The ICF Footings are in.... and The Law Of Building and Renovating

 Massive amounts of dirt have been re-arranged and an extra ditch out the front seemed a good idea seeing as how much water flows under and around the house site. John advised getting solid white perforated drainpipe rather than the old flexible black snakey stuff, to avoid the possibility of crushing under the weight of the backfill...oh my ! what a shock the price of that was, but we got it and I will remember fondly how pretty it is after it's buried out of sight.

Yesterday we had extra help to assemble the footing forms

which was much appreciated.

There is a Law of Building Stuff that says: Unexpected snags are bound to happen. Everything will cost more than you think it will. Things will take longer to do than you think they will. Well it's not really a Law but it should be because it's nearly always true.
The first time I saw this Law in action I was about 12 and Dad had just laid up the concrete wall for our house, and my brother who was just learning to drive, accidently backed up the truck and flattened the wall...Growing up to build things all my life I've seen this Law in action many times.

So late yesterday it became apparent that the corner

where the footings began was a few inches too high and of course that had to be the shale rock corner not the softer corner so today our valiant crew did a lot of pickaxe and shovel work and have now got the whole business lowered and leveled. Tomorrows challenge will be to engineer the step footing for the basement front door.

Yesterdays beautiful sunset here...