November 05 Pictures

Home
Back

The Thumbnail Page

The Norman Cottage - Kewadin Michigan

The Thumbnail page is the area where you will be able to see all the photos in one viewing screen.  Place your cursor over the pictures for a brief description of each.  You can also click on the thumbnail to see the larger individual picture.  Please use the back button to get back to the Thumbnail page.

Let us know if you have any ideas or comments to make things better!

Starting the footings

November 30, 2005 - We have started the footings and the placement of the form boards.  This process is a long one with all the corners in the house.  The shape of the Cottage is starting to show itself.

         

The completion of the footings will take a few days to get ready for the inspection before the pour.

Stone placement at the basement

November 28, 2005 - The decision was made to place 14" of pea stone under the entire basement slab area to assure that the water would flow away from the foundation.  To do this we placed drain tile and pea stone at the basement.

We first had to dig out the sand to place the stone. We set each corner of the foundation with Re-bar stakes to make sure that we didnt loose the corners.          Once the sand was removed we then placed the draintile around the perimeter of the house and thru the middle. This will drain the water that is under the house out to the outlet at the beach location.

  The guys are connecting the perimeter drain to the outlet point. The trench that you see is the area that the ejector pump will be placed for the bathroom and the line to the bathroom.  The peastone is then placed over the entire basement floor area. The excavator distributed the stone as the loader brought it in from the road. 

The pea stone will work with the drain tile to move the ground water from around the foundation to the drain outlet location.

We dug the hole at the beach side of the dune to place the french drain. The 2" line is hooked to the drain tile that is at the basement location.    We then filled the hole with pea stone and then covered it with the filter fabric that you see at the bottom.    We then covered that with the sand from the beach and the dune grass that was there to begin with. As you can see it will blend into the surroundings very well.

The drain exit point has been dug and completed.  We directed the water to a french drain filled with pea stone.     

             

Staking the Foundation

November 21, 2005 - The foundation location has been staked and we are getting ready for the footings.  The water in the basement area will be drained when the footing drain is connected to the boring that was completed.  This has not been completed at this time.

Corner locations at the East end of the garage.           

         

          

 

As you can see the snow has melted for the time being.

 

November 18, 2005 - We are staking the corner points of the cottage foundation in the excavated hole.  This will assure that the corners are placed in the correct location based on the site plan that was created.  We where staking at 10am Friday morning and as you can see the snow was falling and it was dark.

 We are setting up to review the location of the corners of the house.  Looking north into the basement area.  Another view into the basement  Gourdie Fraser - Surveyors out of Traverse City are setting all the corners for us.

 

Site Drainage and Boring

November 11, 2005 - We have made a decision to bore a site drainage line to the west of the lot.  This will drain the sub surface water from under the foundation and the ground water away from the perimeter of the basement.  Thanks to 5 Star Directional Drilling Services out of Kingsley for all the great work.

Boring machine. Walking it down to the site.  This is the test hole at the NW corner of the lot. The clay was vey hard and very deep. That grey stuff is the clay from the hole.  the Directional Drill  The wand that he is holding communicates with the drilling rig to let them know the depth and the angle of the drill.    5 Star Directional Drilling Services 

 The ditch witch drilling rig.  This is the entrance point of the drill. The mud is what allows the drill point to cut thru the soil and the clay.  more of the drilling mud at the point.  Looking back at the rig from the excavated hole.  This is the point that the drill head was at the west bank of the excavated hole. 

  You can see the pipe to the left of the steps....or can you?  Getting the pipe set to be pulled back into the hole from the lake side of the boring.  The end of the drill point.  The PVC that was pulled back into the boring.  You can see the PVC at the side of the picture.

 Another shot of the end of the drain. At this point we will be placing a french drain to let the water from the foundation disipate into the ground.  The end of the PVC pipe. This will be cut short of the edge of the bank and there will be a french drain placed herer to take the water from the foundation. You will not see the end of the drain line from the beach. it will be hidden by dirt and grade.

Excavation

November 4th, 2005  - We started the excavation of the basement and the crawl space of the new home.  Alper's Excavating from Traverse City was on top of things as always.

Starting the excavation of the foundation of the house.  The stakes are the corners of the house that are being excavated. We have 26 corners on this house and the garage.  Getting ready to take the balck dirt off the site and start the excavation of the foundation.  Looking North on the lot.   The South side of the lot.

Looking West towards Lake Michigan  The morning light peaking thru to the rocks.    There are more trees to be removed for the excavation.   Moving the black dirt around. 

The dozer moves the dirt from the hole to where the Loader can pick it up and remove it from the site.  Rocks and clay became apparent as the hole was being dug.      The laser level assures that the depth of the excavation is set to the depth that we need for the 9'-0" foundation.  The crawl space area of the house. 

 There is basically no place to put the dirt from the hole on the lot. We have used all areas that are possible to stockpile the dirt.    The excavation is completed and now we are waiting for the footings to be placed.  Standing water is along the perimeter of the excavated hole. This will be drained from the site with perimeter drain pipe.  The basement was excavated 24" deeper than the floor elevation and then 24" of dirt was placed over the clay surface. You can see the clay level at this location.  Looking North West on the lot. You can see the clay level again in the hole. This is under the entire basement area.

                 

       

Demolition

October 2005 - Start!!!!  We have the process underway!

 

Existing Cottage

October 25, 2000  -  This is the date that we started working with the Normans on their new cottage in Northern Michigan.

Existing Cottage from drive side    Existing Cottage from Lakeside    

These are pictures of the existing cottage that was on the lot.  We will remove this from the lot to build the new home.