Sometimes it gets worse before it gets better

Today was a big day. The worksite went from fairly neat and organized to total chaos in about an hour. Sometimes things have to get a lot worse before they get better. Today was one of those days.

The gas company arrived to dig across the road and put in the new gas lines to the shop and the new relocated meter for the house. Our gas guy was present to run a line from the new meter to the old house and a line to the new house as well. And our excavator guy was present to dig the ditches on our property as well as do some more work on the excavation for the house. While the driveway was all torn up with multiple ditches we took the opportunity to install the electrical, cable, telephone and secutiry conduits needed for the new construction. It way mahem and pandemonium for a while but by suppertime the pipes and conduits were all in place and the ditches filled in once more. I spent an hour or so on our little tractor after everyone had gone home to spread a little gravel and make the driveway almost normal.

The big pile of broken concrete in the foreground are the remains of the front steps of the old house.

Tomorrow will be another big day. The excavator, buldozer and large dump truck will be busy hauling out the last of the non-buildable soil from the excavation. Then it is time for the soils engineer to have his say. With his blessing the filling back in with engineered gravel will begin. The surveyor will also visit in the next couple of days to exactly locate the house and survey the property for the officials. We are now days away from starting to place the footing forms at last.

It was a crazy, crazy day but exciting just the same. Tomorrow it begins once again.

-grampa dan

Tearing down and digging holes

The new house is to be built in front of our old one, within a few feet to make it fit. This meant the old porch had to come off the old house in prepartion of the new build. We used the sabre saw and skill saw to cut through the soffits and then the headers. We tied a rope to the porch and then my son Peter climbed up on the roof with the skillsaw.

I jumped on the tractor ahd kept the rope tight.

As Peter finished the cuts, the porch wobbled and then fell forward, missing the house and landed in a heap on the ground.

While I moved on to other things Peter patched the gaping hole to keep the rain and squirrels at bay. Then it was on to digging the giant hole for the new house. Phoebe got her turn at the controls - which she thought was pretty cool!

My friend Len did a great job and moved a whole lot of dirt from the excavation. We managed to locate the gas line without incident. The water line didn't fare quite as well, but a quick trip to the store netted the parts we needed for the repair. I moved it well out of the way so we won't have to mess with it again.

It was a fun day in Yarrow!

-grampa dan