Keeping character, or restoring a pond

[wroughtn_harv]

I mentioned earlier that there was a problem behind the wall. When we broke out the concrete we found a cavity, big cavity.

Over the years the water had churned out all the soil between the wall and the foundation of the greenhouse behind it.

 

[wroughtn_harv]

This hole is a lot bigger than it appears in the picture. In fact when we first started putting debris (concrete) in the cavity it came out below the wall to be in our way again.

Once the piers and haunches were complete and the was was sitting on it's new footings I moved to fill the cavity with a combination of new concrete and old debris.

We're mixing the concrete with a fifty percent ratio of portland cement that we normally use. It's not about making is so much solid concrete as it is to get the fill to settle completely and not have movement at a later date.

It was a big hole.

Iris got to dance.

And dance.

And dance. /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif

 

[wroughtn_harv]

This was a two stage affair. I filled in a couple of feet with the wet concrete day one. Then the next day I added debris and the more wet concrete. I was worried that if I'd poured it all at once the expanding concrete would move the wall.

Here's a shot of us almost there.

 

[Cliff_Johns]

Thank you so much for posting this sequence. Facinating stuff.
Cliff

 

[8NTX]

Great looking project, Harv. There's no way I woulda guessed that those jacks woulda budged that wall. Amazing.

Steve

 

[wroughtn_harv]

It's the same process they use for foundation repair Steve. But it is surprising when you see stuff like that wall moving on command.

When they did the original wall back in the fifties it appears they dug their piers with a three point auger and then had a small beam trench. Their overage at the trench line had to be chipped off.

 

[wroughtn_harv]

This is Iris checking out her world. It's coming together.

 

[wroughtn_harv]

Lucy is in the shop for a fixing. It seems her injectors decided to puke and, well, she's being fixed.

So I borrowed Too Tall's 98 Dodge dually. Flour Power is a really kewel one ton. But she isn't Lucy. But she does have a front receiver hitch which means we can put in the bender to tweak rebar as we need it.

 

[wroughtn_harv]

A little grunt, a bit of leverage, and the half inch rebar becomes, well, a little like spagetti.

 

[wroughtn_harv]

We're going to have a curved transition from the floor to the vertical wall.

This is some of the rebar work we're having to do to facillitate that.