Anxious to get to work on the house, we stopped at what has to be one of the world’s premier hardware stores (appropriately named “Hardware Sales”) to look for tools.

Now, that’s a wrench!

But we didn’t need a wrench to put in the drainage system around the foundation – it’s all PVC.

All of the PVC drainpipes are ultimately tied together on the downhill side of the house, but around the foundation there are two different lines: a perforated drain pipe around the outside of the footer; and, a solid downspout pipe that will catch water from the roof gutters (this pipe sits on top of the footer in most places).

All the drainage piping had to be covered by pea-rock brought in and spread by other big, mechanized tools. Most of the pea-rock was catapulted in by a high-speed conveyor truck:

This machine was also operated by a remote-control joystick and the operator was able to place the rock almost exactly where he wanted, even 75 feet away and over the retaining walls.

To finish up, a dump-truck load was brought in and spread by Ron’s crew, brothers Jared and Jesse, with their matching mini-excavators.

During a break, Dale climbed aboard:

The brothers did a great job spreading the pea-rock inside and around the foundation.

The water main that we’re going to connect to is on the uphill, road side of our property, but the sewer and natural gas lines are at the bottom of our property. Although these lines could be marked on the surface, we still had to dig down to find them.

The sewer line was much further down than the City’s as-built plans indicated. We had to dig down almost 13 feet, then tie in to the line at that point and run a lateral all the way up to our foundation.

Meanwhile, Rob and his crew laid out the plumbing in the pea-rock…

…before placing the foam insulation boards and the mud sills (the wood bolted to the tops of the stem and retaining walls)…

…and then running the tubing for the in-slab radiant heat system.

With all this preparatory work complete, Marlin and his cement pump truck returned, met by Morgan, the “flat-work” (slab) subcontractor, and his crew. As Marlin pumped the cement from the road, above, Morgan and his crew spread and leveled the concrete.

A little polishing and the job was almost complete.

We just had to write our initials in the concrete: “M + D 2014”