we are waiting for the town to approve our permit application--but in the meantime we are trying to do what we can to move forward.

today we dug the holes for the deck foundation (and when i say we, i mean scott)


the holes have to be 4' deep in order for the bottom of the concrete foundation piers to be below the frost line..here is a photo of the cardboard sono tube that serves as the concrete formwork


this is a great tool...it is a solid steel bar with a blade-like end-- it is used to break up the rocks that you encounter when digging 4' deep holes


the previous owners were apparently not too concerned about the termites that were making a meal of the hardwood floors in the first floor back bedroom. it was easy to locate their point of entry--the earth and mulch was placed right up against the wood sills of the basement windows, giving the buggers easy access to the delicious maple floor (you could actually follow the termite "tubes" just inside the basement windows).


you can see that the termites destroyed the wood sill...we installed these window wells to keep the soil a safe distance away from the windows. we will later add some gravel to the bottom of the 12" deep wells.

we also needed to trace and map out every electrical circuit and device since the electrical panel was not labelled. we will need to figure out if an electrical service upgrade will be necessary (it is currently a 100 amp service).