With our permit in hand, it was time to start moving dirt for the new house. This will be the sixth home built by Spring of Life Partnership since the founding twelve years ago by ten churches in the Palatine, Arlington Heights, and Mount Prospect area. This house will be built at 959 Lavoie Ave., Elgin.

Since the first step in any construction, where soil is being moved, is to install a silt fence around the perimeter of the property. A silt fence is the black plastic ribbon, about two feet high, that is seen encircling most home construction projects and serves to protect loose soil from being washed into streets, sewers and rivers during heavy rain storms.The plastic is about three feet wide with the bottom foot or so being buried in a trench dug in the ground. Thus the call went out to Spring of Life for able bodied volunteers with shovels and rakes.

Subsequent discussions with a prospective concrete contractor (Russell Cardelli) convinced me to rent a trenching machines instead of using volunteers with shovels. So I called A to Z Rental, Elgin and reserved a trenching machine for Saturday. Early Saturday morning I picked up an earth saw instead of a trencher (it was cheaper). Money is dear to Spring of Life.

There were three volunteers at the build site - George Becker and Lee and Dick Kingdon.We found enough of the layout pipes to determine where the fence would go and began digging with the earth saw, which is a large rotating wheel, with teeth, mounted on three wheels and moved by human power. After more than an hour of grunting and swearing and very little progress it was decided the trencher would have been been a better option.

So we took the saw back and rented the trencher ($33.00 an hour vs. $20.00). A and Z Rental (Phil) zeroed out the previous balance and started anew with the trencher. Nice people at A and Z!!!

The trencher (much like a chainsaw with an arm and a revolving chain with teeth) was a much better solution. What’s the old saying - “penny wise and pound foolish”. In two hours we had  the trench dug around the property (about 400 lineal feet) and the silt fence installed with all the stakes driven down with sledge hammers. Then we backfilled the trench to anchor the bottom edge of the fence. This is Lee backfilling, and George and Dick resting the shovel. The completed fence. The house will eventually look like this sketch.

Thus, the beginning. About a year or so from now we should be completed. This may seem like a long time, but you have to remember we only work Saturdays (usually) and all the work is done by volunteers who have much dedication, but usually are not skilled in the building trades. Stay tuned for more.

Bill Klaves of the Affiliate was kind enough to submit all the paper work for our building permit application several weeks ago. Then, today, when we heard that the permit was granted, he brought a check to Elgin and picked up the permit. Thank you, Bill.

The fee was about $12,200.00, several thousand less than the last house. Yea!

With the permit in hand we can now begin the build. We probably will install the silt fence this coming Saturday. Also, several excavation quotes are now in hand and need to be evaluated.

Still waiting for the remainder of the concrete quotes.

Yesterday, Steve called from the Elgin building department saying we were missing one item in our permit application - a REScheck report. Since I had never heard of REScheck, Steve was kind enough to explain that it is a federal government internet program developed by the US Department of Housing and Development (HUD) and the Department of Energy (DOE). Each community decides if they will require the report in their permit application..

Using data supplied by the builder, in this case Spring of Life Partnership, REScheck determines how energy efficient your proposed house will be when completed. The data consists of information on the envelope of the house - topmost ceiling, walls (both framed and concrete) and lowermost floor. Wall information, besides including framing, sheathing, insulation and sheetrock numbers,also requires window and door sizes and insulative values. Also required is data on the mechanicals - furnace, air conditioner etc.

After downloading the program from energycodes.gov and several tries at inputting the correct information, it was determined that our house would not not pass the energy test! We were about 10% over the allowed value for energy conservation.

Now began the fun. Increase the amount of insulation in the attic (not much help), change size of insulation in walls (still no go), add insulation to inside of basement walls (nope), add two inches of rigid foam to outside of basement walls (big help) and change window specifications (also big help). Finally with several other small changes, we met the test with about 0.7% to spare. Yea!

Passing the test was not without pain, however. The added insulation and upgraded windows and doors will cost us an additional $2,000.00 or so.

Once you past the test, REScheck prints a four page report that becomes a part of the building permit and the changes will be included in the inspection process.

Now, to get the building permit approved.