Dirt

My in-laws had big problem: a leaky basement.

Their house is set on a hill. On the front, the basement is completly below ground, though on the back everything is exposed. When it rained heavily, water seeped into the basement very clearly from the front wall.

For years this has been a problem, and over the past week many of us have chipped in to help correct it.

Our mission: dig out front yard, repair cracked, broken and leaky front wall, install French drain system and re-fill massive hole.

In the 1st picture you can see the two mounds of dirt are each about 9 feet high. Yikes!

As you can see the hole extends about 11 feet below the front door threshold.

The project lasted a week. Once the hole was dug by a huge machine, we spent days shovelling more dirt out of the way. We also had to dig our own trench around the side of the house for the French drain to go. The machine couldn't reach that far. So, this was the hardest part and took the longest.

Here's a picture along the front of the house from down in the dirt hole. To give you some bearing, the water pipe you see spanning the gap is about 1.5 feet below the ground level.

These two pictures are taken from inside the front door.

Watch out for that first step!

At one point, I started from the lowest point in the hole and ninja climbed all the way to the top of the highest pile of dirt. And in doing so, I learned one of those ancient timeless life lessons that only old wise Chinese men seem to know: Dirt is like sand in its ability to get into places you didn't know you had.

This picture is taken with the camera at eye level, and it's still 8 more feet to the top.

My back was sore for days from shoveling dirt. The hardest part was that we had to sling the dirt up over the edge! I was lucky enough to not be there when the truck load of gravel was delivered. The one thing worse than slinging shovels heaping with dirt is moving piles of gravel. Those helping out that day are still complaining and still hurting.

After twice saying he'd show up and then cancelling, the man with the big machine finally showed up to refill the hole which gave the house back its front yard (or at least front dirt spot).

Next venture: landscaping. Heather is excited!