Home Renovation Update #5 – The Foundation

This week’s home renovation update is the foundation on the home.

Catch up on our home renovation updates here:
Update #1
Update #2
Update #3
Update #4

We are moving right along with the home renovation process. The main focus right now is on the foundation and trying our best to fix the cracks. Hopefully this will solve the basement leaks problem. If not, then I have no idea what else to do.

A few weeks ago we had a guy come and dig out a trench in front of our house so we could get to the foundation and fix everything. Not only are we repairing the foundation cracks, we are also putting in a drain along the front of the house that will wrap around the side to hopefully carry away any water.

As you can see we live pretty close to the road and the front yard is not very big. And right now it’s covered in dirt so I have no front yard at all!

My side yard is gone as well, completely covered in dirt. On the plus side there’s less grass to mow.

The foundation has to be cleaned off and all the paint that we put on recently had to be removed as well. The pipe going from our house to the ground connects us to the town’s water system.

After the foundation was cleaned off (which took a few days because it was a really tough job to get everything off), my husband started adding foam to the cracks.

The foam is basically to make the foundation wall level all the way across before adding the rubber coating. After the foam dries fully, it will have to be trimmed flush with the wall, then a layer of geotextile fabric will go over it, then another layer of rubber coating.

It’s a whole crazy long process before we can start putting in the pipe for the drain and filling the whole back in.

Sewer Update

I have great news ya’ll! After almost 5 months we are finally getting hooked up to the town’s sewer system! The lawyers of the business behind us never got back in touch with the town after several tries, so they had to figure out a different way to go. Instead of going up the side of the land of the business behind us as planned, they decided to go up through out backyard. This saves us money, too since they are going almost halfway up. We only have to pay our guy to dig the rest of the way to the house.

We also discovered that there’s an underground spring running through our backyard. It has always been interesting to me how cold that water actually is, even on the hottest of days. And even though it’s running through dirt, it comes out so clear.

A little fact about pure, cold mountain spring water here in Virginia: it was a requirement for the best moonshine back in the days of illegal moonshine making!

I have to say that I’ve never been so excited about a sewer system before! I’m so tired of holes all over my yard and so much dirt and mud everywhere. Luckily we haven’t had a lot of pouring rain lately, so the dirt is staying in its place and not washing away.

This renovation process has been somewhat stressful, but at least it’s moving along and hasn’t come to a stop yet. I pray that doesn’t happen and that we can keep going as smoothly as possible.