Filling in

Today the builders focused on finishing the waterproofing of the cellar walls, insulation, and filling in the trench surrounding the house.

Waterproof cover over Joern's garage

Insulation covered by waterproofing cover along cellar walls.

Filling in the hole around the cellar with gravel.  The gravel is for drainage.

German builder- on the phone.

Filling in the trench with gravel.

It seems hard to belive

Two weeks ago today, this is what our building lot looked like:

Here's the same view from today:

Today's status:
Excavation is complete, 6 days ago.  The footers have mostly all been filled, with the exception of the trench running along the north side of the house.  The drainage pipes that will run underneath the house are laid, and covered by ballast stones.  Today, the water connection was attached, and now is that black pipe with the blue pipe sticking out of it.  The electricty was also brought up to the house, and comes out of a pipe next to those wood boards.  The waste water pipes have also been laid, and too are mostly covered by ballast stones.  The majority of the building lot is now covered with a material that acts as a barrier to help keep the ballast stones in place.  This is the white material you can see in the above picture.  Digging began  today for the underground cistern that will be under the driveway.
Over the course of this week, the building site has gone from a big hole in the ground to  a very clear and definite building site!

Grrr, its time to quit working

Today marked yet another day on the site, and made me really sad that I don't get to see all the goings-on.  And, maybe a little bit jealous of Joern, who works 20 feet away from the site.
When I dropped Joern off at his parents' this morning, the excavator operator was busy smoothing down the ballast stones for the crane to sit atop.  Since our ground is kind of uneven anyway, plus the crane is so heavy, it needs extra support, ballast stones were placed underneath the crane (they also will be underneath our house.) 
During the day, the crane that was standing near our friend's new duplex construction, was dismantled and set up right next to our building lot!

Crane as it stood for months in front of our friend's new construction

 The crane being moved to us!

It seems hard to tell, but the crane is now at our lot!

After the crane was settled, which took quite a while, the workers returned to digging out the site.  Some fabric was laid down on top of the areas of the ground that did not need to be further dug out. 

The fabric is a special fabric that helps with the drainage system of the house.

After the fabric was laid, the digging recommenced.  First, two trenches were dug, along the east side of the house and along the north side.  These are the trenches for the footers.  One trench was even filled with concrete already.  These footers evenly dispirse the weight of the house, and needed to be especially deep to counter the force of the hill pushing against them.  The second footer trench will be filled tomorrow.

The trenches were also dug for the waste water pipes, electircity, and the pipes for the water supply.  The trenches are not finished, but here is how we left the site tonight: