Worked a Little

I worked a little bit this weekend. Basically, it was great weather, but I got in about an hour yesterday and an hour today. It was spent doing waterproofing behind the master suite. We have to do that before we can insulate, and we have to insulate before we can berm back there.

I plan on calling tomorrow and getting the plumber back out to get his work done, and to hopefully get an electrician out to see what we'll need. Ralph Smoot recommends getting all that stuff done and the slabs in before doing any backfilling. I asked Jay Scafe about it and he didn't feel this was necessary and they haven't had it as an issue in any of their homes. Ralph might be just taking a precaution, as it make sense that there are greater lateral forces after berming, than if we get the slab in first so that the walls can't move. However, because Jay doesn't see this as an issue, I'm not sure it matters, but I am taking it under advisement.

Anyway, I need to get the utilities into the sub-floor so that we can get the slabs poured. Getting that work started doesn't mean I have to stop with the work I'm doing on the outside. It sure would be nice to have the house buried before the hottest part of the summer. The house will be cooler if we can do this, although the first summer might not be the test. After all, the thermal mass will soak up the heat we're starting to get now (as well as up until the house is buried), and so by the time all that is done, the house might not be all that cool inside (for the first summer). I'm hoping it will be though.

I would've gotten more done this weekend, except that apart from one hour yesterday, I didn't get any help. (Same old song). Rachel came out and helped me yesterday, because our son thinks he's too good for manual labor. Tough love is coming to him really soon.

Rachel was sick today, and couldn't help me, but she still came out to check a few things.
We have a lawn mower that we need to get to the shop asap, and so we loaded that onto a trailer so that I'll hopefully be able to take it in early this week. We already are starting to have weeds growing in the pasture and so we'll be needing to mow in a week or two. It would be nice to have the small riding mower available, as well as the tractor.

I need to see if I can find a handyman or someone like that to move one of our fences over a bit because as we're berming at the southeast corner of the house, it has become clear that the berm is going to engulf the area where the fence now runs, and so the fence needs to be moved south a few feet. It isn't really that big of a deal, but I'd like to get it done by someone else so that I can concentrate on other duties. It sure would be nice to have multiple projects going at once. That's expensive, but at this point, I just feel overwhelmed and can't do it all. So I'm going to hire someone to get some of these things done.