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The Basement and Geo Thermal.....

Years ago, I put a drain line in around the end and the back of the house, it was in response to the "rice paddy" aspect of the back yard after any rain. It worked beautify, I dug up the water line and power line to the well while doing it, but the drain aspect went great. I mention this now, because, in digging the basement, and putting up the walls and so forth, it explains part of the eventual collapse.The back wall collapsed from the bottom of the ditch I had dug five feet out, filled with gravel and a perforated pipe that drained the back yard. IT also provided the sheer point for the collapse. The front, or north, wall collapsed at the same time, but only about a ton of material sloughed in, even though it was mostly the front flower beds, actually fertile dirt. A rare occurrence around here. Well back to it. The collapse happened after the boys had left for the weekend. SO I had time, after recovering from the weekend to clean it up. The spoil pile plateau was nearly inaccessible, so it had to go on top, as the mud nature of the top of the dump area was too slippery and soft to allow for dumping the spoils off the edge. So I had to pile it from as far as i could reach each day, up toward the house, this caused a few problems as it meant I was becoming land locked. And of course as I showed in a recent page I had added a large weight to the back of the bobcat and guess what????

The hydraulic lines started failing in the main body of the unit. Yep more bobcat down time. Of course, replacing them one at a time will work, but it sucks, and wastes a lot of oil as each failure basically drains the machine, big spill, and expensive replacement. So I bit the bullet and now all lines are new (well, two years old or less) except one. Yes there is only one original line left, and it is the low pressure, return feed line. And If I could have accessed it I would have replaced it too, but, it was right after the second shoulder replacement. As it was, I had to do gymnastics to get the others loose and then tightened back up.. So I left it for later. Hopefully it will make it through the rest of this little project... Of course it's not like I wasn't bordering on the limit, this little jem was part of the south wall collapse that I had to clear before we could continue, and without the extra counter balance I couldn't have lifted it, let alone moved it, to the spoil pile...

The south wall collapse was along the fault line of the drain pipe I installed 5 years ago. You can see it in this picture, it is the shiny line at the top left of the picture. Otherwise, the collapse wouldn't have been so extensive. It did leave a little more room to waterproof the wall as we built it up, but that was definitely not worth the extra work. Clearing it out, and being ready for the boys the next weekend, nearly killed me. Even with the machinery to do the heavy lifting, I still have the constant back pain, and at this point, a second shoulder that needs replacing. Though I wasn't totally aware of the level of destruction it was causing to keep doing this on a daily basis. I had been getting a couple days a week of down time, to recover between the weekends. This week, no such luck! And I was working against freshly laid block, so I had to be really careful of the tractors, and where the pressure of the material I was removing ended up. It was almost a real construction project! Fortunately I had placed the south wall footer drain lines as I had poured the footers, so the collapse covered them, but I didn't have to dig them out again to connect them, like I did in the north wall collapse...

Part of the issue on the north wall collapse, was that this corner, is on a solid rock base and there was just barely room for a pipe next to the footer until it became a huge rock, as it was the drain had to be adjusted so that there was any drop at all to make sure it would work, as it was, it turned out to be about a quarter inch over 20 feet.. I know from experience a "flat lay" will still shed water, but I wanted it to have a "desire" to leave not just sit... I even toyed with the use of a dragline "shovel/bucket" tool it wasn't a success. The cutting blade is at the top of the dirt outside the wall in this picture. I couldn't get a proper alignment and it started damaging the new blocks, so it was abandoned pretty quickly, though I see a use for it, in projects where the entire wall is to be excavated, not a partial basement project like this one. More on that later.

 

The block column behind the footer is a secondary support for the existing footer for the curtain wall of the house. The footer will end up cemented into the new walls but not totally supported by them. it also allows for a maintenance of the original which of course broke every three feet or so because it had no rebar in it's construction. YES, that still bothers me! What a totally cheap ass method of construction! But, I can't do anything about it at this point, so I need to get over it... It did make me careful to incorporate steel in the walls I built the four columns supporting the beams holding the house up are filled with concrete and have steel in them to aid in their indestructibility. I am believer in a small amount of over building, the cost benefit analysis has to be determined, if I was a Rockefeller of course, it would all be entirely over built. but I'm functioning in a reality that has limited funding and little opportunity to increase it. Total frickin cripple you know. Unemployable, and can't pass a drug test, because of trying to survive... But I did love my job... till it tried to kill me. But on to happier thoughts.

As with any construction project, we had occasional visits from the Columbus Inspectors. Though they had a tendency to throw their weight around, and direct the men where it was sometimes not (never) necessary. We did our best to incorporate them in the decision making and quality control. Fortunately we discovered they could be bribed with ice cream, so it was a mutually beneficial effort, all considered. You see them here, overseeing the block layer, and trying to make "BA" (Chris) insane, by standing unnecessarily close to edges.

 

Some people have a fear of heights and some don't, I don't like edges, I don't care how high it is, over 4 feet, I don't like being near the edge. Now, it's due to the fact that I have terrible balance from all the ear damage i have sustained over the years. Though I haven't liked it since a "man in a hard hat" pretended to drop me over the edge when we went to see the Silver Spade working in a mine, in southern Ohio. You know, one of those publicity moments, when they invited the public out to see" the worlds largest digging machine at work". And you could walk right up, and watch it remove shovel loads of dirt the size of your entire yard. However while I was standing near the edge, the nitwit in charge grabbed me and after pushing me toward the edge, claimed he was saving me, while laughing at the obvious terror in my eyes. I left there and never approached another edge without the feeling of getting pushed over. Gotta love the joy makers in our midst! But that 's a story for another blog... Just never do such things to a kid, it can be destructive.

 

The purpose of the basement is basically to house the geo thermal heating and cooling system for the house. It turns out the back porch area, that common sense would dictate placing it, as the house was designed for a furnace on the back porch.That designated area was too small, and housed the water system as well. Except the pressure tank, that was under the house, and nearly inaccessible! Pretty Dumb design! But I digress, the intent is to make everything accessible, and as maintenance free as possible. And it has sort of worked. I didn't, as predicted, drop the house in the hole. And the systems have worked through the first summer and winter, as planned. There are a couple issues preventing it from being a completely smooth transition, but we expect such things at this point. WE will be starting the wood portion of the construction soon, as the block work is all complete as of fall 2017. GREAT JOB ROY and RUSS! And the backfilling has begun. There was one fly in the ointment, but that's for the next page.

Man, are we happy out here!

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