We finally broke ground! The groundbreaking ceremony was attending by thousands, with speeches from politicians and many other dignitaries - all had a grand time. Well, actually it was even better than that, it was just Marty (my wife) and I and a ceremonial shovel that I had painted up. But, a small garden spade was not going to do the trick. How about a 1-3/4 cubic yard shovel! Click under the graphic to the left to get to the second picture (2 of 8).
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Digging the foundation or basement is almost always filled with a bit of consternation. Is there a deposit of muck? Will we hit bedrock? Is there ground water? We did do a test dig three years ago when we bought the property, but did we test in the right place. Most of the risks can be compensated for, but you guessed it, it would cost money. So, with the excitement of starting the big dig, there is some concern with what we might find.
The first task in excavating is to remove the topsoil. The good news is, is that there is plenty of it - no need to bring in additional topsoil - saving money. Click below the graphic to the right for a picture. (Picture 3 of 8) The bad news is, where do you put it in the mean time? Luckily, the general contractor's family farm is near by and he also had projects that needed topsoil. So, it was simply a matter of loading it up on the dump truck and hauling it off - which of course, costs the project money. (Click below the graphic to the left to reveal picture 4 of 8) The excavator smoothly switched from digging to loading and the excavation proceeded smoothly and quickly.
To reach and maintain the proper depth for the basement floor, the excavator set up a spinning laser next to the curb near the high part of the excavation (southwest) and then started digging at the low corner (northeast). Once he reached the predetermined depth, he began digging the width, north to south and then began widening the hole east to west. While digging, he kept the floor of the hole flat using his depth of vision and by feel with the shovel. He would periodically stop digging, jump down into the hole and check the dept using the laser and a detection device mounted on his surveyor's pole. (Refer to picture 5 of 8) It was amazing that he only had to periodically adjust the hole by no more than an inch.
By the time the excavator was about 3/4ths of the way through the dig, he was well ahead of the dump truck, and simply ran out of space to put dirt. It was at about this point that the excavation ran into an old dry-set limestone foundation along the south boundary of the dig. We are not sure what the nature of the structure was, but apparently when it was abandoned, the space between the foundation walls was filled in with trash. This trash included tin ware, most of which was quit damaged, glass jars and bottles, and pottery jugs. The glass bottles included beer bottles (one marked as a Hamms bottle), soda bottles, whiskey bottles, laundry bluing bottles, medicine bottles, and several others we did not recognize. There were also two Mason jars (patent marking November 30, 1858, one with a Maltese Cross on it), with lids. Among the pottery jugs were two with Red Wing markings and the others had no markings. Click under the picture to the left to see the picture of the treasures found (picture 6 of 8).
Also, during the dig I was also able to pull out some good chunks of limestone and sandstone (both native to the area) that will be used for landscaping. Click under the picture to the left to see the pile of rock. (Picture 7 of 8)
As to any other surprises - they were only pleasant. The soil that the footings will rest on is river deposited sand and gravel. The lot is located on an ancient flood plain that was developed as the glaciers retreated almost 10,000 years ago. The excavator was very pleased and predicted that we should have a nice dry basement and stable footings. This was very pleasing to the ears. Click under the picture to the left to see a profile of the soil (picture 8 of 8).
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Develop the dream - the House of Arden - will continue next time with a detailed description of the setting of the footings on that very nice riverbed sand and grave.
© 2006, Gary L. Engstrom
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