Filling a Very Large Hole in the Basement

July 12, 2014

Today, Liz and I headed back to the house and worked on putting a lot of sand (which we had previously taken out of the ground) back in.

We went through a process of throwing in some sand, wetting it down with water, and then tamping it down. Repeated this for a while (though I have to say, having a spigot and working water again in the basement feels like a treat and a luxury).

We got as much as we could in, while leaving about 6 inches between the tamped sand and the top of the floor. The previous owners, when they poured concrete down, didn’t go very deep (code is something like 6 inches). When we pour concrete down, it’ll be much thicker – so we needed to leave some room.

We also re-arranged some things again in the basement, making room for Bob’s work table and brake. In order to clear space, we had to relocate the remaining pile of sand closer to the pit.

A view of the pipes (well, they’re covered up).

A bed of concrete that will serve as a foot, for a column we will be placing here. There’s a sag in the floor, which the column will address. But we needed to have a base for the column to rest on.

The back area – the plumber was nice enough to fill in a lot of this area for us. One less pile of sand that we had to shovel!

This pipe comes from the cistern in back. To prevent water from coming in, we also needed to seal this up (like we did with the gutter pipes).

Liz and Bob, mixing up some more cement.

Today was a bucket day. Lots of sand and concrete and water. And because we still don’t quite have working toilets yet, we had another bucket upstairs for… a bathroom. Living the dream.

The pipe from the cistern, plugged up with concrete.

Bob added these crosses to the concrete, and had us guess the reasoning why. After a few failed attempts, we learned that the column will go over top of this block… and concrete will go inside the column. When that concrete sets, it will kind of “lock” in place to the base, and prevent sliding (should any weight shift).

This is random: I’ve been reading New Avengers, Volume 3 off and on a bit… and today just spotted the brand name of the cutting oil we use with the pipes. I am a nerd.