Getting close to point of no return

The appraisal came in ok - not as high as we would have liked, but good enough to get the loan without having to cut back on anything. The loan package should be at the underwriter by Tuesday. If all goes well (we're told by the bank that it should), then we might be signing closing papers as early as Friday 5/29. Gulp - it's almost gut-check time...signing big loan papers is always fun. :)

I forgot to mention that I submitted the initial application to Puget Sound Energy (the electric company) for our power last week. This one's gonna bite: we need to bring power from the eastern road all the way up the driveway (a minimum run of about 300'). With that distance, we won't have a choice but to have an extra transformer located near the house (to step up the voltage or something after line loss? Not sure - I'm not an electrician). The application form asked you how many amps you wanted: 200, 320, 400, or "Other"(fill in a number). I'm not planning to grow pot or anything else that would require massive amounts of power, but I do plan to have a detached shop, and we are going with electric heat (natural gas is not available). The "Other" option sounded expensive, so I checked the box next to 400 amps. Long story short, this produced lots of dire warnings from PSE about the costs of such a high level of service. Also, I talked to several folks who know more than I about electricity, and they were all consistent in saying that 320 amps should be plenty even for a house+shop (even if you have large equipment in your shop, you never run more than one tool at a time, usually). So I backed it down to 320amps. Let's hope I don't regret that...

Lab results on well water are good

Boyd sent the lab results tonight - yay, we got good water! Tests passed for arsenic, nitrate, bacteria (e.g., no e-coli), and inorganic compounds (manganese, iron, etc). pH rating was 7.87, perfectly fine (pure distilled water has a pH of 7.0). Hardness rating (well one way to rate it, anyway) was 117 mg CACO3/liter, or 117 ppm. The Wikipedia site on hard water has more info on this topic than I care to digest, but it does rate 117ppm as "Soft". Sounds good to me - I don't want to have to mess with a water softener.

Here's a picture of the well, waiting patiently for someone to hook it up for good:

In other news, the bank has received the finished appraisal. "Appraisal" always sounds weird in this context, but the appraiser literally comes up with an expected value for your house-to-be based on the plans, specs, site, etc. The bank may balk at lending you money to build a house which won't be worth the loan amount once finished. So there is some concern here as to what the results are, but I don't know the details yet - hopefully tomorrow.

Some more pictures from Boyd

During the job Boyd snapped a few photos for me that I haven't yet shared, so here they are.

This is a well-used drill bit, I assume it is the one that was used during the majority of the drilling for my well:

Fixing the casing break that occured last week (looks deeper than it really is; Boyd said the break was about 30" below the surface):

Boyd getting ready to install the well screens which are (combined) 15' long. It's hard to tell in this photo but the bottom cap has been welded on. You can also see the two bands of scorch marks at the 5' and 10' points, where the well screen sections were welded together: