Grading and foundations

                                         (click on thumbnail to enlarge)

As a requirement for selling the house the seller was required to remove an old fuel tank, used in WWII, from behind

a wall on the West side of the house next to the kitchen and bathroom addition. The contractor who did the removal

filled the hole with gravel but left no drain holes for water to escape, and as a result the hole filled up with water when

it rained.The wall was an old stacked rock wall and couldn't handle the extra weight.

The day the house closed escrow the wall collapsed onto the addition, further damaging a strucure already compromised

by no foundations, considerable rot caused by an inadequate roof and generally poor construction.

As it would cost more to bring the old additions up to code than to build a new kitchen we decided to remove the

kitchen and bathroom additions and return the house to its 1860 configuration.

Collapsed wall (1)	Collapsed wall (2)

 

 

 

 

We had to dig around three sides of the one-story original extension to the house that contained the dining

room, kitchen, pantry and back porch. This section of the house was built sitting on piles of rock. Over

the years dirt had piled up around the house and caused rainwater get under under the beam (sill).

 

There was just barely room to get excavating equipment into the yard. Lonnie Larsen, the backhoe operator,

caught a piece of shale under the gas line and ruptured the line. Gas coming into into a house before the

meter is under high pressure (50 lbs. PSI) and blew a stream of dirt into the air. We all got out of there and

called 911 who called the PG&E and the Jackson Police and Fire. Retired Judge Ryan and his wife who live

across the street invited us in to wait while the street was roped off and the repairs made.

West side after additions removed	There's an old mine tunnel in this corner of the yard. It was used as a garbage dump for years.	Excavating the back	The dining room, kitchen, pantry and back porch were built right onto rock piles with the occasional brick thrown in	Fred and Ron
Grading the West side	Lonnie Larson's backhoe (big mama)	Removing a tree from the driveway	Ron digging in back	Ron scrounging rocks for landscaping
Rotten beams under the East side dining room	The corner of the back porch sat on rock. Worked fine.	The house sits on solid rock This is the SE corner of the yard	Walls behind the house before we cut them to size	West back parlor
A continuous mortised and tenoned beam runs the length of the extension, showing that the porch was original to the house	forming new walls	By the gas line after grading (the backhoe grabbed the gas line and tore a hole in it.