How NOT to build a house

You've been waiting eagerly for more pictures haven't you?

For a minute, I'll leave you hanging on the foreshadowing from the title of this post while I catch you up a bit. 

Just before we left, the excavator had finished digging, had built a bit of a road around where the house will go to improve access while building; and had dug out for the concrete footings:

When we got back from our trip to AZ/UT, they had finished pouring the concrete footings and had improved the driveway into our property.  Until now it was narrow, rocky, and had uneven slopes-flat in places, steep in places.  

Now it's wider, more even and has the first layer of gravel:

And here's what the house looked like when we first got back (concrete footings):

(In case you're wondering, no, we don't have curved walls, that's just the panorama effect from my camera!)

Then last Monday 5/19, the first load of SIP panels was delivered.  While we considered strawbale, there were many reasons we ended up deciding not to build with it.  Instead we decided on using Structural Insulate Panels.  For one, our builder is a "SIP guy" and it's an easy fast way to build while achieving high insulation values and a tightly sealed house for good energy efficiency.  (More on this later.) They are pre-manufactured, so once all the panel drawings were approved, there was a bit of down time on house progress while they were cut and delivered.  

Also, a little more background information about our property:  our site is located about 1.5 miles down a narrow winding gravel road that you turn off onto from the paved highway. And when you get to our site, flat open space is extremely limited.

So...Monday morning, the semi arrived with a large load of panels and accessory materials and off-loaded them onto a flat area of grass and gravel that's just off the highway at our road turn off.  Our builder (Todd) was considering buying a big flat bed rig that he had already scoped out, to transport it all from there down to our site.  Once he attempted one load with his own trailer, and had to make a 30-point turn to get turned around, he decided he better buy the truck.  He called the bank, called the sellers, told them he wanted it but that they had to deliver it.  They delivered it.  He moved it about 50 feet, parked it, and set the emergency brake.  He got out, walked over to assess the materials for loading and not 5 minutes after buying it, he turned around and saw that the truck was rolling away.  He ran after it, and before he would have ever had time to jump in and stop the thing, he watched it roll over the edge of a cliff! Apparently the emergency brake did NOT work!  We got up to where it went over not long after it happened and saw the thing sitting about 30 feet down a rocky embankment.  

It was a bit of a rough day for Todd, but luckily everything was covered by his insurance, including getting the truck out of there, which was a miracle they could even pull it out.  

 

And luckily no one was in it nor any of our house materials on it! I suppose if he was going to find out the brake didn't work, it was better that way than when he was in it with a load on the back.  

So it wasn't the most auspicious start to our project, but I'd like to think we're getting that stuff out of the way now so things like that won't happen later!  

More soon!