Grading – Getting Above Flood Plain

Late in the day the graders showed up and started moving dirt around again.

There is a lot of dirt.

From Dartmouth, you can’t even see there is a house being built back there.

It looked like they were just rearranging the piles. But they knew what they were doing.

They had to get the dirt out of the way so that a load of gravel could be put in the garage. Gravel is under the concrete.

They also pushed the pile of gravel over the driveway, to make room for lumber to be delivered.

Our dirt was still too wet to put up against the block. It seems there is a real danger of the weight of the heavy wet dirt pushing the block over. And they want to save it for the top layer anyway, since it is good topsoil. They just moved it all out of the way.

We were delayed because it was hard to get more dirt. Can you believe it? I guess a lot of people that were delayed all winter like us are suddenly at the we-need-fill point in construction.

They were able to get some fill from a quarry. It is the left over sand from gravel. The trucks dumped fill, load after load.

By the next day they were pushing the fill dirt up against the house.

We also had some lumber and materials delivered. They can start framing as soon as the fill is inside the foundation and leveled. We have to bring the inside and outside of the house above flood level and give it enough of a slant for any water that comes in to make it’s way back out.

The graders moved the dirt from the pile to a new pile, closer to where it was needed. The other grader scooped it up from that pile and dumped it into the house. It was like a waltz, zipping back and forth. And inside the house was one guy with a shovel. This is going to take a month.

The next day… How did they get that in there?

They used a crane. A really big crane. And we missed it. I am going to camp out there Monday to see them get that thing out of there.

Now that we have the fill dirt and the equipment is in place, things went really fast.

One guy raced back and forth from the pile of fill, dumping it into the house. Another guy scooped it where it needed to be and the third guy leveled it out.

The gravel for the garage was delivered. The graders smoothed it where it needs to be.

Before that someone put some of the fabric over the block.

Here it is! Gravel, graded, fill in the crawlspace, piles of lumber and materials. The field behind is part of our land, too.

They did not put any block where the footers were put in for the porch and the carport. When they graded, they just pushed the dirt right over the holes. I asked; the crew that puts in the porches and the carport will dig them back up when they need them.

The drain now runs to the gully.

They created a swale between the driveway and the house, so that rain will run into the gully. This isn’t a ditch, it is just a sloped area to direct the water.

We ended up with 10 loads of fill, besides all the dirt that we dug out of the footers and replaced with fancy drain and block.

They start framing on Monday!

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