This week I once again had to face my nemesis - dirt. The goal for this week was to get the footer trenches dug for my foundation. Unlike digging the post holes for the fence that I completed in my last post, I actually had a machine capable of digging the dirt for the footer trenches. My dad is the owner of a wonderful vintage Ditch Witch trencher with a bucket arm on it that he was going to use to help me get all the digging done. Unfortunately, even with this machine digging the trenches for my slab was no easy task. Let me tell you how this process went:
Day 1
My dad and I decided to start digging the trenches right after we finished marking where the house would be. It was getting later in the evening (about 5pm at this point) but it was a nice day out and we decided we could at least get a start on it. The machine we were using has a trencher on the back and a bucket arm on the front. Our plan was to cut both sides of the footer with the trencher so that the lines would be straight and then use the bucket to clean out the leftover dirt in the middle. Things started off well, we got the two edges of the first side cut in with the trencher and we were feeling pretty good. It was when we started digging out the middle with the bucket that the first problem occurred.
The Ditch Witch (although wonderful) is old. It sat unused on my grandparents place for many years before my grandpa decided to get it working again and give it to my dad. Although it starts and drives okay some of the hydraulic hoses on it are worn and cracked from sitting outside unmoving for so long. These hoses are what caused us trouble when we started using the bucket arm. As my dad was moving some dirt off to one side a hydraulic hose broke and spit fluid out everywhere. Thankfully neither me or my dad were near the line when it blew (my dad was on top of the machine running the bucket and I was standing way off to the side). Hydraulic hose breaks like this can cause injury from the extremely high pressure liquid shooting off and we were very lucky. Obviously though we couldn't dig with a broken hydraulic hose - the bucket arm wouldn't move! Since it was already late at this point we decided to just take the Ditch Witch back over to my dad's shed and call it a night.
Day 2
Day 2 started and it was a hot one - already 90 degrees outside and only May! Dad was able to get the hydraulic hose that was broken off of the machine, but in the process had to pull off several other hoses as well - four out of the eight total hoses that move the bucket arm had to be removed. He decided that since all the hoses were old and we already had to pull them off to replace the broken one we may as well replace all the ones that were already off the machine with new hoses. A trip to our local Co-Op and $180 worth of hoses later we were back at home and ready to put the Ditch Witch back together. It took us quite a bit of time to get all the hoses back on. This old machine was not designed with a very user friendly layout and getting a wrench in the tight spaces to tighten the ends of the hoses was tricky. We got it done though! Unfortunately, that was all we were able to get done on day 2 before we lost the light.
Day 3
Day 3 is when we really got to work on digging the trench. The weather was nice, the Ditch Witch was working great, and we got off to an early start! In no time at all we had finished the first side which we had started two days prior. We were also able to get the two short sides of the rectangle dug as well. We had a little trouble getting the dirt cleared out away from the trench so we had to bring another tractor out with a blade to help shove the piles of dirt off to the side, but other than that we had no trouble at all this day - an absolute miracle! At the end of day two we had three sides all done and dug!
Day 4
We started day 4 with a new task - clearing the grass out of the middle of the foundation site. We were initially unsure of how to go about this. The blade that my dad has for his tractor was not able to scrape the grass off the ground because it does not have any downward pressure. The thought of trying to slice it all up and dig it out by had wasn't appealing either. What ended up working was a garden tiller that my mom had. Its just a small thing that you push around and it chews up the top layer of dirt, but it was exactly what we needed! We made one pass over with the tiller and then my dad used his tractor and blade to scrape the dirt out of the way across the one side of the footer we had not dug yet. We then made a second pass with the tiller and blade just to make sure we got all of the grass. I was worried that removing the grass was going to be tough with the quality of dirt here, but some gardening equipment ended up saving the day!
At this point it was around five in the evening. Late, but not to late to quit yet. We thought we might have enough time to go ahead and dig out the last side of the footer so we got the Ditch Witch out to the site, pulled it into place, started digging - and then another hydraulic hose broke. Once again we were very lucky and neither my dad or I were near the hose when it blew. God was really looking out for us while we were working (and probably laughing at us too!) It was a little disheartening to be so close to being finished and then having a breakdown on the last side, but there was nothing we could do about it. We once again brought the Ditch Witch back up to the shed and then called it a night.
Day 5
Day five started with another trip to the Co-Op to get hydraulic hoses made. We had gone out first thing in the morning and got the measurements for the other four hoses on the bucket arm circuit that we had not yet replaced. We figured at this point why not just do them all! It was much easier and faster to get these four hoses on than the first four we replaced since we already knew how everything was assembled and what size wrenches we needed. It only took us about two hours to get the Ditch Witch back up and running!
So now we were determined. Our machine was running and the finish line was in sight - we were going to get the last side of the footer trench dug today! We moved the Ditch Witch back out to my yard, put it in place, got ready to dig - and then it shut down. At this point I was convinced either me, my dad, or the Ditch Witch was cursed (probably all three of us). Thankfully this was a quick fix. In all the trips we made back and forth from my place to my dads machine shed we didn't think to check the gas tank. One walk back to the house later to get a gas can and we were back running again - and this time we finally got to dig! It didn't take us too long to get the last side since we had a routine down at this point. Finally finishing digging that last side was one of the best feelings!
Another Challenge Conquered
In the end it took 5 days, 8 hydraulic hoses, 2 trips to the Co-Op, 3 different pieces of machinery, and 1 long walk for a gas can, but we got it done! I knew digging this much dirt was not going to be easy, but I didn't think it would be quite this much of an ordeal! I am so beyond grateful for my dad. I can say with absolute certainty there is no way I would have ever been able to do this without him. He is the one who operated the equipment, repaired the equipment (multiple times), and kept me going even when I got discouraged. This process was a mess to say the least, but getting to work with my dad made it all okay.
Next week I begin prepping the foundation for concrete - lets hope it goes better than this week!
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