Completing New Pantry Excavation -Number 7

I cut the pavement last Friday and dug it up... but there was lots of extra work on this excavation that was not on the others.  Since the laundry room cantilevered over the foundation about 16 inches, a makeshift brick wall that was to keep the planter dirt contained had to be removed.

Also, the front steps hung over into the space where the new pantry wall had to go... so I had to cut it off.  Problem was the solid rock steps were over 7 inches thick and my diamond saw blade, which is 12 inches actually only cuts about 4 inches.  So that left a little chisel and hammer work.  I also cut up the planter footing into liftable blocks so I could dispose of them in my favourite fill site behind the greenhouse.

Victory at last and was able to pack away the unwanted foundation and step blocks.

After working a day digging mostly by hand after loosening the dirt up with the front end loader, I came up with a way to go further into the excavation with the tractor using a pile of short 2 x 8 boards.

It was amazing how the four-whell drive allows you to do things you could never do without it.

Shirley zoomed in to capture this shot of my bandaged kneecap.  When I caught my toe on the edge of the pavement as I was coming out of the shallow stairway excavation number 6 on Sunday evening, I not only banged my knee up pretty good, but I got a nasty crunch on my favourite zoom lens... which is now in the Victoria Camera Repair shop.

It was no ordinary trip and fall... I had so much momentum that as the ground was coming up to meet me I let go of the camera and folded into a summersault... the end of which still ended up skinning my knee and ripping a good hole in my jeans.  I wore shorts most of this weeks since long pants irritated the bandage and gave me grief.

I finished Number 7 today... over 30 inches below pavement on the outside, with washed bedrock readily visible.  I salvaged several loader buckets of sandstone rock for future walls... but there was one very heavy and ornery rock that was too far under the pavement to readily move.  A chain around it to the front end loader could not budge it... so it will become part of the footing.

I did the calculations to see at what elevation the pantry floor would end up... and we decided to have a 6 inch step down and use 8" floor joists. The bottom of the level is where the top of the floor will one day be.

Most of the photos in the blog post were done by Shirley... and she caught me feeling pretty happy to have all the excavations completed today!  All done mostly by hand... and not a single broken service line.