The walls were made quite smooth and a lot of dirt was removed. The result was a transformation from a hole in my in-laws' front yard to a very clear area perfect for a house.
The walls were smoothed down.
Day 4 rear corner of Joern's garage Day 5, rear corner of Joern's garage
And most excitingly, the entrance to the driveway was brought down to the level of the street! Meaning, once the excavator moves, we could drive into our driveway!
Photos from day 2 (left) and day 5 (right). The entrance to the driveway remained 3 feet above the street from day 2 to the afternoon of day 5.
Mr. Wolfram (the operator of the excavator,) and another driver also measured out the ground ensuring that it was level.
As they checked, they marked areas that needed a little extra dirt, or digging, to ensure that the entire building lot was indeed level.
In other news, Mr. B also stopped by today, wearing his two hats, architect and project manager. He dropped off the official, completed plans. Mr. B also called the plumber, Mr. Haag, to meet with Joern at the building lot. Sadly, I wasn't there to meet with Mr. B and Mr. Haag, but Joern was. They discussed the placement of the pipes underneath the house, which were to be marked out the next day. They decided against solar panels, because the air pump is very efficient, and because we have a special situation with solar panels and our low-pitched roof. Also because when we would need the solar panels to help support the warm water (in the snowy,cold winter,) the solar panels are often covered with snow, or there is not enough sunlight to support the solar panels. Joern also gave Mr. Haag the plans from Joern's cousin, the structural engineer. It turns out that the air pump Mr. Haag had planned will be at its limits for our house size. So now, its back to the drawing board, Mr. Haag will offer a few options to make up for this problem. They also decided that we will indeed tie the fireplace into the hot water system, this way, we will use the fireplace to help support the production of hot water on chilly winter days. This does mean that will have to be a little more serious in our search for a fireplace, but that doesn't really bother me at all.
