The Big Dig Continues....

July 1st -- I was out of town for a few days and when I came home I found this massive pile of dirt just about occluding the view of the back of my house as I approached the garage.  This will be used for back fill after the footers, forms and concrete foundation is poured.  All that was scheduled for this short holiday work week, but with so much building going on all over the city, the contractor called me yesterday (just while I was boarding my return  flight) to inform me that there is a concrete shortage in town.  Oh well, the foundation will have to wait until next week.

This is a good shot of what will be the three-foot crawl space under the foundation for the addition (along with another view of the back fill pile).

During the last round of excavation the sprinkler line to my raspberry patches was cut, but my wonderful contractor came over every day and watered the raspberries while I was out of town.  Yesterday a sprinkler guy did a temporary fix and I'm hoping that the raspberry patch survives with this sprinkler line staying above ground for the duration of the construction until fall or next spring when it comes time to redo the irrigation and landscaping.

I was thinking that I'd need to mow the lawn this week, but never thought that would require navigating an obstacle course.  So, any excuse not to have to mow the lawn (what is left of it) is OK by me.

Here is yet another shot of the back of the house.  You will have to take my word for it, but the new sewer line is in.  When this house was built in 1903 it was positioned on the lot about three feet away from the property line to the north.  Current code requires at least a five foot setback from the property line.  So, the door to the basement will need to be moved, which will require a highly skilled brick mason to come out and carefully remove about two - three feet of the brick foundation and set new brick so that the basement door will be moved to the south to align with the new interior stairs to the basement.  Steel reinforcements will also be installed around the doorway, so hopefully this is one more measure to shore up that scary brick foundation that keeps this old house standing.

I think I will make a shrine to the concrete god and goddesses to hope that the supply is replenished soon so work on the footers, forms and pouring the foundation will happen next week.