Since breaking ground, the progress made by the foundation and framing crews has been amazing. I know everyone says the fastest part is drying it in, but still I was surprised with the speed everything happened.
The foundation crew, an Amish group out of Logotee Indiana, about 2 hours away, started digging on the 29th of May. Day one saw a complete crawl space and footers dug, formed, ready for concrete. They used a foundation forming system I had never seen called Form-a-Drain. It forms the footer and also is a plastic chase for any water to flow away from the foundation. It terminates in a pipe that runs away from the home, eliminating the need for a dedicated perimeter drain system as it is already built in. [For all photos, See PDF or View in Full Issue.]
The next day footers were poured using a pumping truck, also an Amish company from Montgomery, IN, also 2 hours away.
Because we are using a poured concrete foundation for a 3’ crawl space, forms were set on day three. That entailed a lot of steel fit together, pinned, prepped for concrete, and at 2 pm the concrete truck and pump truck came. While the concrete was local, the same Amish pump truck made the 2-hour trip. The end of day four had the foundation walls poured.
Forms came down on day five, leaving a nice new concrete foundation (and, by then, the poured piers for the internal beams were in there too).
Next came forming the safe room. I’ve been assured (lectured) by everyone who has lived in the Midwest that tornados are real and we need a safe place to hide when the weather gets ugly. We designed the safe room to do double-duty as our pantry. Accessed from a set of cabinet doors, it is hidden from view. It has its own foundation and will have 6” concrete walls, ceiling, and a 4” concrete floor. The crew used damaged garage door panels to form the ceiling, putting the damaged side up, leaving a textured flat panel surface. It was poured on day six, with the forms removed one week later.
The crew had another job that took them away for a few days, but they were back on day 14 to prep for the slabs. The front and back porch, garage, and safe room were filled with gravel, compacted, and forms set.
On day fifteen, I took “a day off” and went to an equipment auction. The concrete crew had the day off too, but I thought the framers might get the floor framed and maybe decked. When I got home that night, however, we had walls standing on a complete floor.
Progress has continued so quickly that now, less than a month from when we started the foundation, the home is almost ready to be dried in. We are hoping to get started with roofing and siding in a couple of weeks. Next up, utilities need to be routed and trades scheduled for site visits to identify any issues they see before the framers leave. At this rate, we’re already looking forward to moving out of the RV and into our new home by Thanksgiving.
Next Month:
Exteriors and utilities