Saturday, August 30, 2008

Boulder Wall

I have quite a few large boulders on my property, and am saving them for retaining walls etc. First thing to use them for, was to create a boulder wall near the property line. This wall has a few purposes:

1) To create a channel for keeping surface water away from my house. The land that the power lines are on, slopes towards my property, and I could see deep erosion channels, every foot or so, where water from up there flowed down to my property.

2) To create a raised berm, for planting some screening trees. Since the property line is about 12 feet higher than the garage floor height, it might seem somewhat counter-intuitive to raise this area up ever higher. This berm will give the trees more height, to screen the power lines better.

3) The boulder wall is landscaping. I think it looks pretty good. It will look much better when the area is completed, and the wall is one of a series of 3 stepped down retaining walls.

One worry, is that the wall is too close to the property line, and the power company will cut my trees. Also the boulder wall could have been curved as it got further away from the house, to give more space to the property line. But right now I'm leaving it up to Scott and his crew. His company does incredible work, and I know he has a great vision that I can't see now.

The wall took 3 days to build (Aug 28-29-30), 1 excavator and 1 laborer. It's about 150 feet long.

Photo Album of the Boulder Wall

Saturday, August 23, 2008

Septic Tank Installation

The septic tank was delivered and dropped in the hole today. I got a 1500 gallon tank. I only needed a 1250 gallon tank for a 4 bedroom house, but decided to upsize it to the 5 bedroom house size (a $300 upgrade). Price also includes 10 of those concrete junction boxes, which you can see sitting on top of the septic tank in the photo album link below. It cost $1880.31 from Mid Hudson Concrete Products products. I think the tank was around $1220, and the junction boxes were around $51 each. Ed arranged everything, so I didn't shop around for this stuff at all.

Photo Album of the Septic Tank Installation

Monday, August 18, 2008

Well drilling

The Well got drilled today. It was done by Milton Hyatt of Albert M Hyatt and Sons Inc. My excavator Ed and builder Bruce have known him a long time, and said he is very honest, and won't lie about the depth of the well, and the amount of casing used (important since I'm paying by the foot!). All the well drillers around here seem to charge like the same price, which is pretty high. I think around $12-$15 per foot. The casing cost about that too. I was glad that Milton gave me a 5% discount. I don't think anyone would have gotten a well drilled any cheaper.

I am very happy with the results. The well is 325 feet deep, and needed 114 feet of casing. They left casing 10 feet above ground so I can backfill it to any level I want to, and cut the pipe later. The well had 25 gallons per minute flow, which they said is fantastic. I guess some houses only have 1 (or is it 3?) GPM. I had to get the well in now, before the garage foundation goes in, otherwise I won't be able to get a well truck back there around the house.

Here is a photo of the well pipe, and the slop hole next to it.

Saturday, August 16, 2008

Backfilling the House Foundation

Ed backfilled the main house foundation today. I put up the second row of MiraDrain 5000 (Foundation Drainage Panel), as he backfilled.

Also started doing the basement floor prep work:
1) Pulling out the hay that lined the footer to protect it from last winter's frost. Ripping out all the grass/weeds that grew in there.
2) Leveling out the ground, about 3 in below the top of the footer. Excavator had to scrape the ground down in some spots, and add dirt to other spots.
3) Dumping in 3 inches of gravel base for the basement slab floor.

Photo album of Backfilling the Foundation

Friday, August 15, 2008

Main House Footing Drains Approved

Ed worked on the footing drains Aug 11 and 12. The inspector came today and approved them. Ed started to backfill in the afternoon. He tied in 2 standpipes to connect the garage footing drains, which will be about 4 feet above the main house footing drains.

Wednesday, August 13, 2008

Construction Loan Closing - Ulster Savings Bank !!!

This might be one of the happiest days of the past 2 years. Probably the happiest since the day my wife and I saw this piece of property, and made an offer on it.

I thought I was a financial genious, and if I found the right loan rates, etc., I would have no problem getting my construction loan. Well I am not going to go into the whole sorted story, but after literally going through a nightmare with 3 separate loan companies (Countrywide, Amerifund, and Flagstar), I finally found a great, no fantastic contruction loan company:

Ulster Savings Bank

The loan originator that I dealt with was Margaret O'Conner. She was extremely knowledgable and helpful. I was refered to this bank by the guy I bought the property from. He is a builder and finances his new construction houses this way. His own personal home too.

The best thing about Ulster Savings Bank was everything I guess. Great loan originator. Honest and upfront. Low interest rates, and very low construction loan fees. Everthing they told me in the beginning was true. They didn't spring any surprises on me. Very little paperwork/documentation compared to the other lenders I dealt with. I sent Ulster Savings Bank a small stack of paper, maybe 3/4 of an inch high. They told me what they needed, I sent it, and the loan was aproved, I closed. The closing took 25 minutes. Those people really have their act together. They don't waste time on useless paperwork. Just the facts.

I must have sent a stack of paper 3 or 4 inches high, to other lenders. Day after day, week after week, they would come up with some more documents I needed. Until eventually I gave up, or they wanted something else, which I could not provide. One bank told me, after 3 months of faxes, that I needed to liquidate my 401k account, then my loan would be approved. What a joke. I said screw them.

Boy did I make some mistakes with the financing. But I think I'm golden now.

Wednesday, August 6, 2008

Tree Clearing - for Electrical Pole

Bill Henry Tree Service came today and cut down a bunch of trees. Someday NYSEG will put up a telephone pole in the spot they marked off. But all trees between that spot and the preceding pole needed to be trimmed or cut down. Cost me $1000. No bargain, but I guess not that bad of a price either. Ed would have done it slightly cheaper, but he is not available right now. I want to get them cut down quickly so I can let NYSEG know immediately, that I'm ready for the pole. Not that they will actually put it up anytime soon, but who knows, hopefully I'll get lucky.