I’m trying to catch up to where we are on the house. The site for the house was determined by our builder and by the county specified location of the septic field. We could not build right on the lake but we will be able to see it just fine. We hope to eventually put a screen house on the lake built on a temporary foundation in case there was ever a flood.
Landus wanted a fully conditioned crawl space. There will be no exterior entry points to the crawl space. We will have a “trap door” in the hall that will open to steps down to the crawl (or shall I say stoop down) space. This will help us with storage including a perfect place for wine! Since there will be no attic, we will place all the ductwork, plumbing and electrical in the crawl space. Since it will be semi-conditioned, we anticipate no need to insulate the duct work or the pipes.
The walls of the crawl space will be insulated and the ground will be covered by a thick vapor barrier. The rule is to leave space just below the floor system uncovered where termite inspectors can see clearly if there are any insect trails headed for the wood, so we will; of course, follow this requirement.
In the process of digging the crawlspace and foundation footer, we decided to 1) add an additional course of concrete block. This helps with the headroom for my 6’2″ husband and 2) pour a concrete slab for the equipment to sit on. We ran the vapor barrier under that slab and will attach the vapor barrier to that plastic.
Below are photos of the original site, footings and a photo from 9/18 showing the finished foundation and the slab.
One side effect from this extra course of block is the house sits higher. More stairs needed in order to enter the house… hum. This is supposed to be easy for us to get in and out of in our old age. Now we are bringing in dirt. We plan to build up the ground around the house in hopes of reducing the number of steps. We also have made the steps 16″ deep and the rise at 6″. If we have to climb steps, they will be easier than most.
Our home construction decisions and why 