Two weeks of heavy equipment

Hi All,
After two full weeks of heavy equipment working around here there has been a lot accomplished. The entire area where the house and garage will go has been cleared and the dirt pad where the house will go is in place.

Access from the house to the dam and a small bit of the driveway has been cleared making it possible to repair the lake's dam and also connect the small lake with the bigger lake.

Susan and I have continued to work on getting the wood floors out of the old house. A much bigger and more difficult task than we thought.

Down to wood floors

Wood floor removed, now down to floor joists

DIY tip #2 - For a pier and beam foundation some cement blocks and car jacks can be used to hold up a wall that otherwise would fall down due to dry rot or termites. This allows for occasional adjustments.

Susan is cutting out the floor joists so we can reuse them someplace. They are real 2 x 8 boards. Really 2 inches thick and 8 inches wide.

Friday morning the electric company disconnected the service from the house and took their meter. About 10 minutes later David was on his track hoe and going to work.

Getting the last things out of the house

David is in the track hoe, just eating up the house. Ricky is driving the dump truck over to a 20 feet deep hole dug for the house's last resting place. Jeff is on the ground salvaging anything salvageable and using the bulldozer to push the debris into the hole.

By the end of the day, there is no more house

Friday night our neighbors joined us for the bonfire. 

By this morning (Saturday) about all that is left is a smoldering pit.

That's it for now. Take care.
Brian

Progress Report After Four Days

Hi All,
Four days in and there has been a lot of work done. Behind the house that will be demolished there is a three room structure we affectionately call the crack house. A lot of work was done around the crack house to clean up all the trash and brush.

You have seen pictures of the lake but there is actually a small pond much closer to the existing house- currently a mosquito hatchery. The water from the spring runs into the pond and then overflows to a creek that runs to the lake at the back of the property. Both dams,( the one for the pond and the one for the lake) need to be repaired. Yesterday (Wednesday) and a little bit of today David and his crew fixed the pond dam.

Here's pretty much how the pond and dam looked when they started

 Here's David in his track hoe repairing the dam....

Here's the new dam, just waiting for a good rain or the spring to slowly fill the pond

Here's Jeff on the bulldozer clearing what was once a trail back to the home site

I left out that besides getting all the trash and brush cleared up the first couple of days they made a pad for the pole barn that will be going in a few weeks from now. By the end of the day today they had started clearing the area where the house and garage will go. It is amazing how much three guys on heavy equipment can get done in a day. Susan and I are still working on getting the wood floors out of the old house or otherwise we'd just sit and watch them all day.

That's it for now. Take care.
Brian

Getting to work

Hi All,
Once we were back from Georgia and South Carolina we got to work on figuring out what we are going to do about housing. We had the water in the old house tested and feel certain now that there are lead pipes in the house. That along with all the other work that needed to be done was the death knell for the house. I know many of you wanted us to renovate the house based on the pictures but everyone that has seen it or walked through it said we should tear it down. Today.

A bit of a leaky roof

There used to be a wall there

A tip for you DIY'ers, when the wall doesn't meet the floor take a bed sheet, roll it up and stuff it in the crack

Under the carpet, the pad and this plywood, we found tar paper. Under the tar paper we found wood floors! 

 We're working on getting all the wood flooring out now. Getting to the wood floors is the hard part; getting it out is easy with the right tools. The flooring will need some sanding and staining but our plan is for it to go in the new house.

So this...

Now has a date with these

Speaking of the new house, we've decided on where to put it. We thought we had it a couple of weeks ago but we moved it based on exposure to the afternoon sun.

This is where the new house is going to go

Perhaps this will give you a better idea. The house will be over there looking through those trees at the lake.

Our almost-family friends are busy at work moving dirt, clearing pads, fixing dams, and burying mountains of trash. It's amazing what they've been able to do in two days and they've only just started!

That's it for now. I'll post more pictures soon to show David's progress.

Brian