Backfilling

Before we backfilled, Frugaldad painted tar on the outside of all the walls. What a hunk!For about half a day we had both crews, concrete and excavation, working at the same time. our excavation contractor was really anxious to get the house supported by dirt again.

Starting to fill in the hole

There had to be a way to smooth out the basement floor, and backfill the void between the house and the addition.


May I present The Flying Skidsteer!






Jose dropped the gas can and a shovel in the window well, so he and Greg lifted Miguel by the legs and retrieved the stuff.

The rest of the concrete

First the floor needed to be prepped. The slab is thicker in the middle to support the load-bearing down the middle of the floor. We dug it out and lifted the dirt and gravel over the short wall to Frugalboy, who dumped every bucket in the tractor bucket.

The concrete guys set up forms for the stem walls, the walls that connect the house to the addition. We were finally able to pass the compaction test after several tries, despite the fact that we didn't change anything. I think the guy who did the testing was incompetent.


The pumper truck and concrete came about 7 am.

They started pouring and smoothing.







Before he started smoothing, I asked him how he planned on getting out. He stood in the window well to finish.

Today. I promise.

I am sorry I'm behind in the updates! I have updated the timeline but the pictures are still on my hard drive. I promise I'll get to it by the end of the day!

On solid ground

Frugaldad sleeps better at night now that the empty space under the foundation of our house is backfilled.

The city inspector has required that we have a compaction test done on the soil between the basement and the original house to make sure it will support the walls that connect the house to the addition. Since they native soil was disturbed, he wants to make sure we put enough dirt back in.

A company came and took a soil test yesterday and are supposed to come and do a compaction test on it today.

Jose, can you see?

I couldn't resist when Jose was looking over the wall...

Basement walls

Vertical rebar installed, forms brought down into the hole
Cutting the rebar for the window
The east wall--against the house
Putting the first window in
Panorama of the forms after the first day of installation. Total time to get ready for pouring was 3 days.
The morning before the pour
Pouring the walls

Footings for basement walls

Forms laid out for footers

Concrete pumping trucks.....taken from way out in our pasture looking towards the house


Pump truck


Concrete poured, installing vertical rebar