Waconda: Lift-off!

We have lift off - the cottage is up in the air! And I mean waaaay up. It's pretty spectacular. In fact it's a bit of a distraction to people driving by. The cottage sits on a winding road with a blind curve to the east. Traffic tends to go by pretty slow, especially if a Sunday driver wants to take a picture of the lake. I understand that it's a kind of a shock to see a house suspended in mid air, but for the love of grilled cheese, don’t be one of the people who stop their car in the middle of the road to gawk! That’s just asking for trouble.

Our new demolition contractors, Fred and Jim from C & A Construction, were busy prepping for the new foundation. Digging out the basement turned out to be harder than snapping your fingers without using your thumb. I guess when the last thing to sculpt the earth on your property was a glacier, and a house has been sheltering that dirt from wind and rain for the last 95 years, it gets pretty compact. The phrase “rock solid” comes to mind. They actually had to use a jackhammer to break up the dirt in order to excavate it. Along the way they've uncovered the expected rocks and tree roots, and even a cool old cistern.

We've had our own challenges these last few weeks with Consumer's Energy (who couldn't seem to get their act together in order to shut off the gas at the road); meanwhile our project manager struggled with securing the building and soil erosion permits from the township. For future reference, certain utility companies apparently need about a six-month lead time, including four months of passing your phone calls between departments. And building permits are based on the square footage of your entire dwelling, not just your living space. This seems to include exterior walls, eaves, porch, driveway, mailbox, passing cars and the square mass of all the ducks on the lake. But with persistence and a checkbook, all the issues were finally resolved. 

We were supposed to get a call the day they actually lifted the house so that we could watch, but that didn’t happen. It’s a slow process, so perhaps it was better that we got to wait and see the dramatic transformation all at once. Once they had dug out enough dirt, two long steel beams were inserted under the length of the house. The way it was explained to me, they jacked up one end of the house and then supported it with four foot lengths of railroad ties. Then they moved to the other end and jacked it up to match. They repeated the process, stacking the railroad ties like Jenga towers, until they had enough clearance to pour the footings and build the basement walls. The whole thing is really cool!

The excavation crew has wrapped up and the masonry crew has started to pour the footings. We are really excited to see the project moving forward. Check back later to see our progress. And stop trying to snap your fingers without using your thumb. It just doesn't work.