Backhoe Back To Work

 Lots of work accomplished yesterday with the backhoe repaired and tackling the frozen ground heroically. Here is the crew getting the hole sized right for the septic tank. It will be good to have working plumbing again.

Everything went smoothly, the concrete  tank is settled nicely in it's new home and connected to the drainage field.

Next came the excavating for the plastic "bigfoot" sono tubes. The tops will be cut off and the tubes filled with concrete when the truck comes to fill the main floor walls. These three will support the posts for the deck.

Meanwhile young Dominic and I worked on laying another drainage pipe alongside the existing one as this side of the house sees a lot of water coming down off the hillside. We laid it to the front corner of the house and in the spring when the ground thaws it will be continued under the driveway to make another exit for storm water. We got the pipe laid and covered with coarse gravel just in time for the trench to be backfilled and the next excavation started.

Good to finally get that hole backfilled.
The next digging was for the supports for the mud room entry.

Two more sono tubes going in.

Ben worked away at chipping an inch of ice off the floor from the rainstorm 2 days ago, so that he could finish bracing the ICF walls to the floor. Just in time for today's surprise 20cm snowstorm!