Delivery of Materials

With the footings complete, the materials for the foundation blocks arrived on Wednesday. A surprise was the delivery of the Structural Insulated Panels (SIPs) that were delivered as well. Verdi said they hadn't expected these to be delivered until Monday the 1rst of October, but having them early doesn't hurt.

The Block for the foundation should e up before the end of September and they will be moving fast on the framing and putting those SIPs in place pretty quickly.

If you're interested here are some links to more technical details about SIPS courtesy of Verdi's website.

• What are SIPs?
• SIPs Installation Manual

More posts to come soon!

Footings Poured

I stopped by Friday afternoon and the footings were poured. Several folks have asked if there's anything special or "green" that goes into the footings phase of the project. Although there is not anything especially green about this phase, there are some differences due to the project's location near the South Carolina coast and Charleston's history of seismic activity.

As I understand it, instead of post style footings that you might find in other areas, here you must use a continuous footing. A continuous footing means the the footings around the entire house, porch, and storage area are interconnected. Rebar is added horizontally throughout the footing. This gives considerable strength to the footing. The rebars and strapping arranged vertically in the footings are used to attach the blocking of the foundation and the floor framing of the home directly to the footings. All of this makes the house considerably more resistant to wind damage.

Verdi tells me they'll start on the blocking this week.

Land is cleared

The land was cleared and the surveyors put stakes in the ground this morning. The foundation should get started soon!
For those who have been watching, look at the progress on the homes behind ours. Click here to see the post from March with no neighbors in sight.