Building the Community Building

After the initial excitment of getting the footers poured, things have slowed down again. Weather has made the site quite muddy. So we're still waiting on the sub-slab plumbing to finish up before we can pour the large slab.

We feel like this is the first official moment of the construction of the Community Building. Instead of just prepping the site, or removing material, we are actually constructing the new building! Early this morning, the first of FOUR cement trucks rolled into the worksite. Slowly being guided around the site, they each emptied their loads one-by-one into the prepared trenches, creating the footers for the new building. For a while the parking lot couldn't be easily accessed, as there was a line of trucks actively pouring concrete, waiting to pour, cleaning up in the washout area, or getting ready to return empty. In retrospect, the timing was perfect, as this week's Summer Scholar's theme is about STEM and Construction, and many of the kids were just learning about "foundations" when the trucks rolled up! As for the timeline, these footers will take about a week to cure. During (and after) this time, the plumbers will come in to finish up the under-slab plummi...

The crew has been hard at work this week prepping the site for the cement footer pour. They've been custom-cutting foam edges in the foundation's ditch, and cutting and bending rebar. The plan is for cement trucks to roll in on Monday!

Standing water in the trenches (and a few concrete trucks breaking down), have slowed us down a bit, but the better weather on the horizon means that things will start happening soon. It looks like after the footers get poured, the plumber will work a bit, and then they'll pour the foundation for the community building and for the "bump-out." Trusses are just about done being built and inspected, and wood has been ordered. We're also hoping (for budget reasons) to get the latest change order finalized, which included a few added expendatures (more concrete, for example, to deal with some minor ground issues) as well as some (hopefully) significant savings.

We're getting ready for the major concrete slab pouring (which should be the sidewalks and the foundation for the community building). We had been getting excited about a rumored "monolithic pour" - a giant line of trucks doing it all at once! But now it seems like they are going to be dividing it up into a few pours. And of course, we're battling extreme heat and occasional torrential downpours. To combat the former, they are thinking instead of ordering "iced" concrete, they will start pouring well before sunrise! But it will be a long process, so we'll be sure to share pictures!

Finally! Things are happening! Crews spent the last week or so digging out the footers, and reinforcing them with rebar, as well as having the underslab plumbing start to go in. They also tied in their major electrical usage into the kiln room's power, which Patti isn't going to be using this fall (Clay is a spring activity).

After a long quiet stretch to the summer, a lot has been accomplished behind the scenes. The town of Blacksburg approved our building permit (and luckily it was a single permit, and not a few - which would have cost more), and they also approved our revised landscape plan, which stated that we already have enough tree canopy coverage on our property. (While we do plan to plant a lot of trees - as we had removed some invasive species, and a number of trees had recently died and been removed - it is nice that we can do that now at our own pace, and not tied to the new construction plans). Workers re-measured and re-laid out the official dimensions of the new building, in preparation for slab/footer work. We also had a site visit from our architect, and we met with the door contractor. In the meantime, we've notified the woodchuck living in the new drain line that he needs to relocate.