Week 1 - The Sewer

Sadly, nothing happened the week we were to begin. I was told at first that this should not delay the overall project, since the new sewer line installation and the driveway removal could be done more or less at the same time without getting in the way of each other. That turned out not to be true so, right from the beginning, we are behind. (sigh)

The sub contractor couldn't start until Thursday--and, until he got underground, he couldn't predict if the digging would take one or two days (it took two). Even if it had only taken one, he still wouldn't be able to call the inspector until Friday, which would mean that the inspector might or might not be able to come until the next working day, which would have been Tuesday, because of the long weekend. He didn't want to leave an 8 foot trench with exposed water, sewer and gas lines, that cut all the way from my house to the street, over a three day weekend. Also, the unlikely worst case, if something went wrong and he couldn't get the right people out quickly, it could leave me without water, or maybe sewer, or maybe gas over the weekend. I took his advice and agreed that we should wait until Monday to start.

In the end, week one went just about as planned, but started exactly one week later than scheduled. I should have taken this as a sign.

Bright and early Monday morning the backhoe arrived and started digging, way too early for the likes o' me, but I had agreed to it, so at least I wasn't surprised. The first task was to find the existing sewer line, and all other pipes and lines. There were several: the old sewer line; the new gas line, the old gas line; the old water line; the newer old water line; and an annoying PVC sprinkler system, which I had never used and had, in fact, removed big chunks of.

The old sewer line was not hard to find or follow to the edge of my property. The new gas line turned out to have been threaded through the old gas line for at least part of it's length and entered the house close to where the sewer exited. The sprinkler system turned out to be a challenge, not in or of itself, but because it was important to determine where it connected to the house water and disconnect it before ripping any of it out.

The water lines were more of a problem because we knew that there were two of them, the old cast iron pipe and the newer copper one, but not exactly where. Once all the pipes had been located, digging began on the trench for the new sewer line. Unfortunately, in digging under the water lines, the copper line was snagged by the backhoe. It put a nasty kink in the line and caused a small leak at the meter, however it did not rupture the line. Water to the house wasn't interrupted and since a new, larger water line was being laid as part of the project, it was left in place.

So, at the end of the first day I had a big open trench in my yard, exposed pipes, some leaking water around the meter, a backhoe, and what looked to me like crime scene tape roping the whole thing off.

The next step was cutting across the sidewalk and digging under the street to find the sewer stub line and laying the new sewer. The most startling aspect of this project was in realizing that, in Oregon, in February, I had an 8' deep trench in my yard that was dry all the way to the bottom. This does not bode well for July and August around here.

Once everything was located, the new sewer line was laid. Then the old, shared line was capped off and the new line was connected, tested and inspected. It was very efficient. I was without a sewer connection for, maybe, and hour and wouldn't have even noticed if they hadn't told me.

The rest of the process was filling the trench back in, and laying the pipe for the new water line, which will be connected later.

In areas under the foundations for the new addition the upper levels were filled with compacted gravel to provide support for the foundations. The only other problem occurred while refilling the trench. The backhoe accidentally cut my flexible gas line, which was less than 6" below the original surface of the ground. They stopped working, tied it off, and then the phone calls started flying. People showed up right away and the problem was resolved very quickly with a temporary connection. The line will be moved to the outside of the foundations once they are poured. Luckily, I was not without gas (my furnace) for any appreciable time. And no explosions!

Week 2 - The Basement