The next time you have a lot of dirt to get rid of, just dig a hole and bury it. LOL
From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Dan Rossi Sent: Monday, June 29, 2009 5:05 PM To: Blind Handyman List Subject: [BlindHandyMan] One tough weekend. I had been spending a couple of hours each night last week, digging the pit for the basement door. I took one night off due to rain, but got four evenings of digging in. On Saturday, after running errands in the morning, I was complaining to a neighbor that I had no place to make all the dirt disappear to. He started talking about lifting some of the sidewalk slabs in the courtyard, that had pretty seriously subsided, and back filling them. That sounded like a much bigger job than I was willing to take on at the moment. Well, after standing around discussing it, a few more neighbors wandered over to see what we were talking about. Before long, giant steel pry bars started appearing. Super thick PVC pipes showed up. And then we were prying, and heaving nearly half ton cement slabs out of the ground and sliding them over adjacent slabs. I figured it was silly because we would only get rid of a few buckets full of dirt. Well, five wheel barrows full later, the dirt was leveled up and we started the arduous process of heaving the slabs back in place. It wasn't a perfect job, but they are much more level now than they were, and after a few rains and freeze thaw cycles, I bet they settle in perfectly. Then I spent the rest of Saturday and Sunday finishing the pit. The hole kept getting bigger as I planned and replanned the final dimensions. It got wider by 8 inches and longer by four, when I decided to put 4 inch pipe and gravel around the perimeter for drainage. It got four inches wider when I realized that cement blocks are 8 X 8 X 16, and my dimensions didn't fit into that nicely, so I made the hole wider to accommodate easier cement block courses. It is amazing how much dirt fluffs up when you dig it out of a hole. I dug out a bit under three yards of dirt, and the pile under my deck must be at least five yards big. It will probably stay there, tarped over, until next year when I decide to build a retaining wall on my neighbors property, that I intend to purchase, and terrace off the hillside there. -- Blue skies. Dan Rossi Carnegie Mellon University. E-Mail: [email protected] <mailto:dr25%40andrew.cmu.edu> Tel: (412) 268-9081 [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
