This is an awful picture with a terrible shadow but it shows a bit more about the bad dirt on our lot. Basically we have two issues and I'll explain because a few of y'all were interested in what bad dirt is. Ha! One, we hit groundwater meaning the dirt doesn't go any further down and we hit water. Specifically where our fireplace on our covered porch is going to go (pic below). That's one problem. The other us that where they were digging the footers which support the whole house, we found areas that had bad dirt - meaning the dirt is not suitable to hold a structure. Whether it's too sandy or has too many roots in it, it can't support a house.
Therefore our options are to remove all the bad dirt (100 by 100 square plus 4-5 feet down = $40,000) or bang these long timbers into the ground in about 120 places until they hit good, supportive dirt and basically our house will sit on stilts. Yes, we did our homework ahead of time but you can't see what's under ground until you dig around. A typical boring is only 3-4" wide so it isn't indicative of what the whole site's dirt looks like. It honestly is just a risk you take when you build anything. So yeah it's a an expensive risk too which isn't included in our loan. Not fun money to spend.
For some reason blogger on my iPad isn't letting me scroll down to pictures but we had a good weekend. Went to chuys for dinner on Friday night and Molly Anne was soooo good, I was impressed. Saturday she and I went to the mall and to do a few errands and saw one of our rental houses that we sold last year. We also went cruising the neighborhood with princess Elsa, her sister and mama! We were supposed to go out on Saturday night but kevin still has bronchitis and a sinus infection. Sunday we went to breakfast and to the lot to look around. After nap, Molly Anne and I went to Home Goods. Hope y'all have a great week!
Ugh Beth - I'm sorry to hear about your building hiccup. My parents are building a new house, and they have had their fair share of those too. It will be worth it in the end, but yowzzzzza those things sting!
ReplyDeleteI'd be asking my builder to let me out of my contract for all that, or cover some of the costs. Isn't it a builder-owned subdivision?
ReplyDeleteThanks for blogging about all this construction & decision making....helpful to us that may need to refer to it in future :)
ReplyDeleteI had a structural engineer out to the house we are in the process of buying and he mentioned how the soil in NC is horrible. A lot of homes have foundation issues that have required helical piers. Yikes! Hope it works out!
ReplyDeleteI'm so sorry to hear about the bad dirt. That really stinks, especially when you tried to do everything to avoid the issue. The good news is that it will be worth it all once it is done and you all will love your new home! It looks like you had a fun weekend, despite the fact that Kevin is still so sick. I hope he is feeling better soon!
ReplyDeleteDang it!!! Bad freaking dirt! What a pain in the ....
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