Permit Issued, Footings Done, Sewer Pipe Installed

This morning I met Kenley, the footings guy, at the lot at 7:00, and gave him the previous version of the foundation plan and lot layout to get started setting the forms. Then I headed over to the city to pay for the building permit, then back to the lot to give Kenley the updated copy of the plans.

I noticed that the footings seemed to be set back a bit from where Hyrum and I had staked the position of the front of the house. It turns out he had measured from 6" behind the sidewalk, but the actual property line is at the sidewalk. It looked like they didn't quite have half of the forms placed yet, and he said he could move them forward. The back yard space is going to be precious.

Kenley called in the late morning to warn me that because the excavation wasn't level, the forms were sitting up to 8" off the ground in some places, and would require extra cement. When he called he said he was already 5 yards heavy.

The footing forms inspection was scheduled for 12:30, and must have passed, because they poured in the afternoon. Here's a picture of the pumper truck.

I met Jim to talk about scheduling the sub rough plumbing, and although he had been at work since 1:30 AM because of a plumbing emergency, he decided it would be best to punch through the soft(ish) bottom of the footings under the forms to put the sewer pipe through, rather than wait until it was completely cured. We ran to Home Depot and bought a digging bar, a 10' long 4" pipe, and some duct tape to cover the ends. Then back to the house where Jonah and Sawyer and I helped him install it. The picture shows Sawyer, Jonah, and Jim all demonstrating how strong they are.

Here is Jonah "tracing" the footings (his word for doing laps), and Sawyer following him.

Building Permit Approved, Concrete Tomorrow!

I got a voice mail this morning from Sue at Farmington City saying there were just two more issues on the lot layout that needed to be resolved, then the permit could be issued. One was the label for the floor height needing to be 4223', which I talked about with Ken at the city last month, and he agreed it could be 4222.54, which it is. It turns out he had checked that one off, but Sue didn't notice.

The other issue was that we needed to show the detail on the lot layout for a water retention area. I made it to the office just before closing time, and Ken helped me sketch it in along the Northeast corner of the lot. We just drew some curvy lines to indicate berms 40' along the back and 20' along the East side, then labeled it as 1' deep. Presto, building permit approved.

It turns out Farmington City doesn't accept credit cards, so this major purchase won't help get us to Tahiti. It also means we have to either get a whole bunch of cash or a check, neither of which I had with me, and there was no time before closing to figure a way to get either. We can't afford to wait for a draw from the bank before getting the permit and scheduling the footings, so I plan to use a "convenience" check that will put it on the credit card account, but won't earn us any reward points. Citi says there won't be a balance transfer fee for this check, which I hope holds true.

Derik also called this afternoon to check on the permit status. It turns out their project in Eden is not going quite as planned, and they wanted to start our footings tomorrow instead of Wednesday. With the permit verbally approved, they went ahead and added us to the schedule.