The end of week 6!

Week 6 of our building exprience has now come to an end.  Despite many people believing that this process is quite slow, I am so surprised when I think back to the fact that five weeks ago the end of the day brought some scratches to the topsoil. 
Just a quick recap of the past 6 weeks:

End of the day, August 27th.  The digging has started.

End of the  day, September 3, excavation is complete!

End of the day, September 10.  Gravel put down and footings installed.

End of day, September 17.  Slab completed for garages and foyer, preparations for slab for house.

September 24.  Concrete slab being poured for house.

October 1, exterior cellar walls are free standing!

Joern also met with a representative from Deutsche Bank.  They are one of two banks we are considering to be our mortgage lender.  What is so attractive about this bank is their ability to guarantee the interest rate for 25 years, which in Germany, is a big deal, as most mortgages last 10 years, and then you need to either pay off the mortgage or refinance.
Here's what Joern explained to me:
- despite locking in for 25 years, we are also allowed to leave the mortgage in 10 years.  We can either pay off the mortgage in 10 years, refinance if the interest rate is better, or stay with this mortgage.
-we are allowed to pay an extra 5% annually on the mortgage without any penalty.
- because we are locking in for 25 years, we will be paying a higher interest rate, 4%, but the positive is that if the interest rate has gone up in 10 years, we're still paying a low 4%.
- this mortgage is a simple, classsic mortgage.  The other bank is offering us a two-part mortgage, one half would be classic mortgage, the other half would be a building-savings contract, so this one is a little more transparent.

Tuesday

Personally, today was a shit day.  I'm home on sick leave for the rest of the week, and well, just not happy.  
House-wise, today was awesome!  The house looks totally different today, because my garage walls were installed and they started installing the forms for the exterior cellar walls.
I never really explained the foundation, and I guess now is as good a time as any.  Our house is a bit of a special case, but I'm sure that you, dear readers, already knew this.  Since our house is being built into a hill, it requires a very special foundation in order to counteract the pressures of the hill, from many sides.  The decision was that the exterior walls of the cellar, or is it foundation (?) along the back and the sides will be made of pured concrete.  The walls for the front of the house, namely, my garage, do not need to be so strong, but need to look nice.  So, the walls for my garage were made of pre-fab pieces.  The cool thing about pre-fab parts for a garage?  The walls were up in one day! 

And a view of the forms that are soon-to-be filled, and soon-to-be the complete exeterior walls in the cellar our house!

And there you have it!  This construction site is slowly, but surely, becoming a true home!

An open letter to the weather

Dear Weather,
The builders have been working so very hard to prepare the foundation for the slab.  Because you were so indecisive today, raining a little, and then not, the builders didn't want to play games, so they did not pour the slab today.  PLEASE, PLEASE show your good side and let the builders pour our concrete slab tomorrow.  I'm getting a little antsy!

Despite the setbacks with the weather, there was quite a bit of preparation for the slab under the house  that was completed today.  See for yourself!



The end of the day on Tuesday

The middle of the day today.

 Sadly, we didn't take a picture from above of the scene at the end of the day today.  We have rebar covering the entire "H" shaped footing.  Also, on the  left side of the house, quite a bit of insulation was laid on top of the ballast stones and then covered with the plastic covering and stones. 

Hopefully, weather-wise, we'll be good to go tomorrow for the garages' concrete slab!

Preparing for the slab!

It looks like tomorrow, we'll be the proud owners of two concrete floor slabs, one in my garage and the foyer, and the other in Joern's garage.  It is so exciting!

This morning

Later in the day, the garages are covered with steel mesh and are ready for lots and lots of concrete!

Under the concrete is a thin layer of plastic material, under that is a lot (will measure tomorrow) of gravel, under the gravel is another layer of material, and then the ground.  They also put insulation underneath the foyer before covering it. The only non-insulated part of our floor slab will be the garages.

Photo of the day

They builders are getting ready to pour the concrete slab for the garages!

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!

Our first accident

We're fine.  No one got hurt.  But, the truck that delivered the metal for our cellar walls had a pretty big problem:

That's part of the fuel pump that got jammed into the fuel tank.  Ugh!  The poor truck driver.  Since our street is not yet finished, there is a relatively large incline between the sidewalk and our road.  When the truck driver drove over the this incline, the heavy trailer filled with iron pressed down on the filter, broke it, and pushed it through the fuel tank.

Again, poor truck driver.  When I got home, this was the scene:

Of course, what I found out when I talked to Joern was that this scene remained unchanged for 6 hours today!  We walked down to talk to the truck driver.  He was so nice.  I guess after the incident, he contacted his boss, who contacted the mechanics they work with.  It took the mechanics 4 hours to get to Neckartailfingen, and another 2 hours to put a band-aid  on it, so that the driver could drive home.  The truck driver explained that he will never forget our construction, and will respectfully decline returning to our construction site for further deliveries.  He will recommend that a smaller truck complete further deliveries.  I feel really bad for this poor guy.

In other more successful news, the footers poured in the back and the front.  According to Joern, the trench for the footer in front of our house was deeper than I am tall.  Woah!

The builders also laid out some of the waste water piping: