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Home Improvement
Jul. 24th, 2005 03:41 pmWe've been doing some home improvement stuff recently. May 20th we got new glassblock windows put in the five basement windows. This prompted us to have to do something about one basement wall - there's a crack running down about four feet from one of the windows, which was either from water leaking through the old window, or something worse. This necessitated a rather large hole in the ground on the south side of the house (just under the dining room window!). We got Jacob (Irene's oldest) to do the actual digging - he's a currently un-employed 20-something, we paid him. :-)
The hole ended up being about 5 feet deep and 6 feet long - he needed to dig that much out to be able to keep going down. We've been joking about it being big enough to bury someone in!
No visible exterior concrete damage - yay!
So, now we have a hole, it'll need to be refilled, and we need to improve the drainage away from the house. By fortuitous (?) circumstance, we've been wanting / needing to do something about the parking area in back - it was 2' square concrete blocks with weeds growing up between them, the city didn't like that. Cheapest replacement is 4" of #3 crushed limestone (which we put over landscaper's cloth) - we're going to be putting a new garage in that space in a few years, we really didn't want to pay for concrete that would just have to be torn out!
Hmmm - limestone gravel. Not the perfect drainage substance, but not bad.
We paid Jake to pull up the concrete blocks and dig out the parking space in back. Then we ordered enough crushed limestone to both make the back parking area, and give us six inches along the basement wall and the base of the hole leading away from the house. Jake is now spreading limestone and re-filling the whole. Well, not this very moment - he should be back some evening this week to work on - hopefully finish! - the job. Otherwise, it'll probably take him two nights.
The hole ended up being about 5 feet deep and 6 feet long - he needed to dig that much out to be able to keep going down. We've been joking about it being big enough to bury someone in!
No visible exterior concrete damage - yay!
So, now we have a hole, it'll need to be refilled, and we need to improve the drainage away from the house. By fortuitous (?) circumstance, we've been wanting / needing to do something about the parking area in back - it was 2' square concrete blocks with weeds growing up between them, the city didn't like that. Cheapest replacement is 4" of #3 crushed limestone (which we put over landscaper's cloth) - we're going to be putting a new garage in that space in a few years, we really didn't want to pay for concrete that would just have to be torn out!
Hmmm - limestone gravel. Not the perfect drainage substance, but not bad.
We paid Jake to pull up the concrete blocks and dig out the parking space in back. Then we ordered enough crushed limestone to both make the back parking area, and give us six inches along the basement wall and the base of the hole leading away from the house. Jake is now spreading limestone and re-filling the whole. Well, not this very moment - he should be back some evening this week to work on - hopefully finish! - the job. Otherwise, it'll probably take him two nights.
