Getting Started on 69th Street

Christmas 1988

With the permitting process behind us, we were excited to get started framing our new home. 

For Christmas that year we gave each of our six children a hard hat and their personal hammer.  We wanted them to feel a part of the project.

But before we could begin framing, first the foundation had to be done properly.  We outlined the footings on the building pad.  It sure looked like a small house as we gazed upon the footprint from up the street.

I rented a backhoe.  I think my brother, Don, did most of the digging, but I probably took a turn on the equipment.  I was surprised that not only did we need the trenches around the outside of the house and down the middle where the bearing wall was to be built, but there were substantial footings under the stairway as well.  We also had to trench for the underground sewer lines, and install the sewer pipes before the form inspection.

We were doing the footings and forms in the month of December.  I was too cheap to rent a porta-potty, so we would drive over to the park, about a quarter mile away, when necessary to use a restroom.

The southwest corner of the house required a combination retaining wall & footing.  Rather than spend a lot of extra money on hiring an engineer to design the retaining footing, we opted to use the county approved design that had an oversized footing that required lots of rebar (steel reinforcing bars) and lots of concrete.  The base of the footing was 3 feet wide and 3 feet deep, plus the 3 1/2' concrete stem wall above it that retained the dirt on those two sides.

We had a couple rain storms during the forming process, and I remember having to bail out the water so we could work in that deep and wide trench.

We borrowed electricity from a neighbor across the street so that I would not have to pay to put in a temporary power pole.  We ran a long extension cord across the street to power our saw to cut the forming lumber.

We were fortunate to have extended family willing to help on the project. My two sisters and their husbands (and families) came from northern California, and I had two brothers in town and their families who also helped us get ready for placing the concrete in the forms.  After the forms were in place and the trenches were cleaned out, we put down two inches of "clean washed sand", covered with a sheet of Visqueen plastic as a moisture barrier, which was covered by two more inches of sand.

With the sand in place, we began tying the rebar.  There were two pieces of 1/2" rebar in the bottom and two at the top of all the trenches.  Then we placed 1/2" rebar every 24" across the slab, in both directions, supported on "dobies" so that it would be in the center of the concrete slab.

Once the forms were in place and the rebar tied, we called for the form inspection, which we passed without any problems.

The next big hurdle came the day we placed the concrete.  Fortunately my brother, Don, had some experience placing and finishing concrete, and I had worked with him on the driveway in Inglewood.  So we took on doing the finishing ourselves.  Truckload after truckload of concrete were emptied as we filled the footings and then the slab.  We were fortunate that all the areas needing concrete could be accessed using the truck's chute.  This saved us a lot of money that it could have cost had we needed to have the concrete pumped.

 There was always the concern of "cold joints" as we experienced time between trucks.  After the next to the last truck was unloaded, we had to hurry and calculate how much more concrete was needed to complete the job, and the truck driver radioed dispatch to let them know how much to send in the final truck.   In an attempt to minimize the cold joint problem, the edge of the concrete was raked thin, and the new concrete was worked into the edge to help them join together.

Foundation bolts ("J-bolts") were placed in the appropriate locations while the concrete was still fresh.  After the final truckload was emptied, the driver washed out his chutes and was on his way.  Of course we had to screed the concrete to the correct thickness as the slab was placed.  And someone tamped it to work the larger rock down below the surface.  Then we ran a float across the surface to help smooth it and bring more slurry to the surface so it would trowel easier.  The fresh concrete needed just the right amount of time to begin setting up before we could begin finishing it.  Working it too much, too early, just extended the setup time, before it could be troweled.  Waiting too long, it becomes too hard to trowel properly.

When it was firm enough to walk on, I helped Don place the power trowel (a gas powered machine that resembles an over-sized buffing machine with several trowel shaped feet on it).  This allowed him to finish the expansive area of the slab fairly quickly.  Once he was done, we still went out on knee boards and hand finished the concrete floor.

It was a long day, and we were beat by the time we were able to go home!

The City Engineer

It has been so long, I forget the sequence of events regarding the permit process with the City of Lemon Grove.

I do remember it taking an extremely long time to get a permit from the City.  First we needed the grading permit. This required getting approval from the Zoning Department.  We wanted to build as far up the hill as possible, to leave as much land as possible on the other end of the lot, for a future lot split.  We also were trying to get the house as far up hill as possible so that we would not have to pump the sewer for the lower level.

Since we had an odd shaped lot, due to the swath of land taken by the county by eminent domain for the now abandoned College Avenue Extension, it was a challenge to position the house on the lot and meet all the setback requirements. The city's map showed a cul-de-sac along the front (west) side of the lot, ending at the top (south end) of the parcel.  The Director of the Zoning Department helped me understand that there is some zoning code that allowed in a situation like this, to use the side yard for the front yard setback.  And since it was a triangular shaped lot, there is a code that says you measure the back yard set back from a line drawn parallel with the front property line, and measuring 10 feet long.  But we still needed to maintain a 10 foot setback from the property line to the nearest corner of the building.  Once we got all that worked out, and approved by the Zoning Department, it was on to Engineering.  That was one of the slowest and most unpleasant aspects of the permit process.  The City Engineer would require a change to the plan.  I would have my draftsman draw the change, and resubmit it.  Then it would sit on the Engineer's desk for a week or two before he would give it back to me asking for another minuscule change.  Of course each change would take my draftsman a week or so to draw up.  So back and forth, our patience wore thin.  The final item the City Engineer required was that we show a five foot long swale at the north corner of the building site for rainwater runoff.  The funny part of all this is that the swale never was made, because the driveway served for the rainwater runoff.

Plan check for the house plans went equally slow.  Every required change took a week for the draftsman and two weeks for the City plan checker.  I would say that it took nearly six months to get our plans approved and stamped so we could begin building.

In addition to the building permit fees (which included fees for plan check, and fees calculated per electrical outlet and fixture, each plumbing fixture, square feet of living space, square feet of garage & storage, etc.) , we were hit with "Park Fees" of $200, and the major expense were the school fees, which, if I recall correctly were about $2.50 per square foot of living space.  Once our fees were paid, we were permitted to proceed with building the new house!