Digging Under the Back Porch, Part 11

Big day for me and Liz. We got rained out on Friday, and we’ve got plans Sunday… so Saturday was our only day to work. And we had accounted for being able to fill not one, but two Bagsters.

Which… is a lot of soil.

Another concrete column down.

This has been the process: fill up the Home Depot buckets, and empty them into these trash bins. Once these bins are full, wheel them out and dump them in the Bagsters. Repeat.

A lot more material removed.

Liz, peeking out from underneath the back porch.

Bob, setting up some 3/4″ plywood boards to hold the soil in place. This first set, he’s using Tapcons to affix the board to the driveway concrete.

An additional board, leveled against the first.

Not too shabby for a day’s worth of work.

Several boards up.

A few bricks propping up each board, and two rebar stakes in the ground.

Plywood frames, along the East wall.

I can’t tell you how much of a relief this is, to have these walls in place. I’ve been concerned about how we can keep the soil at bay, during our concrete pour (the worst thing I could imagine is a cave-in, midway through us mixing and pouring concrete for the floor).

I feel like now, we have some breathing room and can take a bit more time. We’ve still got to refine the floor, and also address the area by the basement door… and still have a whole mini-wall of brick to remove yet.

But despite all that, I feel like we’re no longer racing a ticking clock. And that these plywood walls can keep the soil at bay for a good while longer.

On top of that, I think these walls will also double as frames, for our concrete pour. Which will save us that extra work. I think the idea is that these walls will be in place until we do the floor pour, and after we build up the walls. And once everything is done, then we can remove these pieces and let the soil go back to doing its thing.

Related:
Digging Under the Back Porch, Part 10
A Small Setback