Crushed!

This has been the theme of the week.  My attempts of getting crushed recycle concrete has only crushed my schedule, and not in the good way.

Once again, my plans have gone out the window as I try and source this stuff.  Diamond was not able to get out to Richvan on Saturday but when they arrived on Monday, there was only enough product for the dump truck and none for the pony they had also brought with them. Why Richvan did not tell me there was a shortage of material over the numerous communications we had is a mystery to me.  Diamond Was able to track down a truck and pony full from another vendor later in the day Monday, but then the second vendor was also sold out.

Calls for the rest of the week proved fruitless from all three vendors that carry the stuff.  With some of the vendors, they just are not getting enough recycled concrete in to crush.  This then puts pressure on the others who basically have trucks waiting under the crusher’s conveyor belt and the product ships out as soon as it is made.  So on Thursday, I switched gears and hired the crushing company to ship instead of supplying my own trucking through Diamond.  This seems to have broken through (of course they are going to look after their own customers before allowing others to truck it away).  I received a full truck and pony today and will get another shipment on Monday or Tuesday latest.

I have received approximately 50 tons of the 3/4″ crushed recycled concrete so far.  With the first 2.5 loads I was able to back fill around the storm sump.  This also required finishing the final top of wall waterproofing and then insulating the main dwelling foundation wall in this area (wall behind left of concrete ring in below photo).

Once general backfill is complete, I will replace the top 12″ riser and cap off the granular drainage with non permeable soil so that ground/storm water does not get down to the perimeter drainage and place too much burden on the sump pumps (all above grade storm water will gravity feed to municipal storm sewer).

With the final load and a half I received this morning from South Ridge Sand and Gravel, I was above to backfill about half way down the basement walk-up foundation. I will scrape this down 12″ of so later to ensure the top foot is non permeable.  The space between my walk-up foundation and neighbours house will be paved later.

I also worked on properly terminating the gravel drainage plane on the south elevation of the house (I stop the gravel about 16″-18″ below grade to again prevent ground water from flowing down to the perimeter drains).  This involved vacuuming away the dirt that had been pushed up against the wall when passing through with tractor, topping off the gravel to right height and then wrapping the geotextile over the top and pinning it to the dimple sheet with soil.  This will prevent fines from getting into and plugging the vertical gravel drainage plane.

The task also required the cleanup of the foundation lab instrument wires.  I had several areas the wire bundles had inadvertently been buried when driving through area with tractor.  So I had to find all of the wires,  ensure they were all marked, extend those that were too short (try soldering when it is raining – not a pleasant or speedy process), and then bundle out of way so backfill can be completed.   Finally I marked all of the locations for the water injection ports (yellow tape), and protected them with pipes and such so that I can dig them up again later and connect to the piping that will be routed to a lawn sprinkler box and be used to fill pipes with prescribed qty of water when performing testing for lab.

On Wednesday (wettest day), I headed off to Fraser Valley Tarp to discuss the new B.A.T. that I will put over the site prior to starting the framing.  The new design looks like it will work but because the vendor no longer stocks the 7oz fabric, the 9oz versions would come in at $4500.  So he suggested I talk to Alpha Tent and Awning to look at a parachute fabric that would be lighter, stronger, and hopefully cheaper.  But I will have to wait till their head installer gets back at end of month to discuss and get a quote.

Finally, I used the stat holiday on Friday to install a new sump pump (quite work).  The deeper of the two I had was shorting out and blowing the GFCI.  So instead of exchanging (they are now discontinued but still available at some stores), I threw in the towel got a refund and then bought a different model.  The electronic models I had been using worked great WHEN they worked, but they easily plugged with debris and out of the three I had bought, all had shorted out and needed to be exchanged at least twice each (seal around chord was poor and allowed water to enter and eventually displace oil motors are surrounded with and then short out).  The new model is cast iron and has a float switch instead of the built in electronic switch.  I have already noticed that this causes the pump to run less often.  This pump location (bottom of sump) was previously just connected to a garden hose, so I took the opportunity to upgrade this pump to a 1″ PVC line (to match the overflow/backup pump installed about 24″ above).  This should finally stop all of the floods that I have been having during heavy storms or when a breaker is blown.  Again, these are just construction pumps, the permanent pumps cannot be installed until I have the rough in electrical completed and inspected on the house.

Thanks for visiting.

“Creativity is intelligence having fun.” —Albert Einstein (1879-1955) Theoretical Physicist, Philosopher, Nobel Prize Winner

“Creativity requires the courage to let go of certainties.” —Erich Seligmann Fromm (1900-1980) Social Psychologist