Foundation Work

A lot has happened since my last post; here's what has been going on....

Excavation

We'd run into a snag with a thick patch of rock hampering efforts to get a foundation drain line finished. My excavator said he had a special bucket for his excavator designed for rock. He gave that a go, but the rock was still resistant, so he ended up using a jackhammer attachment; it looks like this:




He was able to finish the job and also put the line in for the sewage system. The length of the drainage line was a bit further than anticipated, so we had to make an adjustment for the placement of the septic tank and leech field. Another positive which came out of this was that we have a firm foundation for our house. Also the dirt that was excavated had a lot of shale in it, which means that it will be great for the backfill material needed later; it won't hold water as much as clay or just plain dirt would. The water will be able to drain away instead of seeping into the foundation.

Foundation Work
I was warned in advance that this was the most weather critical part of the building process. The footer got poured for the foundation. This entailed a lot of hard manual labor on the part of the crew to hump load after load of concrete in wheelbarrows. I felt bad for the guys doing it. After they were done, the block layers came in and began working. Our basement is 12 courses of block. They had some challenges due to a good bit of rain one week, so things went more slowly than anticipated. The block laying took about 2/12 weeks due to weather. The waterproofing crew came in shortly after that.They spray the exterior walls of the foundation and add panels of some type of water barrier (OSB?). Here is what it looks like:


In the picture you can also see the braces which were placed on the inside of the foundation in anticipation of backfilling. They'll start with a layer of gravel at the bottom for drainage and then use the excess dirt from the excavation to fill in the rest of the area around the foundation.

Extra Dirt
I also could see that the huge amount of dirt from the excavation was an issue, and that some had to be moved to give better access to the construction site to the other crews that would be coming. Steve the Field Manager said that at least half of it would need to be moved to clear things up. This part wasn't clear to me at the beginning, and I think Wayne Homes should have communicated this part better. Their excavator was only getting paid for excavating, not moving the dirt far enough away to give workers access. Because of this I had to get my excavator to get rid of the excess dirt. He did a great job of using some of the dirt and rock to shore up a few places around the property and to fill in a lot of the hole which was created last summer when excavating rock for our road.


The basement entrance
Our original plan for a basement entrance was to have a gradually sloping walk leading away from the area, but the lay of the land would have entailed a huge amount of dirt to move to make that happen. We opted instead for a traditional stairwell to the area. After seeing the layout for it in the foundation blockwork, Sharon was concerned about water accumulating at the bottom of the stairwell, even though a drain into the foundation drain was included. We talked to our Field Manager Steve about the possibility of a roof over the stairwell to divert more water. He made some preliminary drawings and is having them sent to the CAD people and to their estimating people for an official estimate.

What's Next...
Things will begin to come fast and furious for awhile. The framing is due to begin in a few days. We're excited to see how our house will take shape.

Until next time.......

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