Foundation, Drainage, and Grading

The week started with block laying.  I used about 400 blocks and 26 80# bags of mortar.

And then it was done.  The inspector walked the trenches to make sure everything was cool.

The loose blocks are for the last course on the front - between the doors.  I didn't want to cement these in yet since I'd be driving over that wall a lot.  The large pile of stone (2B - clean) is for below the slab.  I used .60 Cubic Yard per ton to figure my amount.  For 22 tons, I paid $368 including delivery and tax.

Next, I finished the drainage.  There are some wet spots in my yard as well as an area that seems to be a little spring that soaks a portion of my neighbor's yard.  I'm trying to dry those out as well as provide a discharge for the downspouts. (we'll probably try to use a rain barrel though)  I used about 75' of perf pipe and about 175' of solid (4" flexible pipe).  Perf pipe is surrounded by clean stone.

Drain pipe complete.  The downspout will go in this pipe...once I cut it off a bit closer to the ground.  You can also see the conduits coming from the house.I roughly filled in the trenches inside and out.  Lots of stinking compaction!  Here you can see my insulation (2" R10) sticking up.  What I did is a little experimental.  Normally the insulation is on the outside of the foundation.  Because I'm considering super-insulating the walls, I'd end up with thicker walls that would cover the insulation that is showing.  The insulation goes down 36 - 42".  I only did a portion of the wall because I don't plan to heat/insulate the whole building.

There was lots of grading to do between filling in the drainage trenches and back-filling the wall.  I would have loved to have a smaller machine for this work.  The gap between machine work and hand work is pretty big when you have wet soil (decent amount of rain the last few days) and lots of rocks.

Meanwhile inside...

Next up, prep for the concrete floor this Thurs or Fri.