Day 1: Emergency Foundation Repair

the day starts at 6:00 a.m. we've got to call the foundation was failing and it was jeopardizing a garage but before that project can begin we've got to get all of the equipment ready to go before we can move equipment we've got to get the plows off and they haven't been off in 8 months they're a little bit stinky yep and the boys go down to the shop they discover a little surprise the hose busted right above the garage door we need to get into it looks like it has been leaking for a little while that is pretty salad the snow power will be permanently disconnected for the year not to go back on until November so that means it has to come right out of the truck bed itself it's connected into the truck bed using a fifth rail system for it to slide out easily means it's got to be completely supporting itself without taking any pressure off the truck or putting pressure on the truck it's a fine balancing this plow like the front flop hasn't been off in eight months one of the lower pins sticks sending the plow carry a situation pull ahead so that hitch comes out as a boss and an owner I'm lucky enough to have a team that I know cares about their work and has a lot of common sense so if and when an accident does happen if something goes out I know it's not because of carelessness it's because that's just the way life goes once in a while with one challenge down we've still got more to go we've got a mini excavator that hasn't been started in almost eight months okay jump it's 30 degrees this morning she's not gonna want to fire oh she's super done you have to let that sit for a minute while the excavator charges will hook the truck up to the trailer and see if that'll break free the work begins before the project ever starts and once we finally get it on the trailer it doesn't get shut off it stays running even while we go down the road my personal preference is to swing the boom around and face it down when I'm backing off a trailer that way of anything goes south I've got that boom arm in front of me to catch me but every operator does it the way they want with the equipment finally getting delivered the boys are going to be taking a look at what they're getting up to for the very it's the back wall of this garage is getting pushed in by the hill they're gonna go inside to see just how bad the damage is we got a dig along here all the way down to where the slab starts in here we've got this nice overhang here that's gonna be fun you're seeing this along with them for the very first time oh yeah look at this it's cold out big time so that's so you can't see it very well in the camera but the wall has a very distinct ball where it's getting pushed in and then on top of it it's leaning over it's about one heavy rain fall away from completely collapsing it's pretty bad look at it and so the planning begins you know something to tie back after they see it they call me to get a second opinion you know none of the block I broke but any give you a one-day deal okay I'd say two to three days pushed in I mean it's like it's gonna keep continuing we might not put like a dead man you know on a couple of dead many and when we backfill it you know tie it to the block and then dead bare something back to anchor back because once you push it back it's still gonna want to float you know great you know so if we tie it back then that way it won't have the intendancy to come forward again no we can put the top learn no no I know you know once we get it dug out how are we gonna push it back from the inside if we can get the machinery maybe okay okay if we can get it in here it should fit on you think it's yeah okay yeah so it'll be close all right yeah we'll do what we can do well good you will did will work more guy with the ground frozen it's not gonna help the dig go any better but that's not the only challenge these guys are facing [Music] it's tight with that eave overhead they can't get the right attack angle and on top of it they're dealing with a failed foundation wall that means that they can't just go in and put the bucket down and grab as much dirt as they want that extra pressure on that foundation wall could blow it out so what they've got to do is take a little tiny baby sized chunk and slowly pick away at getting the pressure off from that wall until they feel that it's a little safer I'm not sure if you'll be able to tell looking down this wall here but it is right about where that window is not all of it can be safely cleared with the excavator there's an area where the concrete wall meets the footing that's got to be hand scraped off just to see how bad the damage is all right so in between the house and the garage here we gotta dig out a hand dig this out because that just wasn't going to work with the excavator but check this out you can see the extent of the damage out here too and this this one is all the way through it's pretty pretty messed up we start by taking the pressure off the wall and just that alone makes a huge difference the wall starts to move in all by itself but it does need a little bit more help from us and we're not able to get the excavator inside the garage so we've got to do the next best thing yes that's what I'm saying it's gonna be cozy I'm watching you're good oh I think he's gonna be good he's yeah you're good keep coming you're good come on plenty of room you looked at the back wall and it was like this now and it looks like real me not straight foot straight compared to what my god just by taking the pressure off help straighten it but it's still got to be fine-tuned and tweet behind nowhere who eat pork go bust into that block that's that rebar we do know on the second block now gets that rebar yeah damn them back yeah anyway he's gonna have to pull out dead man in hey you know very late unlikely that's gonna happen right yeah put a key back there or whatever I just don't like that heavy wet soil because every time that rains there's a compact it's just gonna it's just gonna and that's where the problem is and even if we had sand which doesn't hold water or 3/4 clear something that doesn't actually hold and retain water we're gonna be better off technically I'm potentially going is yeah to move away from the goals right now yeah yeah no not this way we can't push on the hollow blocks we'll just bust our way through the wall so we're gonna use a six by six and what we're going to do is go from core fill to core fill that means that there's sections of this wall that are reinforced with concrete and we're gonna catch the wall on those sections and gently push it in with a Dodge truck it's moving we don't want to push the wall in all at once in any one area we want to hopscotch back and forth up and down the wall going from quarter field of chlorophyll to gently push it in as evenly as possible [Music] gotta go that way it off yeah move back a little bit not to tip the corner presents its own unique challenge we find out it's not corporate well we can push up that cork over there and then hope for the best you see you got you ever gonna fix a fire different matsyas oh my goodness look at that that's pretty much straightened it out I don't know if you can tell on the video but that is a lot better that's crazy a little bit yeah they still want to tweak the wall a little bit before they're satisfied there you go [Music] now to give this wall a little bit of extra support what Frankie wants to do is he actually wants to puncture a hole through the wall and wrap a cable around the core fill then he wants to tie that to a dead man back behind the garage the next step is to dig a trench where the dead men in place all right so obviously cable we're gonna loop it around on the inside bring it out that way run it up through the channel and then loop it around those beams we get in there and bury it a little more I can grab it here I got it wasn't one thing long once you chew it I got and we'll sit right here sounds good Frankie also wants to add a turnbuckle to the system so he can make any final adjustments to the wall by hand I think and then that way then we'll go over it and then that bigger one will be on top they're both tension will do on it yeah he's gonna wrap it around two dead men because well honestly Frankie that likes to over engineer just about anything he goes yeah and then lay that yeah literally I don't anyway you wanna there it'll take itself up once we with the dead men in place Frankie does the final tweaks on the garage wall using the turnbuckle on that cable the next thing that we've got to do is backfill over the top of that trench but we've still got a long way to go on this job this was just day one my plan with this video series is to bring you a day-by-day journal of our job sites good bad or in between this job just happened today and so I'm releasing it today tune back in because you're gonna see how the rest of this job goes and basically as real time as I can make it god bless and go get them you guys we'll see you on the next one where we finish back filling the garage wall we regrade on the outside and I don't know what's gonna happen because it's actually going on right now