Impressive Phil

Have I ever mentioned how very much NOT morning people we are? And Mondays are generally the worst. We work until late on Saturday, spend Sunday convalescing and doing nothing but basic animal maintenance, and then get up on Monday without clear direction for the week. Sometimes it's the afternoon before we have cared for the animals and figured out what we are supposed to be doing with the day and week.

Phil was up early this morning, though, trying to figure out the electrical codes and wiring. Did you know that outlets are required at a particular spacing? It's not just a convenience thing! And since framing is coming soon, and electrical and plumbing are both necessary before the framing portion of a building is done, Phil was getting a jump on that. After a few hours, he was feeling more confident. (And, because he's Phil, he has done both some plumbing and some electrical work in general home maintenance. But wiring an entire, complex building is new for him. The most he's done in the past was a kitchen.)

We had figured that Phil would finish the two sides of the roof, then move the eight pallets of block away from the building site to give more easy access. Maybe he would start digging out the excess dirt around the foundation so we could add our drainage tile (ugly black plastic tubing, not something lovely like pottery tiles).

The day didn't turn out quite like we expected.

First, I was a bit grumpy because I wanted interior work to progress, not exterior. Sure, the bituthene breaks down in the sunlight, but, really, how long would that take? And we have no idea how long it would take a drywaller to be ready to work. Why not do what we can indoors, and if we have to wait for a dry-waller, then do the work outdoors? That seemed practical to me!

Phil had a different perspective. Besides the very real consideration of our bituthene waterproofing breaking down (and, as a forensic structural engineer, he dealt a LOT with water damage; any destruction of our waterproofing is not a good thing)—besides that, who knows if a dry-waller could even access the interior? We are content to walk over our two boards over a moat. But what safety restrictions might a dry-waller have?

And then, as we kept talking, we realized that the building needs to be sealed off more before much interior work commences. We received a quote for windows and doors this morning, and that is now critical path. We didn't know it was critical path, not having built anything quite like this before. So it's good we're moving forward on that, but the rest of the interior needs to wait.

My task of the day was to call about gravel to cover the drainage tile.

Remember how I said we aren't morning people? I probably shouldn't have called before 10:30, as the conversation went awry. First, I was supposed to find out the price difference between 1/2" and 3/4" gravel, but the way I asked it, the man thought I wanted a mixture of the two sizes. Sure! Great!

Then he asked when I would like the gravel. "Oh, as soon as possible," I said, figuring sometime tomorrow.

Unbelievably, he said, "Okay! We'll load it up right now and be there within the hour."

And rather than asking Phil if that was reasonable (I'm also not the best at off the cuff conversations—there's a reason I blog and can figure out what I want to say at leisure), I said, "Okay!" And the clock started ticking.

Phil took the news well. Amy: move the van. Phil: move the truck. Amy: deal with the electrical cords crossing the driveway. Phil: get the tractor and start moving block. Amy: move the boards around the block.

All went pretty well for the first six pallets. I had finished my cleanup. It wasn't until later in the day that I saw what had happened to the last two pallets. Oops.

The delivery showed up about five minutes later, and I got to live with the knowledge that not only had I ordered the wrong product delivered at the wrong time, I had parked the van in the wrong spot, too! It was not a good morning.

And the driver and Phil did not communicate fully, so although the truck left a pile of gravel where we wanted it, the pile was smaller than it should have been, ideally. Our driveway looks spiffy and new, though, with the "extra" gravel!

Most of the gravel Phil will need to scrape and use.

That delivery done, Phil got right to work on the platon, or dimple-board, a second water-proofing surface that has another function I'm forgetting. He had to shoot the fasteners into the concrete, and the project itself was a bit of a nightmare, with the 8' tall, flexible material flopping all over, and having to stand in mud. Ugh.

Then Phil graded the moat for the drainage tile. He put down a layer of gravel, making sure that it dropped an inch every 4'. (The foundation is level: note how the tile drops in comparison to the foundation.)

In clearing the moat, he found some long boards that I hadn't even seen in my cleanup on Saturday. Then he rinsed the drainage tile and put it in place, covering it with ecofabric to keep the clay silt from clogging the slits in the tile.

Ideally, the plastic will be wrapped in ecofabric, which is "wrapped" in gravel. Water flows down, enters the tile, and runs downslope and away from the site.

Once the tile was all in place, he started shoveling a layer of gravel on the top, trying to make sure that many inches cover every bit.

With the platon in place, and the drainage tile done, we are ready to backfill, at least a few feet worth.

I had expected this whole excavation/platon/gravel task to take at least a week. To have it almost one in a day amazes me.

So, you could say, the day ended better than it began. It didn't feel great to have the gravel come so quickly at the time, but Phil certainly put it to good use!