Site Work Complete

Scott and I worked on the property next door for most of the day... May 18th.  Scott and I started out in the morning doing some maintenance work on his track hoe.  We fitted some bushings onto the upper pivot pin of the new hydraulic cylinder, and Scott used his portable welder to tack them into place.  Once this was completed, Scott used his big track hoe to stack all of the logs that we had set aside for firewood, into two piles.  These are stacked somewhat out of the way of construction, and can remain where they are until there is an opportunity to cut them up.  There was one last load of debris, not quite a full one, that went to the burn pit.  

Once that was complete Scott switched over to the larger bucket on his track hoe, and began some dirt work.  He graded the driveway into the property, and made a stock pile of some of the excess dirt.  While he was doing this, I roughed out the location of the foundation for the new guest cottage.  Scott used the track hoe to dig this down to bedrock.  We were able to excavate roughly two feet before we hit a sloped ledge of solid rock.  There is one offset seam running diagonally through the rock, but nothing too serious.

Scott also excavated beside the cottage for the septic tank.  While he was doing that I used a snow shovel to clear away excess dirt and expose the bedrock a little more cleanly.  If we get some rain, hopefully this will wash the rock a bit, and make the form work of the foundation a little easier.  There is enough natural slope to the property that we can hopefully drain the sewer line by gravity, and not need a grinder pump.

Later in the afternoon Scott brought over four dump truck loads of gravel and spread them on the driveway.  When we get the rain and snow that is in the forecast, this should prevent it from getting too muddy.  I used my spade to spread a little of that gravel at the approach to Tamarack Trail so that my neighbor does not have any issues accessing his property from our shared driveway. 

This should complete the last of the site work for the time being.  In the next couple of days, as weather conditions permit, Scott can look after a couple more things.  We need to spread a little gravel in the excavation for the septic tank so that the tank can be properly leveled.  And, he can also dig a trench from the transformer box at the road, onto the property to the building site.  Then we can lay in a cable that will become our power supply.  

At that point we will get the septic tank delivered and set into place.  Once that is done we can determine the height that the foundation needs to be built to, so that we can achieve proper drainage to the tank.  Then footings, foundation, weeping tile, back filling and eventually subfloor construction can commence.