New Home Construction

[_RaT_]

I need to do something like that at a cabin we have. I never know how much snow is in the driveway and thus not sure when to call for the snow plow. We rent quite a bit and I rely on the renters to either tell me or I attempt to call neighbors around our place how bad the snow is. There are times when I could really use a camera. Let me know if you figure it out. We only have dial up at our cabin.

I am about to start building my place. Next week we should have the engineered plans ready. I did the site prep myself moving several hundred yards. I will also be building most of it myself. Best wishes on your project. Whats your sq footage?

 

[bmac]

OK. Highbeam asked for a photo of the raw land before the clearing began. Sorry, don't have one. However, here is what the entire 12 acres looked like before work began. This is a photo of the area just behind the silt fence at the rear of the home site.

 

[bmac]

This shows the opening to the building site from the driveway. The front of the house will be just behind the smoldering pile of brush / roots.

 

[bmac]

This is about where the excavation will occur, looking from right to left.

 

[bmac]

Here is the brush pile that resulted from the clearing. It actually grew a little after this photo was taken as the clearing was not 100% complete at this time.

 

[bmac]

The brush pile a couple of days later. Sorry, I had no one to stand in for the photo for reference. Didn't think about using my truck as a reference in this photo.

 

[bmac]

On to excavation. I am standing on what will be the front porch looking toward the rear of the site. Most of what you see is the basement floor and the area where we plan to build a pool. Boy, its hard for me to share the perspective with these pictures.

 

[bmac]

From the last picture, I've stepped back a few feet and turned to the left to try to get an image of our hole. As you can see in the background, we're starting to accumulate some dirt piles.

 

[bmac]

From the rear of the building site. I wised up a little and drove my truck into the hole to provide some dimensional perspective. My "barn" (basement area under the garage) will be on the left side of the excavated area from this view.

 

[bmac]

Standing in the same position, just panned to the left. I couldn't get far enough away to get the full width of the hole in one photo.

 

[bmac]

Another hole shot. This one from the side. The poured basement walls will be 10 ft high, extending a couple of feet higher than ground level at the front of the house.

 

[bmac]

Well, if I wasn't getting carried away with all of the other pics, I surely am with this one. But here is a picture of dirt. Actually, for those who do not live in clay-rich areas, you may not appreciate the need to preserve good top soil. Our dozer operator skimmed off the nice top soil before beginning the basement excavation. Here is a nice comparison picture of the good and the bad. Sadly, we have more bad than good. We do, however, have a few more piles of the good stuff scattered around the site.

 

[bmac]

I'll conclude with a photo of the machine that cleared the trees and dug the hole. Kudos to Hoyt, the operator of this machine for a job well done. BTW, that's not Hoyt on the dozer. That's my son, Ben.

 

[newcountry]

BMac, you're house setup is similiar to mine. I love looking out the back into those trees /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif. You're forest is even thicker than mine (and prettier trees, too).

You were excited about the preservation of the good dirt, as I was. I was very impressed that he'd done that, but I think good excavators will do that.
Interestingly, we specifically picked a spot to build that sloped so we could have a walkout. At the front of our house we had a good 3.5-4 ft of good black dirt, by the time he got to the back is was down to less than two.

If you're going to have a wood fireplace you'll be set /forums/images/graemlins/laugh.gif!!

 

[bmac]

Eric, our top soil is measured in inches, not feet. You are very fortunate.

I have more trees than energy and time. Plus, my wife doen't like the mess associated with a wood-burner. The fireplace will be gas. Here in the South, the winters are relatively mild. Fireplaces are more cosmetic than functional. Don't get me wrong. We do have some cold days. But not nearly as many nor as extreme as you get. We use ours now mainly early in the AM to knock the chill off in the family room. Sometimes in the evening for atmosphere. With gas, its instant heat that you can turn off as you are leaving for work or going to bed and no ashes to clean out. Still, not the same as a real fireplace with a crackling fire, nice aroma and the ambiance of burning wood.

 

[_RaT_]

Out of curiosity, why do you guys build basements? It seems like a considerable expense.

 

[bmac]

Rat,

You are right that the cost of a basement is considerable. And if all you do with your basement is store some household items in it, it is very expensive space. However, if you finish your basement, the square footage cost of the additional living space is probably half of the main floors. Maybe more than half, but definately cheaper. Our "wish list" for our home included a game room for the kids, office space for me and my wife, a home theater and, yes, plenty of storage space. The builder estimates the additional cost of extending the basement to the area under the garage will be about $20K which is probably cheaper than it would have cost me to have a free-standing barn built. And I will use that space as a barn - tractor storage and shop.

So, if you have the need for more usable living space, doing it with a basement is actually cheaper than extending the outside dimensions of the home.

 

[Jagmandave]

As long as you don't mind (or are able to ) climb the stairs.....
Our new house is also on a sloping lot, so we'll have a walkout, and I also have about 1000 sq. ft available as a shop. Since we get tornados here, I also have a storm room under the front porch, about 8' square, reinforced concrete on all six sides with steel doors, one that opens out and the other that opens into the basement.

That looks like a lot of square footage, should be a real nice place when it's done. I still go back and forth on the separate shop idea, I like that it's in the basement for both convenience and cost savings, but if I want to paint or grind metal, it might be better if it was detached for odors and dirt and such...........

 

[Highbeam]

I am amazed at what that smallish tracked loaded did. Also amazed at how small the brush pile was. That conversion is like a caterpillar to butterfly in my eyes. Seeing the dense woods open up to become useful space is so cool.

The reason that basements are nice living space is that the temperature is regulated by the ground. We only get a handful of days over 100 here in the NW but lots of days where the above ground living space will be 80+ without AC so a basement is a nice cool place to be in the summer.

Those are the kinds of pics we like. The job to do, the machine that did it, and the result of the efforts. Action photos are a nice bonus.

 

[bmac]

Dave,

Now you have me thinking about a webcam at the building site. Not to be "big brother" for the workers but mainly for security. Last fall our area of the county saw a number of arson fires at homes where the construction was nearly complete. Most were within probably 5 miles of our land and a few were actually in subdivisions - i.e., not remote locations like ours. So these hoodlums have plenty of nerve. Never saw that they were caught but haven't seen any activity in a while either. In any event, I guess to be useful for nighttime monitoring, the camera would need some sort of infrared sensor. Then again, the images I've seen from infrared cameras haven't exactly been clear enough to ID the perps. So, what advice do you have? Please don't say that my blazing home will provide enough light for a conventional camera to capture a nice clear image. /forums/images/graemlins/frown.gif