Recent Posts

Footing Drains for the Little Pre-fab Cabin

Footing Drains for the Little Pre-fab Cabin

Taylor showed up Friday and dropped off a load of gravel. He says it’s to put in the foundation drains. Foundation drains or footing drains are put in just outside the foundation walls to drain water away so it won’t seep into the foundation. Ours 

Sill Plate: How the Modular Home Attaches to the Foundation

Sill Plate: How the Modular Home Attaches to the Foundation

How do you connect a modular home to the foundation? The foundation connects to a sill plate with anchor bolts. Then the cabin will attach to the sill plate. There is a seal between the block and the wood to keep moisture from wicking through. 

Parged Finish on the Foundation

Parged Finish on the Foundation

One way we lowered the cost for our pre-fab cabin foundation is to use Thoroseal parging instead of a stucco finish on the block. Thoroseal is not actually Thoroseal anymore. It is now called MasterSeal 582. There are a lot of variations of MasterSeal. The 

Block Foundation for Our Small Modular Cabin

Block Foundation for Our Small Modular Cabin

The surveyors came back out over the weekend and marked the foundation. They marked the block with where the foundation goes. This man snapped chalk lines on the footing connecting the marks the surveyor had made. A load of block was delivered and moved into 

Setting a Blue Ridge Log Cabin with a Crane

Setting a Blue Ridge Log Cabin with a Crane

The couple that surveyed for our foundation are currently building a Blue Ridge Log Cabin. She gave me some photos of the process to share. We considered Blue Ridge Log Cabins and I went to their offices and toured. This cabin comes in two main 

Pouring Footings: Small Modular Cabin

Pouring Footings: Small Modular Cabin

The very next day a truck backed in with a concrete pump. There was no rain in the near forecast, so we are going to have our footers* poured. I will be so relieved. Last time our footers took months and cost tens of thousands 

Leveling the Building Site, Digging the Footers and Footer Inspection: Small Modular Cabin

Leveling the Building Site, Digging the Footers and Footer Inspection: Small Modular Cabin

As soon as we got the permit, they started cutting into the bank to make a level building site. This will be the back of the house.  The site seemed pretty level already, but now it is really level. He cut the top of the 

Approved Permit and Inspection Schedule for our Small Modular Cabin

Approved Permit and Inspection Schedule for our Small Modular Cabin

We don’t have a permit yet, but we have a job box ready for it. It should not take this long to get a permit, so Taylor went down again to try to shepherd it through. They said they had sent me an email about 

Remediating a Crushed and Overflowing Culvert – Site Prep for Small Modular Cabin

Remediating a Crushed and Overflowing Culvert – Site Prep for Small Modular Cabin

It rained all night and water was flowing over the field behind our house. Cliff went out in the rain to see what was going on with our construction area. The field behind our house was flooded and the waterway behind our house was overflowing. 

Clearing and Driveway – Site Prep for our Small Modular Cabin

Clearing and Driveway – Site Prep for our Small Modular Cabin

While we wait for permits, we can put in the driveway and clear and level the site. Nothing happened for a few days. While we waited for the contractor to get back the estimates from the subcontractors, it rained. And rained and rained and rained.