It was a long couple of weeks, but it's over!
Updated 9 October 2000
Here's what was accomplished. Compare this to the
picture lower on this page...
I will keep the site updated with post-project landscape and garden pictures - work will go on through November.
Links to project pictures
(See below for project overview)
Days 8-10: 9/27-29 Nearly done!
Days 6-7: Mon-Tue 9/25-26: Rock placement
Days 4-5: Thu-Fri 9/21,22 - Rocks!!! (New pix 9/24)
Day 3: Wed 9/20 - Construction Circus
Day 1: Mon 9/18 - a Shocking Event
What's going on here?
For most of this year we've been planning a functional repair, which must be fully permitted: any job big enough to save the house is so big that there is no alternative. Anything less would only leave the house in increased
jeopardy. There are only two adequate repair technologies -
rock in wire baskets, and large rock. The baskets rust out in
a dozen years. So it's large rock - a wall extending 110'
north of the house.
The planning, and supervision of the permit process, was done by
Steve Wiesner, a hydro engineer, the head engineer for a small
company that specializes in this kind of work. He has done a
thoroughly professional job, capped by navigating a bureaucratic maze
created by the seven (!) agencies with jurisdiction over the work.
This is a sensitive riparian area, home to two listed species (Red
legged frog, Steelhead). The streambed and its inhabitants must be
fully protected throughout (no machinery can go into the stream
channel; the fish must be removed from the area before the necessary
diversion takes place; a hundred more).
The plan: net off the stream, above and below the work site; remove
the fish and put them downstream; divert the stream around the work site
in a 16" pipe, using a sandbag cofferdam. Meanwhile an excavator
crawls down the driveway and into the yard, clears the brush off the
bank, and digs himself a work bench somewhat above stream level,
running the length of the work site. From there he digs a toe trench
3' deep, the footing for a wall of 600 tons of big rocks -- 200-300 rocks,
to be dumped by large truck at the top of the driveway, ferried
down the driveway in a bobtail dumptruck and dumped down the slope
beside the stairs (a berm will protect the house), then carried
by a tractor one-by-one to the excavator for placement. The wall will come
part-way up the bank; the rest will be backfilled, compacted,
contoured, and replanted according to a plan that has to be part of
the official job description.
This will supposedly take 2+ weeks. I will try to keep the
pictures on this page up to date.
This page created 9/18/2000.
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The aftermath!
Day 2: Tue 9/19 - Godzilla