Hack for a day! Now I know how a prostitute feels. - Contractor Talk - Professional Construction and Remodeling Forum

dakzaag · 03-04-2009, 06:22 PM

Well, today I was a hack. When the GC took off his rubber boots and said I would need them to lay block on his house foundation, I should have ran (not walked) to the truck.

A natural spring is gushing water in the middle of this crawl space. One of the guys thought they should try and make a water fall out of it.

Yes, we laid block. I think I will need therapy for this, I am ashamed. I carried spec mix in the hole and poured it out like hog feed and laid the first course of block on the dam of dry mix. I had on Tingley knee boots over my redwings and I used 8" worth of boot working next to the spring.

Going back for more tomorrow. I will try to take pictures.

What's that ... Where is the inspector? Welcome to rural Indiana, the BI was probably here to look at the bottom of the footer (how they kept the water out I will never know.) and will be back to watch the plumbing pressure test.

I will be long gone when this one finishes up. Yes the footer had a 5" variation in grade. Plus 1.5" to -3.5" "but the corners are about right on" said the GC. House will be 42' by 25' with a 12' by 25' porch. And you thought I was just another pretty face.

6stringmason · 03-04-2009, 06:51 PM

Yikes. I was working inside where it was 75 laying field stone on a fireplace. SOme days are better than others lol.
I'd like to see the pics though if you get em!

tgeb · 03-04-2009, 07:56 PM

Too bad the builder did not put in some kind of dewatering trenches.

How will you keep from ending up working in a pool tomorrow? As the walls go up......the water gets deeper

NJ Brickie · 03-04-2009, 08:21 PM

I'm glad I'm not you right now. I ran into a situation similar to that about 2yrs ago. I was doing a basement for one of many rowhomes. It was a project that was done in many phases so they ran all the water lines during the first phase. I pulled up to the job around 6:30 on monday morning to see a geyser shooting up from the hole. I get out to find someone must have seen the copper line sticking out of the side of the ditch and tried to bend it back and forth to snap it off and steal it. It was a muddy mess and it was cold (about 30F) so on top of all the block that was already laid there was about 2 inches of ice. What a waste of time chipping the ice off to goto work. To top it all off the A-hole didn't even get the copper, I guess he got wet though.

dakzaag · 03-05-2009, 12:35 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by tgeb

Too bad the builder did not put in some kind of dewatering trenches.

The four corners of the footer form a bowl retaining as much as 5" of mud and water in the low spots. The dirt guy also poured the footer, it appears he ascribes to the theory that what you can't see won't hurt you.

Quote:

How will you keep from ending up working in a pool tomorrow? As the walls go up......the water gets deeper

After offering me his boots, the GC then asked us to leave a half block out in the first course at the far end of the footer. (closest to the spring that I was unaware of at this point) This was the second sign that it was time to run not walk. He explained that they were putting a drainage tile inside the crawl space and needed a place to exit the foundation.

This seemed really strange because I do between 10 and 15 foundations, mostly crawl spaces, for this guy a year. Never put drainage tile inside the crawl space before, if there was drainage it was always put in under the footer.

I can only speculate that after the footers were dug the spring "sprung" and began filling the hole with water. Somehow the dirt guy got the footer poured, but totally without regard to level or grade. 80% to 90% of the footer had water and mud on top of it when we arrived.

We swept and scooped the footer as clean as possible and then put down dry spec mix and laid the first course a few feet at a time. Then we came back and filled the cavity between the blocks with normal mortar.

The highest sections we had to cut several inches off the block to hold our level on the first course and then in the lowest spots we put several inches of dry mix down, then a normal mortar bed and laid the block. The water ran back into the low areas and began absorbing into the dry mix. When we came back on our second course, the block were solid, so the dry mix set up instead of turning to soup.

"just like Roger would"

or " it could be worse Friday, it could be our house!"

Tomorrow we will complete three courses, then the GC is going to shoot pea gravel into the whole thing about 16" deep and we come back and lay 3 more courses. I am sure he is trying to get this covered up before the HO or BI or nosy neighbor starts asking questions.

If the GC wasn't by far my best customer I would have walked, but he knew what he was asking for and he knows what is coming when we get the job done. What he really wants is to keep this between us and he will deal with the long term concerns.

Chris Johnson · 03-05-2009, 12:53 AM

Don't you have laws in Indiana that are along the lines of you being liable if you accept something and carry on? I mean if you know this is a problem and you continue to work it you could eat the problem as well as the GC. This could just be California talk to you know.

If someone else does the footings and I build on them, if they are more than 1/4" out of level I charge $ 15.00 per l/f for the entire perimeter of the foundation. Only had to do this once.

dakzaag · 03-05-2009, 01:15 AM

This is rural Indiana, many areas don't even have zoning laws (although this area is somewhat regulated)

GC has deeper pockets, new house is only 1/4 mile from GC home/business. I'm getting pictures. The GC will deal with this alot sooner than me and I also trust him as he has been at this longer than I.

I can already hear the laughter, but this is one of those things that is hard to put in writing. I do not feel threatened, which probably means I am about to learn a very important lesson.

I suspect that the footer is contaminated because the corner nails drove in with little resistance. (poured last week) The dirt guy has deeper pockets as well. I am just a poor mason on this one, cleaning up the other guys mess. It will all set up and be solid, its just really ugly right now.

dakzaag · 03-11-2009, 09:24 PM

Maybe I have this picture thing figured out...

Just a little visual update, still in progress as we wait for water to subside and gc to get stone in.

and...

at the buttom of this pic you can see a spring feeding the footer

I love my job! Boots were size 18 by end of day and 25 pounds each.

No more stair master for me this year.