2004-5 Pipe

2005 01 03 Sandbox Toys

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We had big fun today. Lots of progress too.

First, the cutting was completed on the buried dam.

I was not outside when the cut was completed, but I was there as the concrete cutting subcontractor left. They finished their cut, and were gone.

After the dam was cut one of the excavators was used to tip it over. Unfortunately the dam came apart at the seams between the three "pours" that were used to make it. There was no rebar in the dam to hold the pieces together, so these seams were relatively weak. Here you see the top third of the dam falling into the hole. I wish I had remembered that the hole had two feet of water in it (water used to cool the concrete saw), because when this piece hit the water it made a huge splash, soaking the excavator pilot.

The middle third was similarly tipped over, and the two pieces were lifted out. Each of these pieces was just about all the excavator could handle.

The bottom piece of the dam was still there, and it was the toughest. Even with both excavators pushing and pulling, it would not budge. So it was hammered into pieces using one of the excavators. This made an enormous racket. I went into the house to see how much vibration was getting in, and I was very surprised to find that the noise was carrying, but there was no vibration I could feel. But close to the hole the racket and vibration was very impressive. Eventually enough large pieces were knocked off that the remainder could be levered out.

You can see the marks from the cable cutter.

In the meantime, the "wing walls" on the tail end of the new pipe were framed and poured.

Tomorrow the general contractor resumes putting pipe in the ground.

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