Excavation Is Done

Over at 137 Baldwin Circle we have a gigantic hole in the ground, and our footer forms are in place, waiting for their cement fillings. The excavation left us with a gigantic gouge in the earth, and the unsettling feeling that we really shouldn’t have been allowed to do that. But the process was amazing. The equipment was more massive than we had imagined, and picked up our car sized boulders like they were marbles. We were like two ten year old boys- for five days we just watched, and every giant boulder picked up by the giant machines gave us a fresh thrill. And when the machine would lurch in our direction, its steel jaws looming over our tiny human bodies, it felt like we were in Jurassic Park. We’d scramble for our lives, and Chris and Ray, our professional excavators, would take obvious delight in their power to scare the girls.

Our attachment to all the underground rocks disappeared after the tenth truckload or so. By then we had stopped thinking of them as uprooted rock-people, and just wanted to get rid of them. Pulverized or crushed would be just fine. But its true that Rebecca did jump in her car one day to secretly follow the dump truck down highway 93 to see where our boulders would be living. They’re about four miles up Coal Creek Canyon, serving as landscaping for a nice big house. We think they’ll be happy there.

Now Chris and Ray are gone until the backfill stage, and we’re dealing with Bruce and his un-named crew of three laborers who are setting the footer forms for the foundation. Bruce has the appearance and all the social skills of a caveman. It seems that his frontal lobes aren’t too developed either, which is unfortunate because there’s a lot of math involved in getting a foundation to its precise location and height. (Remember our three foot setbacks- there’s not an inch to spare or it would be hell to pay with Larry P.) Adding and subtracting doesn’t seem to be Bruce’s strength. What he IS good at is yelling at his workers. When we asked him to measure something he shouts “Measure! Arriba!” and the poor gap-toothed guy with the shovel fumbles and drops the measuring tape in his fear. I want to tell him “It’s ok, there’s no rush, we have all day”. But my Spanish isn’t good enough, and he looks at me like I’m the demanding, millionaire homeowner with more power and money than he can ever imagine.

The construction industry seems to expect that multiple, massive mistakes will be made, and that undoing things at the homeowner’s expense is all just part of the fun. The excavators forgot to dig a whole twenty foot trench for the west footer. We missed that, and the foundation guys just built their forms two feet higher than the plans specified. Rebecca was the genius that caught it, fortunately before the cement was poured. Chris didn’t seem too surprised. “Oh yeah, guess we forgot that” he said. And Bruce wasn’t bothered at all about tearing out all the forms and waiting a day for the trench to be dug. “Just how it goes”, he said.

We went over to check on things and found out that they had been going off of the wrong elevation mark on the tree. We clarified that, and then discovered that the excavators had left one corner of the grade three inches higher than it was supposed to be. Instead of just shoveling it down, the foundation guys had built the whole foundation three inches higher, which meant several hundred dollars worth of extra cement, and three inches less headroom in the basement. “Its only three inches”, Bruce said in his characteristic grumble. “Shovel it down”, I replied, adopting the firm and manner of fact tone that I learned from my father. He once got a contractor to take out a whole swimming pool because the cement they poured wasn’t thick enough. It takes arms folded across your chest, and a wide, firmly planted stance. Don’t face them directly, but stand at a forty five degree angle, and drop your tone of voice just a few notches. I’ve watched it all my life, and it works. Rebecca was impressed, and our basement ceilings will remain at their majestic 8’6” height.

Our next problem is figuring out what to do with the six foot boulder that is perched in loose dirt, at approximately head-level above the entry door. We’ll keep you posted.