LEVELING THE FOUNDATION - PART 2

Ok, I'm back for Part 2. The first thing the crew leader did was to review what the other guy had proposed. Then I showed him all the cracks and gaps and doors. He took lots of measurements with a neat little gadget that shows how much difference there is in elevation for the different areas of the house. After much looking and measuring, a decision was made to put three piers on the kitchen through 2 holes, the same in my bedroom with one in the hall. They also needed an outside pier, just past the front door. Three piers under the wall between the garage and house needed to be shimmed up, too. One of the "big guys" with the company also came by and agreed with the proposed work. He also kept saying that the house was in bad shape. I wanted to tell him to can it, but I also wanted a good job done, so I kept my mouth shut.

The first thing they have to do to dig the holes is to jackhammer away the concrete. That was the most fun (not) of the whole deal. Luckily the workers knew what they were doing and got the job done pretty quickly. And there wasn't nearly as much dust generated as I had expected. I had put a new filter in the A/C and had to change it again the next day when they were finished. Wow!

After opening up the concrete, they have to dig the holes by hand. Yes, by hand!!! And once they got past the top layer, the soil was very hard and it took them a long, long time to get it all dug out. Of course on a couple of the holes they had to go in two directions for the two piers. They did get a couple of other crews out there late in the day, but it was too crowded for them to help out much.

So the day ended with deep holes in the kitchen, bedroom and hall that they covered with big pieces of plywood so I wouldn't fall into one and break my leg as I was told another customer had done.

This is in the kitchen where they are breaking up the concrete.

This is looking down the hall into the bedroom .

This is in the kitchen where they've started digging the dirt out.

This is in the bedroom showing one of the plywood sheets they use to cover the holes.

You can see in the pictures that they covered the walls and cabinets with brown paper to protect them. It seemed to work as the only mishap was a bit of mud on the dryer where they were coming in and out of the door from the kitchen to the garage. No holes in the wall, no dings on the doors. And it was tight with those wheelbarrows!! And they covered the kitchen floor with heavy plastic sheets and only cut out where they needed to dig.

Tomorrow - the real work. I'll post pictures of the workers down in those holes driving the piers. Really cool!