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Drilling A Well Ourselves...

Cheryl in Gardner, KS — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 00:00:00 GMT

Well, (pun intended!) it looks like we'll be going forward with drilling our own well. Our (one) bid came in at $6,000. While that isn't bad, we think we can do better. We are going to purchase a $2,000 air compressor/generator combo unit that has enough CFM and PSI to handle the drill, and about $1,500 in materials. We're budgeting $4,000 for the job, and estimating it will take us 3-5 weeks to drill, as we have heavy clay soil that is difficult to dig through. In the end, we're hoping that we end up with a working well, no water utility bill, and an air compressor/generator that will be useful for the balance of our building project. My husband is quite convinced we can do it. One of his friends thinks it's a great idea, the other laughed his backside off, until he found out he was going to be recruited to help! We still have to get financing in place, and then we'll begin. Hopefully before it gets cold. We'll try to post pictures or video as we go.

Finished second floor, tree check, etc.

Brian in Dome-ville, central, FL — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 14:31:13 GMT

Cleaned up a bit in the dome today, checked on the trees to make sure the drip irrigation was working. They are alive and well albeit a little droopy, but with 93°F weather, I am droopy too. Got the last two pieces of subfloor down; now we have a complete second floor. It was SO hot. 93°F, but the heat index was 104°. We worked inside the dome until around 5 pm, then ventured out to cut back some brush and get another tree planted. This one is only a foot tall, but it's a yellow poplar/tulip poplar, should be 100 feet tall or more, and it's supposed to grow fast. We put in a drip line to it, too.

Ceramic Tile Install

Diane in Swanton, OH — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 00:00:00 GMT

I've purchased most of the ceramic tile for the floors of the great room, hallways, and bathroom floors. Also, we've picked up lovely tiles for the showers, walls and floors. I've been working with a local small business that installs tile, sells paint, and handles other small home-improvement projects. I finally got a quote for installation from them, and believe the quote is really high. I was planning on using them out of loyalty, but now am having second thoughts about their bid. I've looked into getting two more quotes, one from a local competitor, (another small business that installs tile among other services) and I have a tile installation specialist coming to bid the project as a self-employed individual. I will see how the numbers come in. The first small business has tried to convince me that their bid is fair because there's lots of labor involved. I'm not convinced that he doesn't think that I will question his quote. I will update this blog to tell how the tile installation bids come out. There is a LOT of tile to be put down, so I definitely need to keep on top of the bids, and I need to consider the project carefully.

Pictures

Chris in Sunset, LA — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 12:55:12 GMT

As promised earlier, here are a few pictures of the circular drive and pool installation. More to follow.

Foundation and Septic

Tim in Anchorage, AK — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 11:44:29 GMT

I took two weeks off to finish the foundation and install the septic. Since the wife, myself, and an occasional paid helper did everything, it took us a full two weeks to get that done. Definitely longer than expected. We took advantage of our long summer daylight and put in a minimum of 15 hrs every day.

Since I had the Bobcat, I did the rough grading and backfilled 90% of the way around the foundation after the cement cured for a week. I kept the dirt about 1-2 feet away from the wall until I get the subfloor down later, so the soil doesn't push on the wall just yet. I wanted to install the mud sills and all the floor beams as well, but we only had time to get this done. I'll go back in 6 weeks or so and put the beams and subfloor down. Enjoy the pics.

Tim

Well

Jeff in Belfair, WA — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 00:00:00 GMT

Very happy to have a well. At 86 feet and 20 gallons per minute, we're below budget on this one!

Start of the Crow's Nest

Shannon — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 00:00:00 GMT

- Signed the contract for our building plans today with the alterations. Alterations included stretching the dining room and the great room to line up with the rest of the house (should help ease costs of foundation). Also added five feet to the garage so we have storage room.

- Price-compared items at Menards, Sutherlands, and Home Depot. Very interesting to see the differences.

- Thinking about kitchen cabinets - shape, size, color, what I want - definitely deep drawers, pull-out shelves, and toe-kick drawers (very cool). Got several pamphlets... how will I ever decide?

- Still waiting to hear on the personal loans for the land from Dad and Mom. Hopefully it all comes through.

- David announced he is planning on breaking ground in late April to May - using May 1 as the deadline, that leaves 284 days to figure everything out.

- Just started reading the book, which David has been hogging... love it - and found this website... gonna browse for lists on here (I love lists).

Two Years

Chris in Sunset, LA — Mon, 19 Jul 2010 11:43:39 GMT

It's hard to believe that it has already been over two years since we finished. Well, I don't know if it truly is ever finished, as I think I've done more work after than I did building. Since the last pictures on this blog, we added a circular drive, 1,800 sq ft of landscaping in the front, a pool and pergola in the back along with another 1,700 sq ft of landscaping. I did pretty much all of the landscaping myself, despite objections from the wife. It was definitely a lot of work, but worth it when I was done. Will be posting pictures shortly, but take into account that we had a pretty nasty winter for southwest Louisiana and my palms got pretty beat up. Who would have though it would get to 16 degrees with snow here?

The pool was really an afterthought that my wife came up with once we had been in over a year. I never thought we would have one, but now, not sure why I didn't include it in the beginning. The pool was put in by Leisure Pools, and the guys were really good. If I took out the rain delay, (It rained every day for about three weeks) the time spent was really only about three weeks. As usual with a house project, I did some wheeling and dealing on eBay and added fiber-optic perimeter lighting and two fiber-optic spillway pots to the project. It all came out really nice.

Didn't have my camera card with me, so I'll post up pictures of all of this shortly.

Really can't believe it's been this long since I was last here.