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Northern Virginia, west of Washington, DC, not far from the eastern panhandle of West Virginia.

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I'd forgotten how relatively flat that area is. That flat bit of the Piedmont always befuddles me some, in my brain that's not how it should be.

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it took us six months to engineer a site that didn't encroach on > 25% slopes!

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Considering the location, it is relatively flat. You actually had to terraform to get a decent building site? Yikes.

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I meant 25 degrees, not 25 %...The grading is to keep the driveway below the maximum 13 degree slope, as well as properly crowning and ditching it, plus getting the pond dug out.

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I have a feeling you'l be able to put my little house inside yours and shake it. *grinz*

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The 1st floor "heated square feet" (roughly equivalent to the "footprint" of the exterior walls) is 1,750. 2nd floor is 1,300 [there's a big open loft].

Basement, when finished, will be 1,781.

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There you go. Imagine grizzlydan sharing ~1300 sq ft with two young opinionated adults and a gaelic wife. *snicker*

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I'd say "poor baby" if he didn't seem so disgustingly happy about the whole thing.

Send him a hug from Happy.

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Do these buldozed landscapes indicate a building permit? Whoo HOO!

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Pam didn't know we had a building permit until we discussed your comment! Whoops!

I thought she knew...but the first step in the process is a building permit.

Application for street address + Building Permit Application + Grading Permit + Well Permit + Septic Permit + Well Flow Test + Well Chemical Test + A metric ton of money for permits + A bigger metric ton of money for the grading permit bond = A Building permit

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Yes, although this work was done without it. It went like this;
1. Battle the county and spend ridiculous amounts of money on engineering to get a "locational clearance". This should be rapidly followed by a grading permit, which should be rapidly followed by a building permit.
2. Discover that the drilling company didn't send off the water for testing. Discover that testing takes a month. Discover that expedited testing takes 10 business days. See the schedule go thud while you lose contractors to other jobs.
3. Frantically wheedle the building and development and health departments into a "foundation only permit". Assuage their fears of being forced to be efficient and help everyone by promising and swearing never to breathe a word to any builder or contractor that they did this for you.
4. Receive the foundation only permit.
5. Discover that your husband didn't think to tell you that the test came back and you received your building permit. He assumed your general contractor told you. Your general contractor assumes your husband tells you things.

:)

-P

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Wow congratulations! How totally cool is that?? You'll finally start seeing some progress over there. It's a good feeling. It always takes way longer than it should, but they do finish eventually... (at least I think they do, we're still waiting.)

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It looks like a Building permit, but the comments say "Foundation only."

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forms are up...could be poured today...

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Make sure your dryer ducts are installed right.

I speak as someone who finally finished several weeks of intermittently spelunking through our crawlspace to rectify the original totally screwed-up dryer ducts.

Highlights: scooting for several feet on my back because otherwise there wouldn't be enough room on the other side of the pipes to turn around and sit up; wrestling a twenty-foot anaconda full of mildewy goo out from where it was pinched between the pipes and a support beam; anchoring four sets of support straps with enough adjacent space for my head or my arms but not both; having the batteries of my strap-on headlight die on me in various positions of hardware yoga.

Straight-sided metal vent pipe; large-radius angle joints; metal (not just shiny) duct tape; lots of support straps; confirmed slope throughout its entire path. Or just get one of those dandy ventless clothes dryers that condenses the steam to wash all the lint down the drain. Whatever works.

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Log homes settle...so you have to make sure that thing are anchored properly so that they can actually slide--in other words you anchor them with one fixed attachment, and one attachment into a slot.

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A badly instlled dryer duct cause our fire. But if your dryer is on an outside wall, it is much easier to duct it.

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