Monday, July 30, 2007

Digging the basement, or digging to the tune of Primary songs

I looked out the window and what did I see?









This might look wrong to you. See the dirt under the footings? Me neither. For a WEEK our foundation was unsupported.

The wise man built his house....




Oh what do you do in the summertime, when all the world is green?



It's kind of a funny (?) story. We didn't know how far out we could dig without undermining the footings. The main excavator boss actually had surgery so he wasn't on site all the time. The morning they began digging, he told the trackhoe operator to start 6 feet out from the house and not to go closer than four and a half. He got a little overzealous because the dirt seemed so solid and he talked with a bunch of people on the phone and went ahead and dug next to the house, then underneath the foundation. The main boss was so drugged up on painkillers that even when we expressed our concern, he didn't seem worried. The concrete guy was supposed to show up the very next morning. His vacation ran long and he didn't return our calls and John, the excavator boss, upon emerging from his drug-induced stupor, came over apologized profusely for recommending that concrete guy (apparently he'd never flaked out like this before) and went out and bought some huge 4x8 posts and he and his son and Frugaldad put them up underneath the house to help support it through the weekend.





Today (July 30) the new concrete guy is laying forms as I type and we'll have footings by the end of the day and walls tomorrow.

4 comments:

Char @ Crap I've Made said...

Wow! I would have been freaking out, LOL!

Anonymous said...

I can't even tell you how excited I am that this is finally going to really happen! It will be worth all the mess in the long run. I'm glad the guy came out of his drugged state to see what was happening!

Anonymous said...

That is Lisa btw, not Emily

QueenMeadow said...

When I first saw the picture of your "floating" house, I thought "holy cow, I thought they weren't going close to the house!" hehe, glad to see that the drug induced stupor didn't last long and they were able to support it.