A week behind when I originally was told the foundation forms would be started, the foundation forms are now going in. They put in a full day yesterday and got this far on the barn:And this far on the office:
They are out there now on the second day of forms. I think that means they will be ready to pour Monday.

The foundation will have to be done in two stages because of the height. First, there is a 2x2 base, then an angled rise to a slab with a retaining wall. In between the two pours will be a a bunch of dirt movement.

The excitement for the day, however, is another mis communication with the general contractor, this time regarding who was responsible for putting in the electrical conduit. This PVC piping is supposed to be put in the ground between two buildings so that future wires may be pulled to connect the buildings.

This was finally resolved with me purchasing the conduit, outside the contract, and them putting it in for no additional charge.

There was also some fun yesterday as the forms were already going in and no one had talked to me yet about the height of the foundation. This is important because it controls how all your landscaping and driveways work. It is always an issue because you don't know how deep the foundation has to be placed until you excavate the dirt and see where bearing soil is. Too low, and you have to have a lot more forms and concrete to get the top to the desired level. And, they never build enough height into the bid price to keep the bid low.

It turns out in this case, it would cost a lot more for the barn foundation wall to exceed 3', so we are stuck with this height. It is already going to cost more just to get to 3'. The end result of this is that there will be more slope in the driveway up to the barn than I would like. But we will have to cope with some creative landscaping.

In the office, there was additional height required too, but we were also able to save some by getting rid of one of the space-wasting steps into the sunken office. We are going to be able to do this because we are going to forfeit placement of a door to the garage until we have passed inspection.