Digging Under the Back Porch, Part 15

More soil removal, getting the rest of the area down to the same level and tamped a bit.
More soil removal, getting the rest of the area down to the same level and tamped a bit.
Doing a bit of math with the laser level. The height of the laser line to the ground is about 4.5″. If we want 10″ below where the basement floor is, we want to hit 14.5″ on the tape.
One bummer: we were short on some lumber. So I ended up hopping in the car, and driving to the nearest Home Depot to get some more 2×3’s. I was quick, but still lost a bit of time.
Before you think that this means a lot of free time for me, think again. There’s a lot more work to be done under the back porch, and not a lot of time to get it done. So I’ve got a week of solo runs ahead of me.
Liz and I hauled out the back basement stairs. We’re clearing out this space for a cement pour, and taking these guys out was one of the last steps before we really hit the final stretch.
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.
Bob came over this afternoon, and helped build/install some gussets to provide more support for the back porch. He also took out the posts that were resting on the concrete columns (so that we could remove the columns).
Went downstairs tonight and on opening the basement door… my heart sank. Part of a wall that we’d been digging out had collapsed, sending soil into our cleared space.
Despite us getting a lot done yesterday, Liz and I both decided on doing some more house work today. Because of course we did. Who needs weekends?
We lucked out, and got a decent days’ worth of work in today. I had written this day off, but getting so much done today means so much less we need to be worried about, tomorrow.
We weren’t really thinking ahead, and ultimately the space we want beneath the back deck ate into where the column was. So we dug a post hole and filled it up with concrete… only to remove it a few weeks later.
Liz was out today, shopping for new plants. She came back with a good number of new additions for our front and back yards.
After picking up Liz’s apple trees yesterday, today was the day to put them into the ground. We got these 4×4 posts installed last year, but had to wait until now to get the trees.
More digging under the deck today. The weather was incredibly warm, and it was a great day to be outside (and somewhat sheltered from the heat). In addition to digging, we started to take down the old wall on the North side of the basement steps.
More digging today. Liz snapped this photo of me, since most of the photos I have are of her digging. We traded back and forth today, and it was a fairly comfortable pace.