It has been a bit since I’ve posted, but we have something big happening here and it’s worth showing off. It may not seem like much, but since we had really hoped to get this done by the end of October, we are thrilled to be able to check it off the list now: BACKFILL.

I know, right? It’s a bunch of rocks. But the thing is, we’ve had a couple of cave-ins where those mud walls just couldn’t handle the wet, and it’s dangerous and laborious to clear that dirt out of there. The dirt can’t be there because we want drainage rock to fill that space, so we can rest easy that our walls will stay dry– the famous “French Drain” that every homeowner in Seattle is familiar with.

Speaking of dry walls, we had to take some remedial action on our waterproofing attempt, which failed to properly seal around the footings. This caused Morgan much consternation, as there isn’t necessarily a standard fix, and many options had to be weighed. He finally settled on a big continuous sheet of expensive thick red plastic wrapping the whole wall all the way down and around the footings.

Next the black dimple mat, another standard operating procedure for keeping your foundation walls dry.

Finally, gravel, to fill the trenches! This had to wait for the slab to be poured, as the slab lends stability to the walls. Despite the slab being ugly, a problem we have yet to decide the fix for, it IS sturdy, and the trenches are almost full! I made a little movie showing one of the five or six eventual loads coming in, posted on Facebook, if I can grab a link, I’ll get it here soon.