienda.

This week was spent removing trees that are located within the building site.  The trees were removed by a huge Hitachi Excavator ... this machine was made for real men to operate and Matt the guy who runs it was just the guy we needed.

I want to tell you about how we remove the trees the modern way...but if you allow me to digress a minute to the times when the early settlers to the region worked my land.  Most of my trees are in the neighborhood of 80' to 120' high.  The ages of the trees in case you are wondering are in the neighborhood of 50-90 years old.  We know this because of the rings of the tree, each ring represents one year of growth.  We call these trees second (or third) growth in this part of the country--first growth would have been the ancient trees which were harvested at the turn of the century (19th) when Camano Island was logged originally.  Some of you might remember your history of the great San Francisco fire just after 1900.  Much of the lumber required to reconstruct their beautiful city came from Camano and we have signs of the harvest on our 8.8 acres.  There are many large old ancient stumps; all of them still show the scar where the lumbermen of the day took their huge axe and cut a slot on the side of the tree--this wedge shaped slot was used to place a springboard (roughly the size of a 2x8) into the tree and that allowed them to maneuver to the height needed to start the huge two man buck saws.  The sawyer's took several hours to bring down these giants and unfortunately; we will never see these majestic trees in our life time--they take hundreds of years to grow.

Back to our tree removal, we used the excavator to bring these beauties down.  Several of the photos show how the excavator navigates into position; swings its large arm up the side of the tree to plant the double edge fork (known as a thumb).  Then the arms hydraulics take over, Matt rocks the tree back and forth to loosen the roots from the soil; once the tree breaks its suction, the tree is ready for the final push--and down she goes exactly (at least that is the plan) where Matt wanted it to fall. 

And now some background on the geology of the site.  Ten thousand years ago during the last ice age; the mammoth glaciers gouged huge valleys in what is now known as the San Juan Islands.  Camano is considered in the furthest south of these valleys and when the glaciers retreated, vast deposits of till (rock, sand, and debris) settled where the glacier once traveled.  This glacier till created a very hard, concrete like soil.  So on the north of Camano where I live, the soil is only about 18” deep; then the glacier till starts.  The problem with this is that most trees, included these huge Douglas fir’s cannot penetrate the till with their roots.  So, what does that mean?  The tree roots spread out in a very large sphere (mushroom like) and in some cases the diameter of the root ball is 20-30’; however, the depth of the root ball is only 3-4’.  These trees are very hard to break free, but once they lose their suction from the glacier till, they release their grip and easily fall over.

Over a dozen trees came down on Friday; we will complete the final tree removal on Monday and also some brush--wild rhododendron, current, blueberry bushes ... hated to see it these go but it was either them or no house.

Now for the pictures (some of the many i took):

Next Week:  Monday complete tree falling and removal of brush.  Matt will truck all logs to the mill and the brush and stumps to Sedro Wolley to the recycler ... we hope to hear from Island County for the approval of the building permit (crossing my fingers).

Hey all -

Welcome to our Blog ... this will be the place to check in, check on, notify, and otherwise give us feedback on our project.  We are new to blogging and would appreciate help and hints on that as well.  We'll post news on our project, pictures and lots of those, issues that come up and just about anything of interest on this house.

Some updates on where we are:  We are waiting on Island County to approve our building permit.  It was submitted 5April and they told us it would take 2-3 weeks.  For those that have not gone through permitting of any sort it is not an easy process and there are many challenges and roadblocks just getting to this point.

Is your property in a managed wetland?  Does your property have watershed on or near it?

Are there any active eagles nesting on your property?

Do you have an approved access permit to your property?

Has the Department of Natural Resources approved your tree removal plans?

Has your well been tested (this assumes you have one, if not you need to drill one before a permit is requested)?

Does your well have salt water intrusion?  What are the bacterial levels of the well water?  How many gallons of water can you well sustain per minute during a 4 hour test?

OK, by now you should get the picture ... lots of things to consider and even more items requested that you have to eliminate.  As of today, we are waiting for final permit approval from Island County.  Once we receive the permit approval, we will immediately contact our hired primary contractor (we are acting as the general contractor) and schedule the foundation excavation work.  This is the part where they will be grading the soil in preparation for the foundation footings to support our home.  We are estimating nearly 100 cubic yards of concrete will go into the ground and nearly 200 cubic yards of earth will need to move around during the course of the excavation work.

Our primary contractor will be Dave Lindell (Lindell Construction LLC) and he promises he can bring this project in on a timely basis and most importantly adheres to our budget.

**New Flash, this just in from Island County **

I received the Informal Conference Note for the DNR regarding the Arrowhead road parcel clearing trees for a home site.  Per our site visit I did not observe any Critical Areas on-site or nearby, not within Bald Eagle Management Areas.  A Clearing and Grading Permit is therefore not required to cut the trees in the area for the proposed homesite located west of the existing barn and just upland of the pasture area provided the limitations noted in the DNR Note are complied with and grading is less than 500 cumulative cubic yards and clearing to bare earth less than 2 acres expected.

Employ Erosion Control Best Management Practices as necessary to prevent erosion and transport of sediment off-site.

Bill Poss

Public Works Development Coordinator

This is good news and one more step closer to final permit approval--lets leave it at that for today and hope to see everyone soon.