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Site Preparation for our Kit Home!
We were so excited to begin the site preparation for our owner builder kit home project. We started taking care of the site preparation in September and October of 2004 while we waited for our building permits. After all the time we spent planning, it was thrilling to see some action! Located in the small historic mining town of Lewiston, California, our lot features a great view of the Alps, as well as the Trinity River and a historic one lane bridge.
More building site photos & information about Trinity County The previous owners of our lot had taken care of most of the site preparation for us, leveling a nice sized building pad that would allow us to take full advantage of the view from what would be the back of our kit home. A large burn pile, including an oversized stump, was left right on the building site, but our very talented backhoe operator had it cleared up in no time. We considered ourselves to be very fortunate to get the services of John Scott to do our ground work, as he was semi-retired at the time.
Site Preparation begins with Clearing the Site
With almost 5 acres, there was a lot of trench work to be done in the site preparation stage. We are fortunate enough to be on community water and sewer, but needed to trench 650-700 feet from the building site to bring in our water and sewer lines, as well as our electric service. To add to the fun, we also needed to dig a trench from the shop down to the house, and also across the front of the house to the 400 gallon holding tank. Because the sewer line had to go up a slight grade for those 650-700 feet, we needed an ejector pump by the house.
The digging took most of two days, and we did have a few minor delays. The sewer line had been brought in part way when the neighbors' house was built in 2001 and no one could remember where it ended. John and I spent about two hours digging by hand without much success, so he started the trenches at the house end. Loren had to come out after work and dig some more and found the sewer pipe just as he was running out of daylight.
With that problem solved, we were ready to do some serious digging on the second day! Then the backhoe had problems...
Water and sewer connections and more photos
We definitely wanted to have temporary power hook-up at the building site before all of the heavy work got started. Because our new kit home was going to be all electric, the Trinity PUD waived the first $1,700 in costs to bring in our electric service.
It turned out to be pretty cost prohibitive to keep all of the electric work underground. Trinity PUD installed three power poles, with the last pole at the tree line of our site, then we had the service go underground from there to the building site. John dug the trench from the last pole site and joined it with the trench for the water and sewer lines.
There was a little bit of excitement when they were drilling for the first power pole and drilled through the neighbors' water line. Our new neighbor was very gracious and calm, and PUD's crew had everything fixed in no time.
Electric Service information for the owner builder and more photos
The last bit of site preparation we were able to do without our permits was the work for the encroachment permit. Our main driveway is rather steep and has a seasonal stream on the downhill side. 
There was some question initially on whether we would be allowed to keep this driveway, as there was an environmental constraint recorded on the property. After working with the Department of Transportation, County Counsel, and the Planning Department we were able to keep it. However, it required quite a bit of work for erosion control.
With his handy new John Deere tractor Loren cut back the slope to the required angle on the uphill side of the driveway for about 300 feet and we put seed and straw on it. Then he installed two culverts and lined the ditch with fractured rock. The "winter" (such as it is in California) of 2004-2005 was extremely wet, and in our area a lot of driveways were washed out. We were pleased to see that ours held up great ~ good job to Loren for putting that extra culvert in! Pictures and details of the erosion control work
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