Day 95: Another Week of Problem-Solving: Water Connected, Plumbing Approved & Going Vertical Soon

As always, this past week brought its share of surprises, but our team made solid progress across several critical areas:

• Connected to the main water line and installed fire hydrant

• Passed under-slab plumbing inspection and backfilled

• Installed about 30% of the stormwater management system

• Prepped foundation for metal building installation

For those curious about the challenges we navigated (and are still navigating), here's the detailed story:

When DigSafe Gets It Wrong

Before excavating our shared driveway with the neighboring retirement community, we scheduled DigSafe—the free service that marks all underground utilities before digging. They came out and confidently marked the water line location just 10 feet from our construction driveway.

This seemed perfect. Working on the driveway instead of the main street meant no police detail, no traffic stops—just a self-contained operation closing half the driveway. Simple, right?

Imagine everyone's surprise when we cut through the asphalt, excavated 8 feet deep, and found... no water pipe. Instead, we discovered an electrical line! DigSafe had completely mixed up the utilities, marking the electrical conduit as our target water main.

We knew the water line had to be nearby, but where exactly? The Department of Public Works came to our rescue, helping us locate the actual water main several feet behind the electrical pipe. This meant breaking more asphalt, digging a larger hole, and carefully navigating around that electrical line to make our connection.

Fortunately, my team has decades of experience handling these unpredictable situations. By Friday afternoon, we accomplished exactly what we'd planned: full connection to the main water line for both domestic use and fire protection.

The Inspector Who Never Came (Until He Did)

While one team wrestled with water connections, another team was ready to finalize our under-slab plumbing. My plumber had completed all installations and testing—100% ready for Monday morning's inspection.

The inspector promised to arrive first thing Monday. Then every few hours, he pushed back his arrival time. Double-booked, then triple-booked, he finally couldn't come at all. My plumber was absolutely furious after wasting an entire day waiting!

The silver lining? The inspector arrived Tuesday and signed off on our rough plumbing without any issues. Our site team immediately backfilled and compacted the surface, preparing for the building erection team's arrival.

Boulder: The Sequel

Our stormwater management system installation was progressing smoothly when our old nemesis reappeared—boulders. We quickly moved two 3x3-foot rocks out of the way, but then we hit the monster: a boulder larger than my SUV!

After hours of futile attempts to budge this geological giant, we realized we needed a different approach. We're now evaluating two options: expensive rock hammering (we've done this before—it's costly) or working with our civil engineer to redesign the Cultec chamber layout around the boulder. The picture does not really do justice to this monster of a rock, but here is one side of it.

To determine the best solution, we first need to precisely locate this boulder in our CAD files so our engineer can explore alternative layouts. A surveyor is coming early this week, and hopefully within days we'll know how to tackle this massive rock problem.

Foundation Perfection Achieved

The concrete team returned to address minor foundation wall imperfections, ensuring perfect leveling—a requirement from our metal building erection team. After spending hours examining every inch of our foundation wall and anchor bolt locations, they confirmed we're ready for building erection.

By week's end, we achieved exactly what we planned: all anchor bolts are perfectly positioned, and our foundation wall is perfectly straight and level.

Mission Accomplished (Mostly)

Despite the challenges, we reached our weekly goals:

• Water line connected with underground plumbing completed

• Solid progress on stormwater management system installation

• Foundation ready for the building erection team arriving this week to start our next chapter—going vertical!

This Week's Agenda

Stay tuned for updates on our boulder solution and continued stormwater system installation. Most exciting of all, I'm hoping to report some serious vertical progress by week's end!

The building phase is about to begin, and there's nothing quite like watching your vision literally rise from the ground.