During the lot inspection one of the things Kasey and my husband discussed was the amount of stone in the trench around the house. WH's standard is 1 foot of stone, but Kasey suggested additional 3 feet. Additional stone would help prevent impact on the basement walls from the soil freezing and thawing (expanding and contracting). We agreed to do this as the house across the road has several cracks and water leaks in their basement.
When I got to the site mid-morning, the excavators had already starting backfilling. I, of course, grabbed my camera and started taking pictures. When I got to the back of the house I noticed that the stone didn't look that deep. I immediately called B to confirm what I thought I remembered. The backhoe operator must have noticed that I looked panicked, because he stopped to come talk to me. I asked him about the stone depth, and he said his orders were for the standard depth. I told him that was incorrect, so he called Kasey.
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| 1 foot of stone at the bottom of the trench. |
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| 4 feet of stone in the trench. |
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| Backfilling complete and grading started. |
In a nutshell, the problem was that since we were paying for the stone out of pocket, it wasn't on any official WH form, although a note was made in our information packet. This was a goof on their behalf as well as ours. My advice is to write everything down, and have any changes like this added to the PPI list!
The excavator ended up digging out the sections he had already filled and added the correct amount of stone. I had to leave for a little bit, so the excavator took pictures that he texted to me. That made me feel a lot better about having to leave. By the time I got back in the afternoon the trench had been filled in and he started the grading. By late afternoon the lot had been graded and the lumber for framing was delivered.
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| The grading across the back of the house. |
I officially met Kasey for the first time this afternoon. (I did run into him at the sales office once and told him I read about him on a blog. Felt like a stalker.) He introduced himself, apologized for the mix-up this morning, and thanked me for catching it. I told him to tell the subs that I would be on site every day and they should consider themselves warned. (I was only partially kidding.) He said if I ever see anything I have questions about to call him, and I assured him that I most certainly will!
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| Lumber is on site and ready for framing! |
I found your blog from Brent's. We're going to build the Litchfield and were very close to choosing the Montgomery. Our dig date is next month. I started a blog as well, but haven't had time to get it up to date yet. Hopefully in the next week. We're moving into an apartment in a few days, then I'll have more time.
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Thanks for all the pics and details. Can I ask why you chose poured basement walls?
I wish I could tell you I had done all kinds of research about it, but it's just that I really liked the look of the "brick" poured walls. We have no plans to finish the basement, so I wanted the walls to be as attractive as possible. A friend of our painted hers to look like real brick and it looks amazing. I, however, am too lazy to put that much time into basement walls, so we'll just paint them and call it good.
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