Basement Drain

It's really raining hard today, but the plumbing guys are up at the house site, digging a small trench and putting in the basement drain line. This rain is supposed to continue all weekend, but dry up a bit on Monday & Tuesday. I hope it dries up enough so they can get the basement area compacted and the slab poured.

Also, the 2 big cistern tanks were delivered.

And they cut away a bit of the Styrofoam to check the cement. This is where the crawl space footers will attach to the basement wall.

Basement Walls Are Poured

This morning the cement was poured inside the insulated foam panels, so the basement is getting done. 3 Trucks of cement, and about 1.5 hours. The guy operating the boom on the cement truck, ran it from a remote control he had strapped around his waist.



















No rain yet today, but it's dark & cloudy. Had some fog this morning too.























And, as you can see, no tie offs for the crew once they were up over 6 feet. They seemed to be pretty sure of themselves up there, but I was a bit nervous.

Driveway Extension - Parking Area

Yesterday the guys extended my driveway, making a parking area. Hopefully this will keep their trucks out of the mud as they keep working on my basement.

And here is a picture of Darlene's house. She's my next door neighbor. Her house is about done. The outside is painted but still needs the deck put on and some landscaping. She has the heat turned on and is hoping to get the water hooked up this week.

Basement

The insulated foam panels are going up on top of the footers. They'll get filled with cement later this week to form the basement walls. Then the plumbing guys will come in to do some work and the ground will get compacted so that the slab can be poured.






























And, we know the french drain is working, here is water running out of it. There was a lot of rain over the weekend, these photo's were taken on Sunday.

Footers and French Drain Installation

I'm back home, it's pouring rain today. But Patty took a few pictures for me when the drain was being installed and footers poured. This all took place last week.

Another Coast Guard Visit

The Coast Guard is back for a short visit today. Looks like they're just loading up some equipment to take back to Kodiak. Boy is that C-130 loud when it's parked outside my window. Even the APU is loud.

As you can see, it's pretty gray and cloudy today. Cold too.

Outside Drawings

And here are some drawings, looking at the house from the outside. Too bad I can't just post the CAD file here and let you mess around with it. You can move around the house, and change view points, walk through walls, etc. It really is fun :-).

This is the view of the back of the house from the driveway. From Hutler Road, you'll drive down the driveway a short way. You can see the carport at the end of the house. This will eventually become the breezeway and connect the house to the garage. But that's phase 2 and a few years away.

This is still the back of the house, but looking at the back of the kitchen & master bedroom. You can see the side door. It's 2 steps down from the kitchen and provdes access to the side yard. Also from this landing, the steps go down into the basement.

This side view shows the windows in the master bedroom & master bath. You can also see the daylight basement under the main part of the house. The guest rooms will have a crawl space under them, but the rest of the house has a full basement. Most of it will be taken up with my water cistern & filtering system, plus the boiler for the in floor heat. But the section under the master bedroom will be a storage room, and also have room for my exercise equipment. Someday I might even get around to putting a hot tub outside under the overhang.

And this last view is of the front of the house. You can really see the big windows in the living room, and the covered portion of the deck, then the 2 guest bedrooms. Also the window in the guest bathroom. It should be a great view. I'll have to put a mirror in the guest bathroom someplace, but standing at the double sinks you'll have a window to look out of.

New Drawings - Plan & Inside

When I posted the pictures this morning, I filtered out all the 'other stuff' and reviewed all my House Building posts. I realized that I haven't posted any new drawings. The plans for my house have been through a couple of revisions, so here are some updated drawings.

This is the new general lay out, not too different. Still 2 guest rooms sharing a bath, then the main living space, and then the master bedroom & bath. You can also see the small roof covering part of the deck. But the deck will extend down in front of the 2 bedrooms to the carport, so it can be accessed from the living room, both bedrooms and carport area.


















Let me know if you have comments or suggestions. We haven't started building yet, so now is the time to incorporate any changes.

This view is from the entrance to the master bedroom, looking back into the kitchen and to the main entrance. I keep wanting to call it the front door, but it's really the back door. And you can see the framing for the back hallway behind the 2 guest rooms. The north wall of this hallway will be all closets, so I'll have lots of storage upstairs. I'm also going to put the washer & dryer in these closets so I don't have to drag laundry up & down the stairs to the basement.

You can also see how the ceiling in the kitchen area will be flat, and then slope up in the living room, to open up the view. I really have to decide if I'm going to leave the beams exposed in the living room or sheet rock over them so it's a smooth ceiling.

















This last inside drawing is from the kitchen looking out the front windows, and the exit doors out onto the deck. You can see lines of the floor where the island, and then the cabinets holding the wall ovens & fridge will be. And you can see a bit of the opening for the stairs to the basement.

Hole in the ground.

Well, it's finally starting. Ray's crew started excavating my foundation on Monday, 8/25. I'm now the proud owner of a large hole in the ground. Soon to be filled in by concrete for the foundation.

Here are some pictures taken Monday, Tue and Wed nights.

Silver (Coho) Fishing

I like to go fishing, particularly on a nice day. Just goofing off and enjoying the beach. But I rarely catch anything. Today I took Jemmy to the beach with me, caught this nice Silver, I'm guess in the 12 to 14 lb range. Jemmy wasn't thrilled with fishing, or with the fish. The water kept moving and the fish flopping around was too weird for her.

Coast Guard Visit

Last month it was the National Guard, and this month we have Coast Guard visitors. They've been in and out the past few days. Too bad it's been so rainy & gloomy.

From what I've read in the papers, they'll be around a lot. Trying to get ready for the Northwest Passage to be open in the summers and all the increased ship traffic that will entail.

I do like their Dolphin helicopters. These are the same model they brought with them on the icebreakers to McMurdo.

Yucky Weather Today

Double Volcanos

I like volcanos, maybe because we have so many of them here in AK. They're just fascinating to watch.

http://www.avo.alaska.edu/activity/Okmok.php

http://www.adn.com/news/alaska/story/472522.html

Geologist gets volcanic doubleheader


OKMOK, CLEVELAND: She and Coast Guard air crew saw both erupting at once.
By BETH BRAGGPublished: July 23rd, 2008 12:21 AM

Geologist Tina Neal and the crew of a U.S. Coast Guard C-130 got more than they bargained for Monday when they took to the air for a look at the erupting Okmok Volcano.

Mount Cleveland -- another Aleutian Island volcano about 100 miles west of Okmok -- had burst into action too.
"I've never been in the air looking at one eruption and seeing the plume from another," said Neal, an Alaska Volcano Observatory scientist who has spent 25 years working with the U.S. Geological Survey in volcano-rich Alaska and Hawaii.


"When we took off from Kodiak all we knew about was Okmok. It was while we were at Okmok and looking down and photographing it that the pilot noticed a dark cloud ahead of us to the west. We realized it couldn't be Okmok because the wind was blowing in the other direction.

"Within 20 minutes we got a call from base saying Cleveland had erupted. Inadvertently we were in the air over Okmok while Cleveland ash was traveling toward us. That's a first in my career."

What Neal and the Coast Guard crew saw was a volcanopalooza, the first double burst in Alaska in more than 30 years. The last time two Alaska volcanoes erupted at the same time was 1974, maybe earlier, according to Cheryl Cameron, a Fairbanks geologist who works for the state Department of Natural Resources.

"Trident Volcano had a big, long, intermittent eruption from 1953 to 1974, and during those 21 years we had dozens of other eruptions," Cameron said.

Even without the double whammy, Neal said, her experience Monday was unprecedented. She has often flown over a lava-producing eruption -- but never over an ash-producing one.

"It was the most violent eruption I've ever seen," she said. "Ash was just boiling out of the ground."

The Coast Guard flight was unable to check out Cleveland on Monday because of fuel limitations, Neal said.
Both volcanoes continued to erupt Tuesday and were color-coded orange, one level below red, the highest aviation alert level.

Satellite images indicate that lava is flowing at Cleveland, a busy 5,676-foot volcano that erupts with frequency on uninhabited Chuginadak Island.

No lava has been reported at Okmok, a 3,500-foot volcano on Umnak Island that last erupted in 1997. Ten people were on the island when Okmok first blew July 12 and were evacuated safely.

Neal said she could barely see Okmok's caldera floor because so much ash has filled it. A caldera is the broad crater-like basin formed when a volcanic peak collapses after an explosive eruption.

Okmok's continuous ash plume is pulsing in response to the varying intensity of the eruption, Neal said, rising from 15,000 feet to 20,000 or even 25,000 feet in a matter of minutes, then going back down to 15,000 feet.
"In the 20 minutes we were there, we saw it go up and down twice," she said.
Cleveland's plume consists of steam and some ash and is between 10,000 and 20,000 feet high, observatory reports said.

There have been no reports of significant ash fall in Dutch Harbor, about 60 miles from Umnak Island and about 150 miles from Chuginadak Island, since Okmok's initial eruption.

Gray Jay

We had a gray jay at the bird feeder last night. Brought a juvenile along, but I didn't get picture.

4th of July, Prudhoe Bay Style

It's much more normal to have snow showers on the 4th of July. But today was sunny and warm. 61 degrees at noon and we were all roasting.

June is Baby Moose Time

Yep, it's baby moose time and boy are they cute when they're little. Here is a mama and twins who've been hanging out in the yard a lot the past few days.

Don Retired Too

Actually, he's much happier about retiring, then he looks in this picture :-)

Kenai Lake

Isn't this a great picture? Joe sent it to me, he took it last week bear hunting up at Kenai Lake. Look at all that glacier water.

The Alaska National Guard Comes To Visit

It's been pretty quiet here at work today, but we got some unexpected visitors. The AK National Guard is out doing some practicing and stopped in for fuel. 5 Blackhawks and a Chinook. I don't have much of a zoom on my little Fuji Camera so I used one side of my binoculars to get this shot of the Chinook. It actually came out OK.

NOT what you want to see first thing in the AM...

Actually this is a borrowed photo. It was taken over at Barrow. Keep your doors locked and windows rolled up!