And how much rain has fallen?

Our hearts ache for the community of Oso and their tremendous loss from the mountain landslide.  The record rainfall these past 2 months has saturated the soils in the Northwest. 

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With all the bare ground we have on our construction site, we've got a mire.  We're using planks and other scrap lumber to try to make a stable place to walk with some success. 

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Yes, we have had a lot of rain.  March has an average of 3.7" of rain each year.  
But not this year.  Besides blowing past the rainfall record for March with a total of: 

March rainfall: 12 1/4"

We've also broken the record for the February-March combo:  with

February- March: 20 1/4" Rainfall total 

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All since we started disturbing the earth in mid-February.  First moving the mobile out, then digging out for the footings, backfilling around the foundation.  We are still not able to walk around without sinking.  Pretty mucky stuff.

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Ah, the great Pacific Northwet, we can always talk about the weather!

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In the muck we can track travelers on the property.  Note the raccoon prints following along the people prints. 

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Sunny day today.  A hopeful sign of things to come - like spring!

Care to Dance?

Please look at the first picture closely – see blue sky?  

Yep, we have had a few (too few) moments of a pretty NW spring. 

Monday early an Armstrong truck, trailer, and crane came to offload floor joists and subflooring.

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The framer spent most the day measuring carefully that the foundation was square and level.  When he was satisfied.  The members to support the joists were placed in position.  

The next day the framer and crew nailed all the joists.  It rained 1/2".  Many muddy footprints.

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Awaiting inspection nothing happened for 2 days.  

Once the inspection was approved, the subfloor was installed.  Another 2/3" of rain.  

The framer said he'd rather be here than Minnesota with the very cold winter and summer mosquitoes or in 90 degree plus weather.  

He says he can always put on a raincoat.  And he did. 

Note the shiny area of our subfloor is not wax for dancing but puddling from the rain.
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We are now ready for walls!
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Stay tuned.

Jefferson Confederate Bank Error Count Keeps Rising

We kind of would like to quit having anything to say about the "Jefferson Confederate Bank" but they do such a nice job of messing up.  I realize there is still one more banking day in the month where they have a chance to up their error count for the month but I just can't resist sharing.
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March Error #1 – we were charged interest before we had ever made a draw on the construction loan.....that was because the title company was late transferring our money to the bank.  Maybe somebody needed to pay interest but it wasn't us and we were able to get the interest amount retracted.
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March Error #2 – the total opening balance for the month was a number we couldn't figure out.  We sent an email and got no answer.  Then went to the branch 3 days later.  The loan officer and assistant couldn't find the discrepancy – they were $96 off.  They said they'd keep working on it.  2 weeks later we pushed them saying we wanted an answer now.  They were not happy but found the discrepancy.  At close, instead of applying funds as they had said, they had put them elsewhere and when the number wasn't exact they refunded us the remaining (they did?).  And, no, as we've unfortunately come to expect, they didn't inform us of this misappropriation of the funds we'd paid. 
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March Error #3 – in this day and age of privacy practices and identity theft, we were dismayed to receive an email on an upcoming loan deadline which was sent to all of their current loan clients.  Now we and these clients share names and emails.  We know that Tim Kophf and Karen Jones and Bill Bader and, yep, Loren Springer (remember Jerry's family?) all have active construction loans with JC bank.  We suggested to the assistant that a BCC email would be a brighter way of sending a group email. 

Walls!

Finally!  We think this new house thing is really going to happen.
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Yes, we've moved dirt and we've got drains and we've got a foundation but going to the factory and looking at the wall for our front door and seeing the bay window with glass installed...that's real. 

From the top - front door wall

Bay Window is wall "L-3"

Our buillder

Armstrong Homes builds homes using panelized construction.  

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The walls are built at waist height and under cover.  Each wall section is laser set for true angles. The production line is estimated the length of a football field with a station for each wall – exterior and interior.  

Near the beginning of the production line

The sections are produced on the line in the order that the walls will be set onsite.  

Exterior walls as far as the mid-room divider -  more to come

Windows and siding are on each panel.

Continuation of the production line - the back door and the laser wall setter

Per the schedule, a truck with a crane and pulling a trailer with all the walls will show up Monday morning.  We will have all 4 walls installed by early afternoon!  By next week's end the trusses will be sheeted.  Wow.

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But first we need to get a subfloor and that is scheduled for tomorrow.  

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Stay tuned. 

Spring has sprung - And major happenings abound!

Spring has sprung and the builders and contractors are getting busy!  Schedules are being set.  Sometimes the sun even shines!
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This week the Wild Tractor Man was back.  Wild Tractor Man and his cohort placed the foundation drains and set up drains for downspouts.

 Then they used 2 tractors to move the piles of dirt and filled in around the foundation.  

Now we can really get an idea of how the home fits on the property.  

We spent the weekend raking rocks and leveling out the lumps.

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Nice how our view has changed in a month: 

February (before March's rains) tarps in place

After foundation was complete - foundation drains and downspout drains being placed

Dirt filled around - nice to be able to see our garden again

We were given a construction schedule for the next two weeks:

>   Next week the joists and subfloor will be placed

>   And AND AND!!! on the week of the 31st the house will appear on our property.  The supervisor said that by the end of that week the trusses and shingles will be installed and our house will be closed up.  We can hardly imagine.
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Also, next week we will visit the factory to watch the panelized wall system and our house walls being built.
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You too can watch the process by linking to: Armstrong Panelized Wall System Homes and watching the pictures change to show the construction process.
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Things are getting exciting!  Stay tuned.

The Foundation!

Finally the rains stayed away .. at least long enough for the foundation wall forms to be removed.  
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We now have nice fresh concrete and with spring sprinkles back, the concrete is staying moist.  That is good for concrete curing. 

In between the spring sprinkles, we've had some sunny spells so that Dean can work on cleaning up the area inside of the walls.  It's just a thing he does. 

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Now we can "see" the outline of the house.  We can see where the front door will be, the decks, the front room.  It seems so much bigger than the mobile it replaces.

Dean added a bridge to the inside which became an access for the trick dog and a great dog pen!  When it is sunny, Miss Lily lays in the dirt and watches Dean pick up the concrete chunks. 

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And this week we finally finalized the final plans. 

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Many of you might think we had already done that.  Ah, but then you must not know us well enough.  Given enough time, we can completely change everything. (Oops!)

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We had to have a "final" final so walls could get ordered at the factory.  The windows have been ordered and the wall construction order was submitted on Wednesday.  No delivery schedule yet. 

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Next on the agenda is the wild tractor man comes back and lays drain pipes around the foundation walls (curtain drains).  Then he will shove all the piles of dirt back around the foundation.  We dread the havoc he may create – which pipes will he destroy, break, or dig up this time?  Is there a chance he will tip in and tip over the foundation wall?  We still have a power line laying on the ground that feeds the RV – we really do not want that cut.  How will we keep him from destroying that?  We'll probably fill that section by hand.   (We wondered this week how many tractor guys come with their own plumbing supply van - guess we should have thought of that before!  Ha ha!)
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Behind wild tractor man and closer to wall install, the subfloor crew will come and we'll have a dance floor created.  Nobody wants the wood subfloor to spend much time in the weather (NW Washington: that means rain) so we expect a couple weeks before that happens.

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Things look so much brighter with some sunshine and the foundation.  Progress is being made!

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Stay tuned.

Wet dreams

Waterfalls and waves, fountains and puddles, landslides, avalanches.  

A lot of wet sometimes causes a lot of nightmares.

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Those who read this blog know I watch the weather and marvel at anomalies.  Especially those that are right where we are wherever that might be.
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Our weather in this area of Puget Sound has had a wonderfully dry winter.  November and February are considered our wettest months.  But we have to work hard all year to get the 40" of rain that keeps us green.  Less rain was very ok for taking apart the fences and covered porches and decks to prepare the mobile to be hauled away.  Healthy plants were moved and parked off the side yard.
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A few statistics on our fall and early winter rainfall:

An average October has             3.5"       -         we had 1.2"

An average November has         6.0"       -         we had 3.9"

An average December has         5.8"       -         we had 1.7" !!! – nice!

An average January has              5.8"       -         we had 4.4"
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Wow!  We were able to move out of the mobile and into the RV and the garage and nothing got wet. 
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But....

      then....

                 the monsoons hit!!
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An average February has           4.0" of rain   -    we had 8"  - 7" before the mobile got hauled out and the foundation dug.
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Know I whined in the blog of 2/26 about the rain but since then we've had much more.
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An average March has               3.7" of rain    -    we have already had 7.4" in 8 days and get this: more than the total rainfall of October, November, and December
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That's 15" of rain in 30 days!  Way more than the soils of NW Washington can handle.

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The nightmares persist, but work continues on the foundation for the new house.  Every worker needed to wear tall boots and move slowly to keep the water from filling them.  

water to within 1/2" of the top of the 6" footings

outside the footings - but the water isn't going anywhere

Friday the stem walls were poured.  
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Next week the forms come off and then ???  
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Stay tuned.