Best laid plans of mice.....................

So while excavating for the house footings we hit a huge rock that had to be removed. This left a large whole that needed to be filled before we could have the footings poured. Dad and I spent 8hrs shovelling, wheelbarrowing and compacting gravel. I was bagged by the end of the day but the spot is now rock solid and it passed inspection of both the city and the geotechnical engineer.

Here's a few shots of the house excavation. You can see we got a little closer to the water table than I wanted but it won't matter since I'm not having a basement or crawlspace. This will all be filled with gravel.

Here's some shots of us filling that hole or "the pit of doom" as I like to call it. This spot is rock solid now. I've decided to add re-bar to both the footings and foundation walls as it's not much extra money but will add a great deal of strength to the foundation. It should outlive me by a long shot!

Ground has been broken.

Great progress has been made so far!

Here is a photo of the lot with the house and garage stakes in place. This was taken just before the excavator started his work. The excavating took place on July 4, 2009 and was all done in one day.



Here is a stump being pulled up. The operator shook the root balls to remove most of the soil and then pilled up the stumps for me to deal with. I'm not sure that to do with them yet but the should be nice and dry for a new year's bonfire!



Next, the top soil was removed and then they changed to a 6ft wide bucket. Here's Wayne the master shovel operator changing over the bucket.



The top was leveled and then trenches for the footings were dug. I used a laser level to keep the depth consistent. This will be my garage/workshop!