The last of the house is now gone and it is one big dirt patch in our back yard. There will be a smaller excavator coming back mid next week to take some last things out of the very back of the yard. The last of the foundation was ripped out and hauled away with 5 trucks working in sequence most of the day Wednesday. There was a lot of contrete to move out of there.
The very next day after the demolition was completed, our contractor Brian and the Structural FX crew did the first concrete pour into the back section. I was really impressed with the crew when our engineer from ASI came and decided a change would be necessary to the back foundation to make the wall deeper. That change was needed to make sure the wall would be solid enough to handle all the weight of the house and unfortunately came after the foundation had been all ready to go.
So the crew on Tuesday, while the demolition was going on and the temperature reach 100 degrees, ripped the back foundation forms off, rented tools to dig out the trench deeper by hand, and rebuilt the back forms, all in an amazing 1 day. I was blown away at how fast they were able to react to what could have been a significant delay.
They poured the entire back section all of Thursday afternoon, 6 cement trucks in all! The cement truck could not back in so they had to pump it in and Brian and a fellow from the cement company handled the 400 lb hose all day. When I caught up with Brian at the end of the day, he was completely wiped out and covered head to toe in cement muck. He said he had not done something like that in 10 years! Reminded me of the work I did a few weekends back ripping out the overgrown shrubbery above the creek. John and Barney of the crew also looked like they had also had a really long day but they were still cheerful despite it all. I can only imagine that this is probably some of the toughest work to do on a house and the 100 degree weather did not help.
Monday they will be tearing down the foundation forms and bringing in a Bobcat to start leveling the dirt all around and preparing for building the front forms. Wednesday the demolition crew will be back for one final haul in back of branches and remaining old sidewalks.
