March 2012
The carpenters are busy now laying down the plywood decking in advance of the roof installation which is due to begin this weekend. It was pretty windy on Wednesday and made it a little tricky to be handing up the big sheets. More progress on Thursday and we can hear them nailing and sawing today. 
Florida's rainy reason officially begins in June, but the recent March showers are a preview of what it will be like trying to build this house here. Fortunately, as you see in the video, it also changes quickly, so that a workday apparently lost to weather might only be the lunch break.
We approach from the west along McDonald Street and turn north at College Avenue. You can view all of the individual shots by clicking here. The Lake Morton Neighborhood Association just conducted its annual Historic Home Tour this weekend. Maybe this house will be part of that in future years.
The backhoe and front loader were operating at full throttle on Monday, digging out the pit required for the copper pipes and manifolds that will provide heating and cooling for the house. This dig finishes off the installation that was started in July when the L-shaped version, along the south and east sides, was dug out and filled in. Learn more about geo-thernal technology and the company that installed it in theResources section.
Well, it's not the beginning of the end, but it's definitely the end of the beginning. Heavy equipment came in to dig the geo-thernal field, but the first order of business was to remove all of the testing slabs that had been poured to try various formulas for coloring the house's floors and installing the block's connecting systems.
The remnants of the testing slabs are picked up and hauled off. Somebody can make good use of used concrete. This "trash" won't go to waste!
Workers install the site's connection to the sewer system, so once again the earth has been moved to accommodate a piece of the project. New materials make this work at least a little lighter than it used to be.