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Tag: culvert

  • Foundation Pour

    YIPPEE!!!!  The day finally arrived for them to pour the foundation.  Just getting to this point is such a relief!

    Over the last week (since missing our first pour date) it has rained… A LOT.  The trench they dug in the back was full of water and the plastic they put around the perimeter were full.  The guys came the day before to pull the plastic and get any misc things cleaned up.

    The pour was scheduled for 5am so we left the house at 4:30.  Stacey was THRILLED to be up so early to watch a bunch of concrete trucks, so we bribed her with hot chocolate…this was probably the coldest morning yet this fall.

    The pumper truck was already there.  The electric was not up yet, so the guys put up some flood lights running off of a generator and also lit a fire to stay warm (and fix breakfast tacos).

    The cement trucks were behind, and the first one did not show up until 6:30.  Once they did, it was go time.  About 9 trucks were there right in a row, but then it slowed down about 9:30 and there was a truck coming about every 20 minutes.

    It was neat watching the pumper guy control the arm using a remote control.  Wade joked with him it was like playing video games all day long.  Yeah…something like that.  The pumper was brand new…we were the first pour with it.  As the guy moved his body, the arm moved with him.  It was fascinating to watch!  (That is him below standing just under the “elbow” of the pumper arm.)

    They missed the amount of concrete needed by about 6 trucks.  We ended up needing 22 trucks…about 210 yards of concrete for a 4300 sq ft foundation.  That is a lot of concrete!

    Our culvert took a beating but survived.  We have heard horror stories about culverts caving in with the weight of the cement trucks.  Not only do you have to repair the culvert, but you have to pay for a truckload of cement!

    The guys had to scramble at the end and did not spend as much time polishing the last bit (the art room).  Of all the rooms to not be perfect, I guess that one is okay.

    Tada!  I just need to add these guys are artists with concrete.  If you can call a foundation beautiful…this one certainly is!  It is amazing building your own house what a better quality you get compared to a speck house in a neighborhood.  A huge shout out to AMP Concrete.  We LOVE our foundation!

  • Building a bulkhead for the culvert

    Just after the guys finished the house pad, the rains came in.  We had record flooding again…just like in May.  This time, it washed the sides of the culvert away. Just as we were getting started with the construction of the house, now we were on hold again since we could not get equipment across.

    One of our neighbors down the street had an impressive railing built around his culvert that Wade and I had been eyeing since we bought our property.  We eventually wanted to build what he had…but not until AFTER we finished the house.  That did not go as planned and we ended up with a railing on it sooner rather than later.

    There was a small section left of crushed concrete, just enough to get a backhoe onto the property.  And work began on the bulkhead around the culvert.

    Pouring another several thousand dollars into our culvert…we now have something that looks like this:

    On a side note…this is when we found out we did NOT have stabilized sand in our culvert.  If we did, it would have turned into concrete and would not have washed away and would have had to be chipped out to build the bulkhead.  Our fault for not checking up on that during the culvert build.

  • Finally- a box culvert!

    There was much drama from the start of the culvert construction until the end.

    We contacted Henry in March.  Between permitting and ordering materials and Henry accepting a bigger job than he could handle…construction started in July–4 months later.  We could FINALLY drive onto our land mid-September.

    The county would not allow us to build a bridge.  It had to be a “box” culvert.  Henry built a base, then forms for the concrete sides and eventually the top.  We cannot complain at all about the actual construction project.  He did a great job on the concrete box.  Here it is in pictures.

    The re-bar used is pretty impressive.  It is 1.5″ in diameter.  There is 15″ of concrete on the top of the culvert.  Hopefully it won’t go anywhere!!!

    More rain…And this is why it is so important to have good drainage in our ditch.

    FINALLY

  • Designing a box culvert

    When we tell people about our culvert, they cannot possibly understand what we are talking about.  If you even KNOW what a culvert is, then you typically picture the round concrete pipe that the driveway goes over.

    Ours is a very special culvert.

    Just a review of our timeline…We bought our property mid-January.  By mid-March we were about to sell off our dream because we could not figure out how to gain access to our land without spending 40K+ on a culvert.  In a desperate plea on Facebook one day, I posted a picture of a small concrete bridge and asked if anyone knew of someone that could build it.  Henry answered that he could do it.

    We took a chance.  Would we do it again the same way? NO WAY.  But we learned a lot and so did Henry.  We made some major mistakes, but it is only money right???  You cannot die with it.  We spent more than we should have, but we still came in under 20K for the culvert.

    Lessons learned:

    • Get the contract in writing…every single detail.  How much money, exactly what materials and a DATE.OF.COMPLETION.
    • If there is a change order, make sure it is in writing.
    • Do research BEFORE agreeing to additional purchases. Henry used a structural engineer to design the culvert and it cost the same as our engineered house plans!  We were told after the fact what we owed the engineer.  YIKES!
    • Pay NOTHING up front.  If they are a professional, they will get started without having to buy materials.
    • Pay in chunks.  We paid too much along the way, and ended up getting screwed at the end.
    • Be present as much as possible.  It was not until the culvert washed away that we found out Henry did not use stabilized sand and we had to re-fill the sides.
    • Get everything in writing.
    • Get everything in writing.

  • The Culvert- Our first hurdle

    Over the course of the next 6 months, the culvert will become our biggest regret buying our property.

    Let me back up to pre-sale of our property.  In the HAR description, it stated “Culvert must be installed per county specifications.”  We thoroughly read the county page and from everything we could figure, the county will install the culvert as long as the owner buys the pipe.  Just to make sure we understood correctly, we called the county.  The girl was super nice, asked if it was residential or commercial, I told her residential and she reiterated what was on the website.  The county would install the culvert.  Great!  We bought the land…without having driven on it.  We jumped the ditch (a very DEEP ditch) to walk the property.

    One week after the purchase, we called the county and said we were ready for the culvert installation.  We were instructed to fill out the paperwork online and go mark where we wanted the culvert.  Make sure to clearly label the address so the county knows they are in the right place.

    Excited to finally be building our dream…we did exactly as we were told.

    Wade filled the paperwork the next day.  This is January.  About 5 minutes later, the county called.

    We had a special piece of land…our property required a commercial grade, box culvert and the county would NOT be installing it.

    Wait…what????  But we called and verified BEFORE buying the land!!!!  Yes…but we did not give the EXACT address when we called.  We asked a generic question which the generic answer is that the county installs culverts…unless it is over 60″ diameter, in which case it is considered a commercial install and the county does not do that.

    Taking a deep breath, we decided to move forward.  I mean, really, how much can a box culvert cost?  Surely…not more than 10K right???  WRONG.

    WRONG.

    WRONG.

    Hindsight is 20/20.  Knowing what we know now, we might have been able to find something a bit cheaper…but not by much.  Most places that sell box culverts do not sell to the public…they are commercial culverts!  The ones that do sell to the public were giving us quotes of 20K+ JUST.FOR.THE.BOXES.

    After spending weeks trying to figure out what to do…we were at a loss.  The cheapest we figured it would cost to gain drive-able access to the land was close to 40K.  Wade had talked to an attorney about the sellers who we bought the land from being responsible for not disclosing in the description exactly what it meant about the “culvert” and “county specs.”

    UPDATE: We found out from the county some more information about our property.  It seems that the gentleman that originally owned the farm land with grazing cows (in the 90’s) decided to break it up into 14 lots of 2.5 acres each with his house on 5 acres and the lot next to him was 4.5 acres (which will become ours).  The county told him with the development of the lots, the drainage would be an issue.  They tried to work out several different options…possibly an alley with back entrance so the drainage ditch would not be disturbed, or have the neighbors share driveways to have fewer obstructions in the ditch…the owner did not want to do anything the county suggested.  In the end, he said it would be up to the buyers to do what the county wanted…install commercial box culverts.  The lots sold like hot cakes.  Every single one of them.  And then came the first houses.  The county saw what an issue the drainage was going to become so the first homeowners were able to work something out.  They would buy the culvert, but the county would help with some of the install.  It was an all or none thing…so the property owners that agreed had nice box culverts put in for a fraction of what we paid.  The others have sold off the land (without disclosing what it would take to gain access to the property).  After ours…there are still 3 lots that need culverts.  When you call the county now about installing residential culverts, they ask your location just in case it happens to be on our street…