Tuesday came and went...

Contractor never showed on Tuesday morning. I sort of figured it out, and yes, he got dragged in to working two 18 hour days up at the "Extreme MakerOver House". I'm OK with that, but a call would have been good. I had other stuff planned if no work was to be done.

But today we at least got started again, even though it was late due to miscommunication between general and sub-contractor. I cleaned up the site, we put down the sill plate, and anchored it with 5/8" bolts. Also added a foam strip sealer between concrete and sill plate (pressure treated). BTW, look at those bolts and washers. Needed as hold-downs in case of a severe earthquake, but likely unheard of in Sweden, or needed.

Also put up the skirt, but just before end of the day, Tom realized that we needed a pressure treated piece to put up as a girder for anchoring the floor joists outside the old entrance doors. Also need to tear down that old "aspha board" and replace it with plywood. It is a sheerwall and will need to be lined with plywood all the way through the house (along the stairwell and through kitchen) to the east side (drywall to be torn down this weekend - messy).

Our house, built in the early 60ies, is a rariry in that it actually has these hold-downs or anchors, tying the plate to the concrete foundation walls. What I understand, it was not mandated until sometime in the early 80ies and hence, very few house built before that time have them. Not to knock on wood, but we've done "OK" in at least a few relatively significant earthquakes.

The weather was great in the morning with sun, but mid-afternoon, the sky just opened up and EVERYTHING got wet. But, as it is up here in the fall, about an hour later the sun was out again and we ended up having a pretty pleasant evening.

I had "perfected" the anchoring of the sheets covering the denuded soil, so nothing blew away, and no erosion.

I started digging for the connection to the drainage line that runs westbound and out to the lateral that follows the street. Of course it runs parallel to both the power and the gas line, so one has to be careful. I managed to find the (plastic) gas line (close to where it was marked/supposed to be), but the electrical line (and cable + telephone) is yet to be found. Did find a piece of concrete drain pipe (same as used for the drain line) in the trench. It is possible that it is a cover for the electrical line, but after the "big dig" of last year, ones just have no idea really what to expect. Puget Power (as PSE was called in the 80ies) has cut more than one drain line when burying utilities as evidenced in last year's dig.