Saturday, November 2, 2013

In which I am sore and work continues

From the five of you who read this blog, I bet at least two saw the concrete debris flying from underneath the building over the last several days.  That was me.....  I moved the pile of concrete bits that you see below so that the HUGE excavator that is coming on Monday to finish digging around the building can more easily gobble those pieces up and cart them away.  I think there is at least 2000 lbs of concrete there, and I moved every damn piece, by placing or throwing them from underneath the building.  OK, there were several pieces I had to flip, end over end, in order to get them to move.  After moving all that concrete, guess what I found underneath??  More f**$%ing concrete that hadn't been broken up.  I can't wait for this phase to be over and the ditches around the building back filled.

If you saw the debris flying, you may have noticed the holes in the front of the building.  The whole darn building was lowered down onto the foundation at the rear and picked up in the front.  Come Monday, there will be a 9 foot deep trench around the front of the building and we will continue to dig until we strike oil, or have a deep enough hole for the drainage line.  No wet basement space here!  After being down under for several days chucking rocks and bits and clearing out debris, I have a feeling that our basement space may be larger than we anticipated, which is fantastic news.  The ledge seems to be fairly fractious so far, so I am hopeful that the two large areas of ledge will come out with a jack hammer. Where the door comes into the space, the ceiling height is about 7'6" which doesn't bother me at all.  

We found three huge granite pieces buried under the front stoop.  We now have four for the retaining wall.


The ole' girl is now completely off her old foundation. The interior floors have never been so straight!


4 comments:

Homer said...

Have you made any archaeological discoveries that need an archaeologist to investigate?

seth said...

Not yet Homer, but you will be the first archeologist I will call when we do!
Come for a visit anyway!

Anonymous said...

Seth, I'm a bit far away (Australia) to have seen the dust flying, but it's really interesting to keep up with progress - so thank you for your blog!

There's something in the old photo at the top of the page that intrigues me. Above the rear window, just under the eaves is a blob. It's too hard to make out what it is, but it looks like a giant wasps' nest. Do you have any idea what it is?

~ John

seth said...

Funny John, we were just talking about that tonight while making dinner. I think it is a water stain on the original photo, or perhaps some photo chemical flaw. It would be a spectacular wasp's nest though!