START OF THE UTILITY INSTALL

Once all the trenching was complete Manny and his crew descended on the site to install the rough plumbing for all the drains and greywater.  Once installed a water test was completed with no leaks detected!  

Manny working on the plumbing drains 

 Master bath plumbing .. our future throne will be located above the big
 pipe with the white cap in the center of the picture

Casita plumbing with greywater pipes going to the west under
the concrete forms.  Red conduits are for the electrical.  Your
throne will be above the pipe with the white cap.


Next came Tom and Jason to install the main electrical panel.  Once that was installed, they finished excavating the trench from the junction box to the panel.  Then Doug the electrician came in and installed the lugs and attached the address tag to the front.  This address tag is a big deal as the electric company, TEP, wouldn't approve the install until it was attached.  Who knew?  Last Friday, TEP came out, opened the junction box so we could hook up the conduit, inspected the trench and panel, and gave the OK to backfill the trench.  One more thing to cross off the to do list.  We should have power to the site in a week or so!

Jason (foreman) and Tom (contractor) installing the main electrical panel

The approved panel and Doug working on the main house electrical

While all the above was going on, Tom and Jeff finished installing the pipe from the water tank at the top of the hill down to the site.  Now we are ready to back fill this trench.

Water line from the tank to the site

A panoramic shot for perspective.  Doug's van is parked in the "garage"

UTILITY TRENCHING

With the first stage of the concrete prep complete we are on to the trenching for the utilities.  Trenches needed to be excavated for the potable water, rain water, grey water, sewer and electricity.  After much flipping back and forth of the different pages in the master plans we figured out where all the trenches needed to be dug.  Some were inside the foundations and some were outside connecting the buildings.  

Evan and Jesus demonstrating some good team work.

You can see the electrical trench from the garage to the casita

and Evan and Jesus working on the  trench for all the waters paralleling the

north side of the house.

In addition to the trenching in and around the buildings we also needed to excavate a trench for the main water line from the tank on the hill down to the house.  Surprise, surprise we ran into more rock and the big hammer was called back into action.  

Rock is no match for the Hammer!

Trench for the main water line looking southeast from the water tank on the hill.

With all the excavating going on we figured we should call in an expert .... believe it or not Marty Raney was available!

No they didn't let "Marty" actually take the controls.

"Marty" sizing up the build site.