Wow, this was a beautiful day. High around 74F, sunny, slight breeze. The ground in the backyard is drying nicely. There are still some puddles in the trenches, but they are going away quickly. No work inside or outside today other than Vern's boys (outside plumbing) came around to pick up their steel plates covering the concrete they poured in the street last week. Now the City is supposed to repair the asphalt. Don't know if they will charge us for that or not. Probably! They need to do it soon as the holes cross over the bicycle paths on both sides of the street. Some nonobservant cyclist may have a surprise when they hit the holes.
"Our" Mike called this evening to say that "Bobcat" Tom will be here either late tomorrow (Tuesday) or no later than Wednesday to begin the trench back fill. I reminded Mike that we also still need to re-install the garage downspout laterals. He said he would take care of it. Not sure when Frank's boys will be back to work on the new boiler for the radiant floor heating. The new on-demand water heater continues to work well.
Over the weekend, T and I harvested and then dismantled the sun choke raised bed located in the middle of the backyard. It has withstood the trauma going on all around it over the past three months. We planted these sun chokes about three years ago and have appreciated nice harvests each fall. This year, the harvest was not nearly as bountiful and it was a little earlier than normal. But, we knew that if we did not get what we could, there would be no tomorrow once the trench filling and leveling activities began this week.
We got a note from Betsy (solar) today saying that she was incorrect about the loss of inverter efficiency, as long as the ambient temperature stays below 104F, and only a marginal loss if above that temperature. Should not be a problem. She did not mention her previous comment that there might be issue with equipment durability if the inverters are located outside (exposure to the elements). She quoted the owner of the company stating that this type of installation is not that uncommon and can be accomplished successfully. Betsy also stated in her note that there would be no additional fees for the outside location. In this note, she did not mention the possibility that they may have to change to an outdoor version of the "combiner" box, but they still want to be involved in the installation of the vertical posts on the inverter frame. She stated that since these posts had to be perfectly vertical, they felt they needed to do the installation. In my responding email, I told her I had complete confidence in "Our" Mike's ability to install the posts, but if they wanted to do it, that was their choice. Betsy also included a sketch that apparently Drew drew showing the outside location of the inverters. While I had told both of them that we were going to locate them on the east side of the house, the sketch showed them on the south side of the southeast corner of the house. This was strange because Drew had previously told me that they could not be located on the south side of the house. Regardless, when I responded, I attached the plot plan put together by Bob (landscaping) showing the slab on the east side of the house. My responding note advised Betsy that we are at the point of needing to finalize the location of the inverters and that they need to step up and get involved with the project. We'll see what happens next.
Saturday, we received the latest invoices from "Our" Mike. Included was the invoice for the soil Inspector who was here on September 30, a week before we poured the foundation footings. Along with the invoice was the Inspector's report. Having been told by Mike that we had passed the inspection, I was somewhat taken back when I read the report which stated, "the existing fill soils observed are unsuitable for support of the proposed construction". There was no quantitative information (loading pressures, densities, etc.) in the report, only their qualitative opinion. Whemmm..."unsuitable"..... that does not sound like we had "passed" the inspection. The report recommended that the footings be extended deeper, through the fill, to bear on natural soils. I saw the architect (Tyler) out in the yard this weekend and showed the report to him. He thought the language was a bit severe and that most of St. Louis is covered with fill dirt, but it is decades old. He said that, worse case, we could have settling, with subsequent cracking of the foundation. Hell, our existing house is still settling after 119 years! Today, I talked with "Our" Mike about it. He said he also was unhappy about the terminology used in the report. It was not what the Inspector said during the inspection and Mike agreed with Tyler that the fill has been well compacted and that, based upon his own soundings of the soil (I personally saw him stomp his feet several times), he was comfortable we can proceed. We don't have a lot of choice. The foundation footings and walls are in place. Mike said we might have had to go down another five feet to find "natural" soils. I now understand that the inspection findings were almost predictable. The Inspector, being very conservative in their recommendations, is not assuming any responsibility for any future settling. This soil test was not required by the City. In hindsight, I wonder why we spent money for an opinion we were willing to disregard?
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