The House Project: The Flatwork Is Done?

I ran up at lunchtime to get a water sample--water is coming out of the frost-free faucet (say that five times fast!) but in weird spurts and dribbles. The contractor was scratching his head trying to figure it out, so I decided to use my software debugging techniques on it.

"We have another pipe that goes into the house, right? That comes off the same pipe from the water tank?"

"Right."

"So that has an end cap or something on it right now, because the house plumbing isn't in. Can we take the end cap off, and see if the water flows okay?"

"Sure."

So the contractor crawls into the crawl space (to the amusement of the workers, one of whom said, "You won't see that very often!"), and measured how long it took to fill a five gallon bucket--45 seconds, so about 6 2/3 gallons per minute.

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This tells us that there is either a clog between the tee connection, or something stuck in the frost-free faucet mechanism. However, since the concrete had just been poured around that faucet, we'll have to wait for it set before we unscrew the faucet to see where the problem is. (The mechanism lifts out of the pipe--no need to excavate the concrete.)

The remainder of the patio, porch, and what are called garage "aprons" are now poured. The colors don't match in these pictures, of course, because some are days old, and some a few minutes old. There's still some cleaning and finishing to do.

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This picture is a bit overexposed--I didn't feel like spending the time fiddling with contrast and brightness to solve it.

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Here you can see the back driveway (since the garage has doors on both ends), and the little extension where Big Bertha, the 17.5" reflector, will sit.

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It looks too small, but it measures out okay.

Here's a view of the house that I haven't shown you before, from atop the water tank hill.

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The front garage apron.

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My wife and I went back up there this evening while President Bush passed by (we waved at him), and she noticed that some of the concrete looks like the pattern was pressed into it before it had started to set--and consequently the pattern was not as sharp, and the relief that makes this technique attractive was largely missing. I don't know if it is possible to fix this now--perhaps putting a thin layer on top, and repressing?

My last house entry.