house-design-plan

The excavator will backfill
to your foundation

It is important to backfill your house-design-plan soon after the foundation is finished. This gives you adequate time to thoroughly soak the ground around the house so the loose backfill has time to settle.

Your laterals should have been dug by the time you do the backfilling. Your excavator will likely do all the laterals and backfilling. Include a timeline for him as to when you expect each of his tasks completed. You'll want to obtain his signature before he starts digging. SEE...Contracts with your Subs

As long as you take the upper hand on these things, the subs will not make you feel like they know more than you. If you do not insist, the subs may try to make you feel like you don't know what's best, after all THEY are the experts and experienced ones.

Get it all in a contract so you can say “It says in your contract, that you will do this by “X” date and before you get paid “X” amount. As long as you hold the money, you hold the power.

I can't stress this enough. We let our excavator dictate when he would backfill, and consequently, he was up to his axle, sunk in the mud, trying to backfill and slope the ground away from the house.

I started asking him when he would backfill and do the laterals clear back in October, and this was now March, but he said "no, we don't need to do that yet. " What he really was saying was "No, I don't WANT to do that yet. I'll tell you when I'm ready."

In order for us to move in to our house-design-plan, the inspector wanted us to have the ground sloping away from the house. I was told, “Well, the ground will dry out in a couple months...”

Well, we didn't have a couple months. It had already gone 3 months more than it should have, and we were going to have to pay a penalty for going beyond 9 months with our Construction Loan. That ultimately cost us an additional $1,000 fee. I really should have taken that $1,000 out of the excavator's pay, but we didn't know what it was going to cost us.

About that time, I was screaming and insisted that RL call and use some “male authority” to get the job done. He did just that and our excavator reluctantly showed up with his backhoe. The ground had recently thawed that 14 inch frost and it was sopping wet.

It was so funny watching the excavator in his backhoe, sunk clear to his axles, using the bucket in front and the backhoe legs in back, lifting the machine out of the mud and swinging it forward to gradually “walk” the machine across the back yard. I only wish we'd have video taped it. I honestly didn't think we'd have a slope across the back, but the city OK'd it finally.

What a mess this turned out to be, and I do mean "mess"! That guy's new backhoe no longer looked new, believe me!

Suffice it to say, backfill your house-design-plan early on so you don't end up like we did.