Started construction this week!!! (page 3&4 very pic heavy)

Im still working on updated pictures, but I've got a lot to go through.

cuz1 said:
Nice place,
when you are ready for the house call me and I can help with the design and construction plans. I will save you some dough!!!
carl w.
www.midtowndesigns.com
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That will be great. We have a really good idea of what we want, but haven't found a plan that is close to it.
 
cuz1 said:
Nice place,
when you are ready for the house call me and I can help with the design and construction plans. I will save you some dough!!!
carl w.
www.midtowndesigns.com
Click to expand...

dang you work across from my street :) and I know someone that works in 4820 six forks :)

so are you a designer or do you own that company?
 
Alright, finally got all the pics uploaded. So after finishing the footings, it rained, and there was about 10" of water in the lowest footing. We got that all cleaned out, and the inspector was supposed to come on tuesday of last week. Well, about noon on tuesday, it started to rain, so we covered everything up and waited on him about an hour. Finally we cancelled the inspection so we wouldn't get charged for it. Come back wednesday morning, and about half of the tarps had pulled the stakes out of the ground, so we had about 14" of water standing in the footings at the lowest point, because its only 14" deep.


With shovels and buckets we drained the water. A few inches had soaked in before we got started, but it still took about 100 bucketscoops to get it out.




We finally got enough water out to get down in the trenches and start scraping the mud, which is worse than the water, because as you walk on it, you make more mud. And it builds up on your shoes, so you gain 10lbs and get tired faster.
 
If you want to send me your ideas I can go through the plans I have and maybe find something similiar or at least a good starting poing. I have over 4000 plans in my data base.


jeepinmatt said:
Im still working on updated pictures, but I've got a lot to go through.
That will be great. We have a really good idea of what we want, but haven't found a plan that is close to it.
Click to expand...
BRUISER said:
dang you work across from my street :) and I know someone that works in 4820 six forks :)
so are you a designer or do you own that company?
Click to expand...

I am the designer and owner. I have been designing homes for the last 23 years.
 
Finished footings

Finally got the inspector out on Thursday after 2 very long days of draining, cleaning and setting up. I had to put in 15 dams to form the steps, because there is 40" of elevation change from the lowest to the highest point.



All of the dams were an 8" step up, and everything was setup within 1/8" of level so that laying block will hopefully be easier. Building the dams was very simple, but digging everything out to level was a little more difficult. I had to measure the rise of the ground from my string, then find the point where the foundation would be 8" or thicker, but the ground would be high enough that I wouldn't have to use forms to hold the sides. Also, the step had to be as long as it was thick, so I had to backdig behind where the dam would go. They all looked something like this:



All of the corners had rebar markers, and I had 6 piers that had to be dug out 3'x3'.


I ended up using somewhere around 60 grade stakes, driving most of them flush with where the top of the foundation was to be, but a few ran in to rock and had to be cut off.
 
Pouring Concrete

I did a bit of calling around on concrete, and Im glad I did. Someone had told me about a place in York, SC called Parkway Concrete, and said that they had cool trucks and good prices. Here's how they all stacked up:
Parkway Concrete- $95/yd
Cemex- $115/yd
Concrete Supply- $117/yd
Thomas- $124/yd
The choice seemed obvious enough already. I estimated 11.6yds, so I was going to order 12yds. After talking with Parkway, I found out they have what is called a "mobile mixer" truck, where they mix onsite and only charge for what they actually dispense, and only dispense what you actually need. I was sold. That meant I wouldn't be charged for concrete I didn't use, and they would have all that I needed.
About 1:15pm on Friday the truck showed up:

I was definitely impressed. Dual steering axles, dual driving axles with selectable lockers and central tire inflation systems on both, and it was just big! Later on I would learn that he could pull the truck forwards or backwards using levers at the back of the truck. Imagine being able to spot your own vehicle.

The driver let us get a close up look at the mixer. Using a few levers, he can change any variable of the mix on the fly, and it all comes into this auger which mixes and pumps out the concrete:

The chutes have an 18ft reach, and are completely hydraulic. It extends about 6ft farther than seen in this picture:
 
He couldn't come around the back because of how muddy it was, so we poured the back line first. It worked out well that everything was downhill. Since the mix could be varied, the driver made it very wet, and we drug it under the dam and around the corner with shovels. It flowed pretty well, and in no time we had the first 24ft done.




We had some good help, and since it was the footer, the surface finished wasn't super crucial. No trowels or floats, we finished it all off with a flat shovel as we went.
 
Being able to vary the mix really paid dividends on my job. As he poured the first half, he would thicken the mix to where it was almost gravel at the dams, so that the concrete didn't push under and fill the next section. When it was time to move the truck, he built a gravel dam and then filled in wet mix behind it.


Total time to get setup, pour, move, pour, and finish was about 1hr15min. Here's a few of the finished product:


We ended up using 11.5 yards, which came to $1250 with tax and a $75 truck charge. Even though the other companies wouldn't have had a truck charge, I would have had to pay a higher price per yard, and pay for 12 yards, so I saved about $250, and a whole lot of labor, because the other guys couldn't vary the mix and hydraulically control the chute.
 
Getting the well drilled tomorrow morning! It's $10/ft for every foot over 200ft, so I hope its not too deep.
 
Looking good man! Good luck with the well, my dad's last one when down 700 feet before they hit water, he was pissed to say the least!
 
Wednesday was well drilling day. I called a few places on wells about a year ago, and got a variety of combinations of prices, but most were between $4000-5000 for the first 200ft with everything installed. The $4000 guys were $10/ft over 200ft, and the $5000 guys were $8-9/ft. Lewis Well Drilling is about 1/2 mile down the road from my property, has been in business for 25 years or more, and has drilled thousands of wells in the area. Also they were on the $4000 end of things, and the owner said he would work with me if it became very deep.


It was a nervous day, as my neighbors on either side had very deep, 500-700ft wells that were not too strong, 2-3gpm. The well man showed up about 10am and within 15 minutes they had a hole in the ground.





I learned a lot about well drilling, watching and talking to them. There is a drilling head that is about 12ft long, and then 20ft extensions that thread on. The drilling truck has a system much like a revolver that automatically loads the extensions. They are all hollow, and they blow air and a foaming agent down to the drill head to keep it lubricated and help float the dirt/rock out and up to the surface. This foam creates quite an interesting river.




They drill a 12" hole until they get to bedrock, then they pull out all of their tooling, and install a PVC casing. Then they put on a 6" drill and go back down and continue drilling. The casing prevents the softer and looser upper sections of soil from caving in on the shaft. They ended up going 119ft to bedrock. Here's a pic of the casing install:
 
After about 3 hours, I decided to go get lunch for 3 reasons.
1. I was hungry.
2. I was bored, well drilling isn't as interactive as concrete work.
3. Cool stuff always happens when I'm not around.


Upon returning from lunch, I found this:

And in another 20ft it became this:



I was so relieved. They initially started hitting water at 320ft, and stopped drilling at 345ft. They calculated it to be a 12GPM well, which is very good. My prayers were definitely answered. With 12GPM, you are not limited on what you can use the well for. With low flow wells, you cannot use it for irrigation or other high consumption purposes. Also, I feel that it being fairly deep and with good flow, I shouldn't have problems in drought.


They came back later and installed the pump. Apparently I made a good impression on the owner of the well drilling company, because he gave me a 3/4hp pump instead of the standard 1/2hp, for no extra charge.



Here's roughly the finished product:



I saved another $150 by not getting the fiberglass rock cover. Neither of us wanted the fake rock, and the wife is already envisioning an "old fashioned well house with a cute bucket and pulley", so I figured that money is better spent on building materials for now.


Im very pleased with the service and work of Lewis Well Drilling and would recommend them to anyone. Im also very happy that I didn't have to spend $7-8k on a well.
 
I love the plan - my husband & I have tossed this idea around too & will probably revisit in the near future. Please be sure to keep us updated, especially with pics!
 
mbost said:
Hey guys, congrats on you new house under way. Years ago I drew up my plans for a apartment style house above a garage. After drawing and playing with the plans alittle more it ended up being a house above a garage. It 1980 sq. feet up top and 1980 sq. feet of garage on the bottom. 3 bedrooms and just 1 huge bathroom a 22 foot by 15 foot livingroom and a very large kithcen and seperate diningroom. At first when I got the prints run off in working scale and showed everyone the thought it was a bad idea. My thoughts were to kill 2 birds with 1 stone. I did all the foundation like ya'll did and then did 90% of the whole house. Just did'nt hang or finish the drywall, because thats the most horrible job ever. All and all I'm glad I did it the way I wanted, and after 4 yrs of living in it I love it. If ya'll don't mind I'll post some pictures of it on your thread so you can see someone else living above a garage.
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Its fine if you want to post them here, or start a new thread and put a link to it here.
 
Laying block (slowly). The weather hasn't been cooperating.
 
This thread is awesome!

More pics!!
 
Great job and good thinking not a good time to go deep in debt,you,ll be glad you did it and a step ahead! Great achievement to look back on. I did my own too but had access to any equipment I wanted plus 2500 yds. of free dirt from a road building project we were doing the timing was perfect, try hard and things will work out. I see you have a lot of support and good help! Thats important Ispent every weekend for two years working on mine the wife didn't help at all! Maybe it was because she was working full time and taking care of 4 children ages 3mos to 7yrs, I think that's why I enjoyed the work so much! O. K. enough rambling just bought back memories from 12 years. Good Luck and MERRY CHRISTMAS!!! And hang on to that young lady looks like a good catch!!!
 
I've been a bit slow on progress, so I don't have much to update. I'll try and throw some pics up tonight. There has been a lot of learning about laying concrete block and such.
 
Here's some teaser pics. Got block delivered back before Thanksgiving, started laying it the day after thanksgiving. I didn't get any pictures of the delivery truck because he was in and out in 5 minutes. Looks like any other flatbed delivery truck with a piggyback forklift, but I still like the big trucks. We ended up getting the block from Cemex. Called around to several places and they were notably cheaper. Also got mortar mix from them, and 2 tons of sand from a hauling/materials company about 3 miles down the road from me.


 
Looks good keep the updates coming.Im getting ready to build something kinda like that. What is your estimated cost for the finished product?
 
Congratulations.
Bet you will be glad to get out in the sticks.
The plans look pretty awesome.

Should have put up some pictures of the 46 and 3120 out there cuttin the trees.
Well I know the guys at AS would like that. :) "Little Possum"

Good luck with the block laying, definately is not the job I want to do for a profession.
 
Got any new pics of the garage/apartment? Would like to see how it has turned out.
 
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