Demise of My Service Pit

[dale farley]

I started digging my service pit last Wednesday. Paulette took the attached picture early Saturday morning when the pit was about half way finished. By the end of the day Saturday, I had a 20' pit with perfectly straight walls with a footer and ready to pour the floor. I was going to pick up the rebar this morning and pour the floor this afternoon. There's more to this story.

[dalej]

It's looking great Dale, keep us up to date with more photos. Paulette is probibly liking your hard body workouts!

[dale farley]

As Paul Harvey would say, this is the rest of the story. Because I knew it was supposed to rain sometime over the weekend, I had taken precautions to build a dirt wall across the end of the garage to keep out the water. I had also attached long drain lines to my gutters to funnel the water away from the side of the building.

What I hadn't counted on was 6" of rain last night. When I went out this morning, I realized the water had run over the batter boards on the side of the garage and entered the area that I had graded for my slab. From there it went in the pit taking the sides with it. My pit was 2' 8" wide Saturday; it is now between 5' and 6' wide. It was 4' 4" deep, it is now a little over 2' deep. Very discouraging!

The first picture shows the pit with part of the water in it. At some point during the night, the pit was completely full and running over. The second pictures shows the pit after most of the water was pumped out. When I first went out this morning, I was strongly considering taking the loader and filling it in, but after mulling it over for several hours, I think I have convinced myself to start over with an even larger job than it was in the beginning. I am sure there is a moral to this story, I just don't know what it is at this point.

[dalej]

That is just no way a nice rest of the story.

I can only imagine how that morning felt, you go out and look, turn around head back to the house, ask Paulette to make a fresh pot of coffee and then start to blame Jon for the pit idea.

[dale farley]

Maybe that is why I've felt so rotten all day. I didn't have anyone else to blame.

[Jon Wehrenberg]

Dale,

I wish I lived closer. I have a Bobcat 334 and I would love to be able to stick on the 39" bucket and dig that pit for you.

That hurts to see all that work having to be done over.

[JIM CHALOUPKA]

Wow Dale, sorry for your plight. With that kind of rain, you may have Alligators when you get it concreted in.
Your ground looks like sand, so that might not be as bad as clay, but to have to do it over that sucks!
How are you going to keep that kind of rain out when your finished?

[dalej]

Dale, I forgot to ask, who put the pink safty ribbon up?

[dale farley]

Jon, I too wish you lived closer. It is taking me an average of 182 shovels to fill the loader bucket each time, and I have emptied it many, many times. In 1987, I worked until the wee hours of the morning developing a presentation for work on a Comodore 64 computer. When I was almost finished, I kicked the power cord, lost it all, and had to start over. I felt that same sick feeling this morning when I saw the pit.

[dale farley]

I put up the ribbon to make sure my horse boarders didn't wander too close to the pit. I knew there was a possibility they might cave in the walls. So much for that!

Once I finish the concrete, I plan to install a 10" retainning wall the length of the building to make sure no more water gets up against the side of the building. I thought about this before and thought it might be a nice addition, but I now realize it is a necessity.