Perimeter block wall footer excavation

Last evening I moved some of the top soil piled near the end of the house (it’s been piled there for six years already). I didn’t move it far – just a few feet. This was so that I would have enough room to maneuver the backhoe to the rear corner of the house and start excavating the trenches for the footer upon which I’ll build a short block wall to enclose the crawlspace. The wall will also help support the porch floor and straw bale wall.

I continued the excavation from the other corners this morning, trying to dig the bottom of the trench level. That’s easier said that done. However, it came out within a few inches over any given length.

After finishing what I could with the backhoe, I threw some dirt out of the trench with a shovel and knocked down a few high spots. After that, I stretched and leveled a string from one corner of the root cellar walls all the way around the house to another corner of the root cellar. This allowed me to get an accurate measure of my depth in order to figure how much more excavation or filling in is needed.

I plan on working on constructing forms for the footer tomorrow. It will be 14 inches wide and 8 inches in depth. After the forms are in place, I will raise or lower the bottom of the trench to ensure the thickness of the footer will be as intended. If I get this done tomorrow, I hope to have the concrete delivered Friday (I’ve got to bale hay on Thursday).

The blocks around the perimeter of the house will be dry stacked like the cellar walls. I may only surface bond the outside because there won’t be any real lateral forces on this wall. I’ll decide for sure later.

Here are some photos taken this evening of the work that’s been accomplished so far:

 

   

Backfilling around the root cellar

I worked on the interior walls earlier in the week, getting three of them coated with the surface bonding cement – all but the long wall on the house side. So, yesterday, I began the process of backfilling against the walls of the cellar. It was nice to have the backhoe to use; it would’ve been overwhelming to do this job with a shovel.

I situated the backhoe behind the house near the corner of the root cellar and began moving dirt from the pile on the hill. This went fairly well. I could reach about 16 or so across the back edge. There was one problem: a few jerks with the hoe caused the bucket to slide over against one house post. I didn’t like that, of course. Initially, it wasn’t clear to me how to get it away from the house. I couldn’t back up because one rear tire was on the edge of the hole. I was able to move it without causing any damage to the house.

I was able to position the backhoe at a few different locations on either end of the cellar and put fill dirt in around almost all of the walls. I took it easy, knowing I didn’t want to knock into and mess up the walls.

On the house side of the cellar, there was about 14 feet of wall which the backhoe couldn’t reach because of the house frame. I had to use a shovel. Thankfully, the area to be filled here wasn’t to wide and didn’t need to be filled to the top of the blocks.

Here are a few photos taken after I finished today (the pvc on either end is for air vents):

Root cellar: second excavation

On Monday I had a neighbor haul a friend’s backhoe to our place. This is the same backhoe I used a year ago to excavate the root cellar. Since I didn’t get the floor poured and walls built last summer, the winter rains washed a lot of dirt and debris into the hole. I started shoveling it out by hand, but found the task daunting. The backhoe has saved a lot of time.

I was able to move clay-dirt from one pile near the hole on Monday, but then it began to rain. I didn’t work with the backhoe on Tuesday, but yesterday I was able to get at it. It was a little muddy on top still, but I wanted to get the job done.

Today, I plan on finishing with a shovel, moving the dirt left in the hole out of the way. Then, I will begin building the forms for the concrete. If the weather cooperates, we’ll pour and finish the floor next week.

Digging it!

I've had a new experience this week: operating a backhoe. You see those big machines at different places and think it would be cool to run one. It can't be that hard, right? Well, I got my chance.

Contemplating digging a 10 feet by 20 feet (roughly) hole five or six feet deep with a shovel moved me to seek an alternate approach to the digging, preferably one that was mechanical and high-powered. I thought about renting a small backhoe. In hindsight, that would not have been a good idea -- the rental charge is $160 a day, and I would've needed it for several days, if it could even have done the job (too small). I thought about hiring someone to do it. I even called a guy about doing so, but he's a busy man. I called another friend who owns a backhoe to ask if his brother would be interested in my hiring him. That didn't work out, but the next best thing did: he agreed to let me borrow and use his backhoe.

So, last weekend, I drove 18 miles to his weekend home where he keeps the backhoe to get the keys. I was making arrangements to have another guy haul it here. Those arrangements were taking too long (I didn't want to waste the good weather early in the week). So, Monday morning my dad and I drove to the backhoe, and I drove it the 18 miles home with dad following. Even with stopping for fuel in town, it only took about an hour.

With the machine here, I started on the work that needed done Monday. The first thing was to figure out the controls. I dug up a couple old concrete culverts which I intend to reuse elsewhere (they are crammed full of dirt at the moment). Then, I began to move some of the top soil which had been pushed off of the house site nearly five years ago. This gave me opportunity to become familiar with operating this big machine. I used the hoe to loosen the dirt in part of the pile so that I could drive the backhoe around to the back of the house where I needed to cut back the hillside and dig the planned root cellar. With it loosened, I could scoop it up with the bucket and move it out of the way. It took a little bit to not only learn the controls but to also figure out how to manipulate them efficiently to obtain the ends I desired.

Once I moved some of this topsoil out of the way, I began on the hillside at the back of the house. It was actually quite easy to break up and move as it was basically just topsoil also. I tried to cut it back and taper the slope so there will be plenty of room for the porch at the back of the house plus a bit extra. I don't want a steep slope there, but on one end it will be because of how the slope lies -- it's higher at one end of the house than the other. This work would've been done earlier if I had anticipated changing the plan to include a rear porch. Change has been an integral part of our project, and that's actually been a good thing, because we are happy with our plans and the changes we've made.

Digging the root cellar took more than two days. It would've gone faster but for two things: hydraulic leaks and the need to keep moving the dirt. An older backhoe like this one (a Ford 555) will invariably have its issues and leaks. That's okay. However, one of the flex lines feeding the main cylinder for lifting the boom ruptured and drained out most of the hydraulic fluid. So, I took it off and had a new one made.

The next significant leak occurred on a hard line running to the cylinder which moves the shovel on the hoe. I tried tightening it and polishing the compression fitting, but it gradually got worse. It was still usable, but I stopped using it yesterday when a steady stream was spraying out of the connection. I took it to Glasgow (Kentucky, not Scotland) and had a replacement made today. I'll put it on and continue working this weekend. I wouldn't feel right about returning the machine not working as it should, and since he's lent it to me, I want to return it in better condition than I got it. it's still a whole lot cheaper than renting one or hiring the work done.

The other aspect that's slowed down progress on the root cellar is the need to stop digging and move the dirt every little while. There isn't room near the hole being dug to put it all. I also won't need it all for backfill. So, I've used the excess to fill a ditch that had washed out and which has been here on the property since before we bought the place. I've also put a lot of it in front of the house. This will be used to make the slope in front of the house more gradual. I also had to make sure access for pouring the concrete for the block wall footers and the root cellar floor wasn't blocked. After I build the block wall, I'll hire someone with a bulldozer to come for a day to backfill, fix the front slope, and move the topsoil over it all. Then, I'll be able to proceed on the next part of the housebuilding: the porch.

The whole for the cellar is eleven feet wide and about 23 feet long. I dug it approximately six feet deep so that the ceiling will be at least seven feet high after the floor is poured. It looks deeper because the hill slopes upward to the back. The back of the hole is closer to nine feet deep. I still need to clean it out a little more and then dig a drain line. I'll put a drain in the floor and run the line to daylight. Digging the trench for that will be interesting since I need to maintain a proper slope so it'll drain properly. I'll do that next week.

In the photo above, you can see the hole (I'm standing in it, in case it's hard to tell). You can also see the slope I adjusted behind the house. I need to work on the edges and clean out some of the loose dirt in the bottom. One of the amazing things is that I didn't dig into a rock ledge. There are ledges all over around here. In fact, just above this location on the hill, there is rock at the surface. I dug out a few rocks floating in the dirt, one the size of a desk.

Hopefully, I'll have some more photos later after I finish things up a bit more. The photos in this post are compliments of my dad. I've been otherwise occupied so that I haven't taken pictures this week.