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.

The Day the Earth Got Drilled

One of the men from the contractor showed up at nine on Monday morning with a team to do jiban chosa, or soil boring tests. Like I said, if the land isn't up to snuff, then we'll have to spend a lot of money to drive in supports, and that will definitely hurt the budget. So they did the boring in five different places, as close as possible to where the corners of the new place will be.

It's a simple system, which they called "Swedish Weight Sounding Test." They take the sharpened boring rod and push it into the ground, then start loading weights on it--up to 100kg--until even when they're screwing the drill the ground is hard enough to stop progress. For the first meter or two, the rod slid down just with the weights. Then they'd both have to start drilling to get it to go further, meanwhile taking notes at every 50cm or so.

The bore got down to 2.5 meters on the back side of the house, 3.5 on the front side. One of the problems could be unevenness, but they said this was probably not enough to matter. However, they did find a lot of clay layers, which meant that it had probably been hauled in 100 years or so ago, before the present building. They had to take the core samples and the figures from boring back to their company to crunch before we get the results either late this week or early next.

I asked the contractor what his feeling was, and he just said, "I think it will barely be okay." Which would be plenty okay for us.

On a Rock or a Soft Place

This is not easy, trying to hurry up and slow down at the same time. I want to move forward on so many things, but every time a problem arises, I want the time to think it through.

This is the sea side view of the proposed house with late afternoon winter lighting, and we're no closer to getting this realized than we were a month ago. We just had another meeting with the contractors, and it was as if we were moving sideways, even backwards. Costs went up, ideas went down, new problems sprang up and my enthusiasm took a bungee jump off a bridge.

The immediate decision was that we're going to have to drill for the jiban chosa, a test of the earth to see if it will hold the proposed structure. I'm not sure why we have to go through this with two structures already on the property. But they say if we don't do it now, we'll have to do it after they've been taken down, and if we find they have to reinforce the earth then it will add more than a million unexpected yen to our budget. So I guess I'd rather know that now.

The contractor said he doesn't expect any problems, but when I brought up the fact that the obaasan, who was the former owner, said that the firm rock underneath was the reason the old house had made it through so many earthquakes and typhoons, he suddenly looked worried. It turns out he's concerned that the rock may be under only a part of the lot, and if the earth foundation is hard in one part and soft in another, the prefecture may demand that we strengthen the soft part by pounding supports into the soil.

So I'll stay down in Akiya over the weekend, and take a day off on Monday as they're coming to do the test at 9am. M's got a massage school end-of-year party on Sunday night, so it will just be m and I. Then Tuesday's a national holiday, so we'll end up with a looooong weekend. I suppose I can use it to start hauling stuff to the local dump. It's much cheaper if you do it yourself than if you hire someone, and I'm sure little m will get a thrill. It doesn't matter if it's a trip to Disneyland or a dump; she thrives on new experiences.