| July 09, 2003
|
First day on the job site. Small excavator
arrives. Clearing of grounds. Removal of fence. |
| July 10, 2003 |
Second day on site. Continued clearing of grounds. |
| July 11, 2003 |
Day three. Interior pictures after building materials
recyclers removed salvageable materials. |
| July 12, 2003 |
Saturday. Brian takes down the garage. Continued lot
cleanup. |
| July 13, 2003 |
Sunday. A day of rest. No work today. Three
days until demolition of the old house. A full moon shined over the old house for
the last time. |
| July 14, 2003 |
Large trees removed from rear of lot. Removal of old
concrete walkway, driveway and garage foundation. Cut up firewood for the free pile.
Excavated a large hole on south side of lot to cap off old clay sewer line.
Spread two loads of rock and gravel for soil erosion control. Two days until
demolition. |
| July 15, 2003 |
One day prior to the big demolition! No work today. |
| July 16, 2003 |
Demolition Day
The large excavator was delivered early in the morning, and demolition
began around 9:30 AM with the entire house being knocked down before noon. Brian
knocked down the front of the house and then let Robert have a turn to complete the job.
The awesome power of the large machine combined with Brian and Robert's
many years of experience made the whole thing look as easy as a couple of big kids playing
a video game.
The remainder of the afternoon was spent loading rubble into dumpsters and
digging out the remains of the basement. |
| July 17, 2003 |
One week on the job site. Cleaned up the last of the
demolition rubble. Some initial grading. The last two dumpsters were picked
up, along with the large excavator. Over a dozen large green dumpsters were filled
with clean green and demolition rubble in the first four days. Four to six of the
smaller white dumpsters were filled with broken concrete and bricks. |
| July 23, 2003 |
Foundation excavation
Excavation begins. It was decided to bring in a large bulldozer to dig the holes
for the foundations. The excavation work was sub-contracted to Albert Postema and
his crew at Earthwise Excavation of
Snohomish, Washington.
Once onsite, Scott of Earthwise did a great job of leveling the lot and almost
completed the first foundation hole, before the bulldozer broke down and a mechanic had to
be dispatched from Snohomish. Evidently one of the tracks jammed due to skipping a
tooth on one of the drive gears. The breakdown means a second visit from Earthwise
to complete what should have been a one day job. |
| July 25, 2003 |
Scott from Earthwise returned with a different bulldozer and
completed the excavation of the second foundation. The stair stepping of each
foundation area reduces the amount of concrete needed to create each foundation. According
to Scott, this is a common practice. |
| July 25, 2003 |
NEW!
Bulldozer Theatre, starring Scott from Earthwise Excavation |
| July 28, 2003 |
Additional survey work to mark the exact corners of each of
the two foundations. Batter boards were installed outside the actual corners.
Survey strings are then stretched from each batter board to the next to mark the exact
outline of where to build the foundation forms. |
| July 30, 2003 |
Sub contractors construct the foundation footing forms, and
install the steel rebar. |
| July 31, 2003 |
Initial concrete pour to create the foundation footings.
The forms for the foundation walls will be constructed after the new concrete
footings have had time to set up, followed by a second concrete pour to create the
foundation walls. The concrete was pumped into the foundation forms by Jason from
Ralph's Concrete Pumping of Seattle. Jason is the man in the blue coveralls who
appears to be standing around watching the others work. Actually, Jason is
quite busy controlling the entire pumping operation from a remote control unit strapped to
his waist which allows him to be right at the point of delivery. |
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