OUR FIRST HURDLE

Well, it as bound to happen, just didn't know it would happen this fast, ha.  Our home build has been put on a temporary hold while they addressed and figured out a situation that had arisen.

So, they got the forms set just before the snow.  You saw that post HERE.  The next step was to put in the fill soil.  That is when they bring in a dozen full dump trucks of soil and fill and pack the foundation.

The trucks are large and weigh 30,000 lbs each.

Our driveway was inspected, several times over the course of the process, and it was deemed ok.  Alas, that was the not the case.

Here is one direction looking toward the build site.

We aren't land/driveway engineers so we they told us it was fine we were like, ok, great.  I mean, this is the driveway we will use to access the house and it's been fine for all these years.  But, the super heavy weight of that many trucks and the wet ground after the rain and snow melt was just too much and the underlayment collapsed and the trucks had trouble getting down the driveway and pretty much destroyed it.

And here is the other direction from the same spot in the first picture.

I couldn't get any further down than where I parked (this was a couple of weekends ago).  It's the entire length of the driveway from where it starts at our part of the property.

You can also see one of the dump trucks, the last one they brought in actually, in this photo.

For a close-up, this is the truck after it tilted into the ground when the subsurface collapsed and it was stuck.  They did finally get it out.

This is from this weekend.  They have smoothed it out for us and it was better, for cars anyway.  When it's not wet, it makes it OK to drive on. In fact, grass is even filling in as you can see.  

Still, it left a mess that needed be addressed.  The builder put the project on hold to a) let the driveway dry out of course and b) to figure out a solution.  There was some negotiation, but in the end, we have to fund a new driveway.  That was NOT in our plans or our budget but it is what it is.  They are going to build a new driveway for us, the way it should be, that will last us for years.  We are meeting them in the middle for the price.  We pay the bulk of it because they are going to be doing it at cost and they will maintain it without any additional expenses to us, throughout the build.

It has to come out of savings and some of our contingency, not happy about that but it was pretty fair in the end.

It will look something like this (not sure of the color yet).  They will grade it flat and then build up layers on top of that, ending with crushed gravel and will raise it about 6 inches and put a culvert down the side to help with drainage.  Once they start, about 3-5 days to complete then work on the house can continue.  It's about 600' long, but in the end, we'll have a good, solid, driveway that should last us for years to come.