The driveway went in quickly and the excavator began digging the foundation hole this past week. The house site is quite large with room for construction trucks to maneuver around the house. However, the side affect of a large site is that once the foundation hole was dug the house looked quite small.
While the excavators worked, I took an hour to hike up behind the house site and capture the spectacular view. The site looks down on a 200 acre farm currently planted with sweet corn and out at Mount Washington.
While I hiked, the excavator took down a few more trees. It was incredible how large some of the old pines were. I would guess they may have been 100ft+
At the end of the day the hole and footers were dug. The soil conditions on the site were quite interesting. Typically in Maine you expect to run into ledge (rock) and boulders. However, my site had only a handful of boulders and consisted of mostly course sand. This geology bodes well for my water well, but may present problems in the wet spring-time. Drainage pipe will be laid along the outside and inside of the foundation wall to ensure the basement remains dry.