Just Another Thinkhole

Ah'm whupped, as we used to say in Tennessee. Spent four and a half hours with the contractor yesterday evening/night. The first bad news was that the soil tests turned out just on the wrong side of the limit, which means they (the soil borers) made a finding that although the soil is hard at between two and three meters in the five places they bored, there was clay in a shallower level. They are suggesting we sink piles, more than fifty of them, in the area of the foundation, which will cost around one million yen. There are other methods of strengthening the land, including mixing concrete in the soil, putting gravel "pillars" in the ground, or some other wild ideas, like putting styrofoam under the foundation, but it's all costly.

But we have a choice. Unlike the Swedish method that these testers used, there is another one using ultrasound equipment. According to the contractor the ultrasound generally is not as tough as the former one. (I also have the sneaking suspicion that since the Swedish one relies on human judgement, and since the company that does the test also does the pile driving, that one might think the humans might slant the test to give themselves business, but then I'm a suspicious bastard.) So we toss more money into the testing hoping that 1) forty thousand yen will save us a mill, 2) we can build the house without pilings, and 3) that it won't sink, one-sided, into the earth, at least until the poles melt and the seas drown us all. The contractor said they will still insure the house, as long as it passes the second test.

After we got past that bit of disappointment, we found out that the costs had ballooned a good ten percent over our budget. After a few hours of trying to find out where--20,000 yen here and 10,000 there--I just decided that we had to make some drastic changes if we were to bring it down. So in spite of the fact that most of the plans were drawn up, we cut chunks of excess in the form of several square meters from the layout. Even though it was painful, and a pain in the ass, it was kind of fun to try to think creatively again. In fact, I'm kind of happier now, not just because we made more of less, but because the atrium is now against the sea side instead of in the middle, and we got rid of the second floor tiny terrace, which had seemed to me to be a bit much considering we can always go downstairs. The wood stove is also in a more efficient place, and we were able to keep the tatami room intact. So what if the toilet is under the stairs? It's a toilet.

So now we get to wait and see how much we were able to lop off of the price. We're getting closer fast to the day we're going to have to start some destruction if we're going to be all moved in by the end of the year.