Building Our New Schumacher Home: Foundation Construction

They are working on our footings and foundation today. The contractor came out to dig trenches for frost footings. What should have been one foot is about four feet. They have to keep digging till they get past the mud. They dig. Poke with a tool. It pushes right in. They dig again. And we hit springs.

If we wanted to dig for water, we would be pleasantly surprised at how close water is. We are not digging for water. So, we will have to do something about the springs bubbling up through our footers.

They kept digging, to see how bad it would get. Not much worse. A few springs, but we have a plan for that. See the water toward the back right side?

And then it started to snow. This is the log cabin we live in now. I didn’t make it down to the new land till later.

We have had snow, cold and rain. They are calling it an Arctic Blast.

They are building a house right next to us. They have a silt fence, but it is folded over and diverting all the run off straight into our footers. The builder sent guys down to correct it and re-dig a ditch to divert the water, but it rained so much it completely filled up the footers anyway.

The rain has filled the footers with water. It is draining, though. It was full to the very top.

So… We have had more snow than we usually get for Western North Carolina. And really cold weather. They can’t tell anything when it is 9 degrees. Then pouring rain and ice cold weather. The ground is totally frozen and right now the footers are moats, ice covered moats.

So… here we are. I will drive down today and see what has gone on. I really can’t see what they can get done, since it is still cold and soggy.

Next: Driveway Progress, Footers Draining, Clearing Up >