Breaking Ground! (continued)
Fri, Jun 15, 2018This story continues from yesterday.
I called Pete on my way over to the site Friday morning. We’re staying at my dad’s cabin while we do our build. Pete had good news! He was able to buy a new excavator last night, and his buddy agreed to loan him his excavator for the weekend. The new one wouldn’t be ready until early afternoon though, but after that, we’d have two on site and may be able to make up some lost time.
When I arrived in the morning, they already had the north hillside bulldozed, and were back working on the trenches for the footings. Off to a good start!
These trenches were starting to get pretty deep. Near the back edge, where we expected them to only be maybe 18” deep, we were down 4’ and could keep going. The front side is the downhill side, so we’d be digging down way more than 4’ there. As we dug down deeper, it meant the walls for the basement were becoming taller. I could not change the elevation of the top of the wall because we had to get above grade on the mountain side of the basement.
Later, I found out we could have done what is called a deepened footing. This is where we place the footing well below the visible part of the basement wall. The footing can sit down 10’ or more below the wall, and have a concrete stem wall extending up to grade (say 20’ or more). However, much of that wall is buried on both sides.
Since what we were excavating seemed to be well-packed (native soil) and mostly composed of large boulders, I made a decision to stop digging down, and we’d place the footings at the current grade we had dug to. Actually, we backfilled and compressed some of what was excavated. I had talked to our structural engineer last night about this possibility and he confirmed that due to the increased footing width, we did not need to sit directly on bedrock.
Work was starting to move fast now.
Pete recommended that if this was as far as we were going to excavate, we should have some gravel delivered and he could use the skid steer to help move it to the footings, and we could borrow his plate compactor to compress everything. I got on the phone and had a couple dump trucks deliver what is called five-eighths minus (⅝” crushed gravel with ‘fines’ mixed in so that it compacts well).
The septic delivery guys arrived. By this time, Pete had taken off to pick up his new excavator. His son helped us operate the other excavator and unload the truck. The tank is massive. It’s a little over 4.5’ wide, about 5’ tall and at least 8’ long. It looks like a small submarine.
We got everything unloaded as quickly as possible so that the delivery guy could get back. It’s all sitting out of the way in the cul de sac.
At some point my brother arrived. The dump trucks showed up with the gravel and I finally had more to do than stand around with the elevation stick checking how deep the guys had dug.
The dump trucks would not drive down our driveway. At least these full sized ones. The smaller trucks had already delivered some drain rock and pea gravel at the end of the driveway for us to go under the septic tank.
The dump trucks unloaded in the cul de sac, and the skid steer started making trips back and forth from the build site. My brother and I would put our wheelbarrows under the skid steers bucket. He’d fill us up and we would run down the trench and dump wherever we needed to place the gravel.
We got a system going and things were moving quick.
My dad showed up later that evening with my son, who is obsessed with tractors, and they watched us work.
Pete and his crew took off, but they left us their transit level and plate compactor so that we could continue to level the bottom of the footings and compact.
By the end of the day, we were pretty close to being back on track. If tomorrow is as productive, we will be caught back up!
Saturday was not as productive. Pete helped us level out a few spots on the footings that were high, and then he started to make his way down to the drain field. The foundation was excavated.
The drain field is located much further down the hill from the build site. In fact, there is no road to get down there. Pete cleared a path as best he could, then relied on some tricks he had to get the excavator down to where it needed to be.
At the same time, some really dark clouds started rolling in. Pete said if it started to rain he would have to call it a day. Because of the slope the drain field sits on, it’s not safe for him to operate the excavator in heavy rain.
Shortly after he was in position, the clouds opened up. This was one of those big pours where it feels like the rain drops are being thrown down, rather than just falling. My brother had taken off for town to get another shovel and rake since we were both spreading and raking gravel now. There was no shelter to take a break in so I just kept working.
Pete tried to keep working too, but he had backed into a big stump (it ended up being two big stumps), and was struggling to get enough traction to really dig at it. He had excavated about 30’ of the first 85’ trench.
He told me he was going to have to call it a day, at least until the rain stopped, but even then, the ground was still going to be mud. As if to illustrate how difficult it is to get traction on a muddy hill, it took him about an hour to get the skid steer off the hill and back onto the small access road we have.
He helped us move the septic tank from the cul de sac to where we are storing the logs while they dry and called it a day.
To review our work list for this weekend:
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.
So we completed about half of what we set out to do, but a large part of that was because of the loss of a day and a half or so from not having a working excavator. Pete was very reasonable on this point when it came to settling up the bill, and we made arrangements for him to return in a few weeks to help with the remaining.
Despite the setbacks we had on Thursday, the silver lining is we found a contractor we can rely on. Pete handled the situation calmly and fairly, and worked hard to make up the lost time. I really cannot hold it against him that something broke down and am impressed how we worked to resolve it.
Even though we only got half way done, it’s hard to be disappointed in our progress. Part of this weekend’s effort was just calibrating how quickly work will move up here. We’re so remote that having something break down, not knowing how to fix something, or forgetting a tool/part can cause a big delay. Also, having a foundation excavated and ready to setup forms is no small feat!
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