Well another week has gone by and the lot is now ready for the next phase of construction. Since last week another 3 loads went to the waste recycling area and the lot is now clear of any organic extras. This of course does not include all the roots and concrete pieces that the excavator will need to dig up prior to digging the basements out. I even removed the old chain link fence down the one side and brought the majority to the scrap dealers and got 39$ for this. It worked out to 13 cents a pound. I also went into city hall on Monday morning and initiated the start of my building permit application process. The city now has 10 business days to either approve or turn me down. As of Friday morning one of the inspectors was looking it over so hopefully by mid week I'll have an answer. Once that happens the fun begins.
While waiting for this paperwork I decided to be my own surveyor and with the help of my Mom I surveyed the height elevations of the property. I laid out a grid pattern of 20ft squares and then had my Mom go from point to point with my home made survey stake while I used a transit to capture the heights. Once it was all finished I realized I had  nicely sloping property of approximately 2ft6" from front to back and a lateral slope from East to West of around 10-12inches on average. Here is a picture showing my mother giving me a hand with the surveying. Nice when your family wants to help.

Once this was done I then decided to stake the corners of the house and garage. Now the surveyor will need to come in and do this officially for the excavation process however I wanted to do it as well and then see how close I was to the surveyors points. First thing I did was run a string using a pair of batten boards down the west side of the property 5ft6" east of the property line. This would signify the west wall of the house. I then measured 40ft in from the front property line to get the NW corner of the house. I then moved 54ft down the string placed another peg for the SW corner of the house. I then went 34ft east of the string in the area I thought the NE corner should be. Using Pythagoreans' theorem I then calculated the correct position of the stake and pounded her in. Then measured to the SE corner and pounded another stake in the ground. Checked the stakes from corner to corner and they are within 1/2" of each other. Since this is only be used to find the area to dig the hole this is more than acceptable. I then pounded in stakes for the corners of the three decks and once complete went further back on the property and calculated the garages' position. I'll let you know how close I was when the surveyor actually comes out and does his work.

And that's where we sit so far. Picked up a few more small items that were on sale but still holding back on all the major commitments until the building permit is approved. Had a nice meeting with two of the neighbours and they have no issues at this time with anything I am doing. I've also met a few other neighbours and it looks like it will be a nice neighbourhood.

Well until next week have a nice Labour day Monday and watch out for all the school kids on Tuesday morning. A lot of them head back to class and the roads will be full of young kids either walking or biking.

Harold