Post date: Apr 4, 2015 3:26:34 AM
There is now a hole in the ground. It is two feet bigger than the perimeter of the house (to allow for the width of the footing) and about two feet deep. Actually, at this point it is hard to tell how deep it really is because Eli has used the backhoe to loosen the soil prior to scooping it out with the bucket loader. But it was about two feet deep when we checked it with the transit early afternoon.At that point we had three big piles of dirt. One of those piles consists of most of the original parking pad, which is made of engineered fill - or a mixture of gravel sizes that will pack solidly and support a lot of weight. This will go back into the hole (along with more similar gravel) to form the primary support for the house.
Another pile of dirt is very nice topsoil. It has relatively few rocks, and is rich black, with a generally crumbly texture. This will go back around the house, adjusting the level of the garden.
The third pile is mostly river rock with the good soil that filled the gaps between the rocks. This pile will probably be hauled away, partly because we simply have way too much excavated material, and mostly because I don’t want to deal with all those rocks.
My job today was to pull roots from the dirt as it was being loosened and later piled. Since there were trees on the site the ground is full of roots. I am making a pile that will dry over the summer so that we can burn it in the Fall. And since there were plenty of roots and rocks, I was pretty tired by about 4 p.m.
By then we realized that we still have about two feet more to dig. The total depth is five feet below the finished floor elevation. Once Eli scoops out the rest of the dirt that he loosened today we will use the transit and measure the depth again. The floor will be about six inches above the parking pad, but about eighteen inches on the lowest side of the garden, leaving us some room to spread the stored dirt piles.
Why such a deep hole?, you might ask. We need two feet of engineered fill beneath the footings. The footings must be 30” below grade to prevent frost heaves. And the slab is above that point. In between we have 12” of concrete blocks for the heat reservoir, 4” of river rock to collect the radon, 8” of styrofoam insulation, and a 6” thick concrete floor slab.
So we dig the hole today (and Monday) and soon we fill it again.