The big reveal!

This might be the most disappointing blog entry yet, since I named it "big reveal" but I reveal nothing by way of pictures. Sorry, we lapsed on photo documenting duties this weekend! Nonetheless, that doesn't make our work any less noteworthy.

Matt and I both had Friday off of work (our 5 year wedding anniversary :-) ) and we used the morning as an opportunity to do a little work on the site. Unfortunately there was rain on and off, but we managed to make some progress since we knew we were going to be away for most of the weekend, and gravel comes tomorrow (Monday). The "big reveal" I alluded to was removing the inside of the forms to see the set concrete footers, woo hoo! This was exciting for us to see, particularly because it is our first above-ground structure (soon to not be above ground anymore, but whatever); however, it really couldn't be much more underwhelming in pictures, so we didn't bother to take any. With some help from our friends Mark and Josh, we hammered some very archaic-looking cut nails from the outside wooden forms into the footers to help keep them there, since they will purposefully remain as part of a thermal break (along with more foam to be added later). After another rainstorm passed, we then did a little backfilling so that the gravel truck could pull up as closely as possible to the middle of the work area; and then we cleaned up the scattered tools, containers, and trash from around the site. From there Matt and I took off for our anniversary weekend.

This morning we decided we wanted to get back so we could do more prep before the gravel gets delivered, so we drove back to the site and placed two geothermal pipes that were given to us by Roth Green Energy. Previously we put conduit into the footer trenches so that we would have a place to feed this pipe through once the footers were poured. We placed these pipes through the conduit, packed in any empty space with foam, and then called it a day because it turned out to be incredibly hot and we were tired. We meant to also dig a trench to lay the sewer pipe, but decided we could do it later.

Okay so this wasn't a very exciting update, but things are sure to get exciting again soon, because gravel (for under the slab) arrives tomorrow! Here's hoping we have good weather, though the forecast is a little iffy. It seems to be anytime we schedule a gravel delivery, it rains.

Updated budget:
+ $13.96 for cut nails
TOTAL SPENT SO FAR: $46,652.76