Breaking Ground!
Thu, Jun 14, 2018OK, look. I’ve only got a short window here. My second son was born two weeks ago, and so my wife is at home with a newborn and a 2 year old. I’ve negotiated a three day hall pass to come up here and get the basement footings excavated. Since cutting the trees, we’ve come up a few times to stake and square batter boards to help speed the excavation.
The previous owner did a lot of the excavation. We just need to dig down a couple more feet so the footings sit on solid rock, and we want to bulldoze a hill to the north of the existing pad, to make room for the shed and elevated deck.
We’ve hired a local excavator, Pete. He’ll be joining us for the three days and operating all the excavation equipment. My brother and I plan to be the support team, checking level and square when needed.
We’re also moving full speed on installing our septic system. I’ve arranged to have all the parts delivered today. The tank is shipped to the warehouse in two pieces. Each piece weighs 250 pounds. I know my brother and I can move this much weight on our own since he’s helped me move my fish tank, twice, and that weighs more. But when I called to order everything, I learned that the tank must be glued together at the warehouse, and delivered to the site as one piece. We’re not moving a 500 pound tank without some machinery. Pete said it’d be real simple to move it with his excavator arm, so that is why we’re having everything delivered now.
Our work tasks for the weekend are:
- Bulldoze the hillside to the north, making room for the new deck.
- Excavate the footings. The pad is already excavated, so this is just digging down a couple feet, wide enough to pour footings.
- Dig the hole for the septic tank (6’ wide, 10’ long, and 8’ deep).
- Dig a trench from the septic tank down to where the chambers will be laid.
- Dig trenches for the drain field chambers (3’ wide, 16” deep and 85’ long).
- If any time remains, regrade part of our driveway to make it less steep.
I arrived on-site around 9am and the guys were already working. Pete was operating the excavator, and his son was using a skid steer to move the debris to another location on our property.
They had dug about 3’ down already for the back basement footing, and they still weren’t on solid rock. That’s not good since the backside should have been pretty shallow. The front-side will have to dig down much further. Actually, I am not sure if they were hitting rock, and it just wasn’t solid, or if they were still excavating rubble. Later I would learn from our geotech that the top layer of rock fragments really easy, but has fine compression strength to support our foundation.
Pete turned his machine off and we chatted briefly, syncing up on the plan for the day. As I began unloading all the equipment I brought, I could hear an engine trying to crank back to life. The excavator wasn’t starting back up.
Remember, we are out in the woods. There is no cell service to check YouTube for a fix, or call someone who may be able to help. If we need a part, the nearest store is 40 minutes away.
I started moving all the log rounds we had cut a couple months prior out of the way. Our septic tank was going to go right below where we had stacked all the firewood. Meanwhile, the guys were working on getting the excavator started back up, but nothing was working. Sometimes it would start momentarily, but then a fuse would blow and it would die again. Finally, they were out of fuses.
If the excavator would not start, how am I going to unload the septic tank that is coming today? I needed this time to be productive since I wouldn’t be getting too many free weekends with a new baby. A lot was going wrong and this was only day one!
It was about lunch time now. Pete told me we had two options, but neither were going to get us up and running today. He was going to head over to Pasco, which had a dealership that sold Bobcats, and purchase a brand new one. If they have one in stock, he’d have it here tomorrow. While he is driving, he will try calling a local friend that may have an extra and be willing to loan it for the weekend.
As for unloading the septic tank, we just had to hope that the skid steer had enough vertical reach to lift it off the bed. Pete headed out and we waited around for the delivery, which was supposed to be here around 3pm. Just two hours to kill…
Passing time up there isn’t too hard. The view is nice, and for the first time since we purchased the lot, the snow was fully melted, and I was able to just sit and take it in. I could hear the lumberjacks across the lake cutting trees. It’d sound like a motorcycle racing up a hill, and then a big loud crack and thud as the tree trunk finally gave and the tree fell.
I was watching a couple hawks circle something, and it took me several minutes to realize I was looking down at them. We’re up so high on this ridge that the birds are circling lower than our line of sight.
Now it was after 3pm and I was wondering where the delivery guys were. We don’t have cell coverage so I could not call them, and if I left to get to a place where I had service, I risked them showing up while I was not here.
Part of the condition for me coming up here while my wife was pregnant was that she had to be able to get a hold of me. This was during the weeks leading up to the birth. In order to accommodate, we had a landline installed on the property. It was terminated at the temporary power pole. We had never used it, and I forgot I had the phone in my truck until now.
I plugged the phone in and called the delivery guys. Busy signal. I haven’t heard that one in a long time! Long story short, our long-distance service was never activated and I was trying to make a long distance call. Our phone carrier got that fixed and 20 minutes later, I was able to get a hold of the delivery company.
After some waiting, and a few back and forth calls, I was informed they had made a mistake and had us for delivery for tomorrow. I was annoyed, but this was actually good news. Tomorrow we should have an excavator here to help lift it off the truck. After some assurances they would arrive tomorrow by 11am, I hung up and we called it a day.
Pro-Tip: Call all your contractors/delivery people the day before you expect them and confirm arrangements.
I knew this project was not going to be easy. I did not expect to face this many unexpected challenges on what is essentially the first day, but I am really not deterred. We will have to work harder tomorrow and Saturday to get caught up.
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