Footings, day ONE

With that nasty slab out of the way, we could start digging for our foundation.  My parents came up to visit for a while, and my Dad will be giving me a hand with the foundation work.

I rented an excavator from work, with a 24 inch bucket to do most of the digging.  The 24 inch bucket worked out great.  The footers are 16 inches wide, and I am required to install a foundation drain along side the footers.  This gives me 8 inches to do so.

  Even with the excavator we still have two major obstacles;  The tree tap root which is STILL in the ground (and sitting right where footings must be poured) and the main electrical service line that crosses one section of our footings (this section will be dug by hand, to avoid ripping the line out. 

We started the dig by digging the trench for the footing drains, and dry well.  Then we moved from there towards the street.  I also removed part of the fence on the east side of the property to make more room for equipment and making the overall build easier.

The first bucket full! Here I am digging the hole that will hold the dry sump for water drain-off from both the gutter drains and foundation drains.

My Mom wanted a chance to get behind the controls :)

Here I am directing her how to operate the machine.

During the excavation, I was VERY happy to have the machine to do the work.  Along the way, particularly on the south side of the dig, we came across a LOT of large  of concrete pieces.  Using the hydraulic thumb on the bucket, I loaded the truck with them.  There is probably close to 2 thousand lbs of concrete in there in this photo!