Waters Rise

Guess who we get to see again now? Our old friend High Water-Table! Much less disastrous this time, though.

Yep, once you dig down to about the height of the under-slab drainage, you hit water, and lots of it. It tends to pool here because it's headed for the area of least resistance, and that is where there is no gravel or soil. Fortunately it is easy to pump away and it takes a few days for it to collect again.

Noel noted to me just how low-impact the hand-digging is on the site. I would add that it helps to have the work done by a contractor who knows what he is doing, with a crew who know what they are doing. It's not super fast, but then again, it's about fifty times faster than if I were digging it myself. With 100 percent less sitting on the edge of the hole crying about how weak I am.

In the meantime, I feel badly for our neighbors who have been working from home because the contractors demo'ed away all this wall over the last week. That could not have been fun to live through. Originally we had more lengths of wall left in place, but when reviewing the plans with the contractor and discussing where the elevator equipment had to go, making a couple closets in the basement for storage and for the equipment seemed like an easy call.

This is the view from what will be our exercise room looking at the future elevator. I have a meeting with the elevator company next week to finalize details before we finish the order.

The other thing we are doing is planning out the rear staircases. For some reason I had the rear elevation a little off, so the stairs were the wrong heights and there needs to be some rearrangement. The way to work that out is to make a story pole of exactly where things will be. Sometimes you can work this stuff out on paper or the computer, and sometimes it makes more sense to do it directly in the space. Certainly at this point it's faster and more direct this way.

Also added this week is shoring for the sides of the excavation. Necessary when you dig down this much. Damp sand as we have is actually pretty stable but nobody wants to re-dig this hole AND it is a major safety issue to not have shoring.

Speaking of safety, even if you are accustomed to just walking into our yard, please do not do so right now. I know it kind of goes without saying, but the giant hole in the yard is not visitor-friendly. And yes, we know if you visit because we have security cameras up. (I'm talking to YOU, little black cat.)

posted by ayse on 05/18/16