A Big Hole

The time to dig has arrived and I am traveling from China to Texas trying to keep tabs on this project. I am the general contractor and I hope they can follow my design plan and instructions by phone. Jon sent me a bunch of or is it a set of pictures so I could see the progress and the potential problems. But let’s not get ahead of the story and start at the beginning.

There is the machine that will do the digging. Each bite is four feet across. The machine can reach out about 30 feet.

Layout is important. You want the hole in the correct place or the concrete contractor will not be a happy person.

Serious digging started in the corner where the pier was constructed. Now you can see why I requested they build a pier there. It allowed them to remove the soil from around it. My brother, under the cap, is talking to Jon about problems in creating access into the old basement. They are waiting for me to arrive for final decisions. 

They removed some more of the old walls and soil from the old subbasement. To the right of the pier a doorway is planned for entry into the old basement. It will be interesting to see how I solve that problem.

Digging continued, the hole grows in size, and anxiety increases over the stability of the soil holding up the corner of the house.

As the basement hole grows in size so do the piles of soil.

Work Jon, work. Clean out that little room which will be a connector between the two basements.

The basement is almost done. The basement floor is down into the hardpan so the foundation is not going to move.

That soil is like concrete, but I know I can scratch it out.

There, I did it; the basement is dug. Now our prayer is that it doesn’t rain or extra ground water doesn’t cause the banks to slump down; especially the ground under the pool or the right corner of the house. What do you think is going to happen? Will the pool and the house end up in the basement or stay where they belong?