Our first delay

Friday was supposed to be the big day of the concrete pour.  The rebar was ready, forms installed, plumbing routed.  We were all excited at the prospect of moving in the direction of actual building.  J in particular is tired of all the digging and has tearfully complained that the project is going too slow!

But not so fast, said the building inspector.  The contractor, R, our structural engineer, and I all agreed that we didn't really need to put the footing drainage all the way at the very bottom of the footing as shown in the typical foundation detail on our drawings.  "It's rock," we reasoned.  "There won't be that much water down there."  And since we already made the plumber reroute his drain lines once (he had them too high for the surface water drain on one side of our house), we hated to make him lower everything yet again.  Plus, we could only go so low in the first place, as we were limited by the depth of the existing sewer lines.

The building inspector gave us a tongue lashing over this.  He strongly encouraged us to get the drains all the way down as low as possible.  He lectured me about water vapor and mold.  And so, after doing the conversational rounds again (and with some input from an architect friend on R's big stadium job), we decided to have the contractor dig deeper and lower the drains.

Interestingly enough, on the day that R was to explain to the contractor that we needed to do this extra work, the contractor had flipped water off of the rain tarps over our backyard.  He noticed that although the water splashed onto the surface, in a few minutes the water was oozing through the rock down at the base of the footing.  He looked at R and said, "We need to get the drains deeper."  At least we are all completely bought into the need for this work and on the same page now!

We are hoping to pour the concrete next Thursday or Friday, after our plumbing and electrical inspections on Wednesday and Thursday.

Tentative schedule for the week:

Monday&Tuesday

Move drain pipe under slab down as far as possible, get ready for plumbing inspection.

Electrician to install grounding rod.

Put plywood forms on outside of perimeter footings.

Wednesday

Electrical inspection of grounding rod in the morning.

R calls plumbing inspector to see if he can come Wednesday.

Possible plumbing inspection???

Thursday

Plumbing inspection of drain pipe under slab.

Possible concrete pour of foundation if plumbing inspection happens Wednesday???

Friday

Concrete pour of foundation.

Following Week

Dig next to footings to install drainage.

Get slab on grade ready for rebar inspection.