Awakened by the sounds of heavy equipment, I walked outside this morning and was greeted by several less than lovely vignettes.
A backhoe operator was preparing to wreak yet more havoc. There was more wet and sticky clay soil to remove. On Thursday afternoon, they were quite certain they'd found the source of the leak. By Thursday evening, it was evident they were wrong.
If they needed further evidence, by Friday morning, the 7 to 8 foot deep hole had become a small pond. It seems that the break in the pipe is on the OTHER side of the street. After clearing out the muck, they were able to see a cavernous void on the OTHER side of the street. The side where there is no beautiful garden to be destroyed.
So the workers quickly went about the process of filling in the hole and cleaning up the mess on MY side of the street. Clean builder's sand was shoveled in and thoroughly compacted. They set forms, laid rebar and then brought in the cement mixer.
The crew poured and smoothed the cement mixture in what seemed like a matter of minutes.
At the end of the day, this was all that remained of the presence of 5 or 6 pieces of heavy equipment and 10-12 workers. But we won't be lonesome for them for long: since they're now certain the leak is on the other side of my street, they'll return on Monday to start the process all over again!
One would think that the presence of this large pothole/sinkhole in the street would have indicated that something is drastically wrong on that side of the street and caused them to dig on that side first. Hmmppph.
And since I know y'all are wondering just how this affected the garden, here's how things look post depredations. I won't pretend that I'm crying for that little patch of lawn out front. I may even replace it with some other sort of groundcover.
I was not happy with the rebuilding of the rock border, however. Those rocks are NOT properly stacked, despite the multiple assurances by multiple crew members that they would put it all back just as it was. I made sure the foremen knew that I was not happy with these results and that I would want them to redo the rocks on Monday.
There was a large pile of wet, sticky, clay soil along the curb on the north side of the garden.
The rubble from the various digging efforts was not quite artfully arranged at the end of the sidewalk.
The rubble from the various digging efforts was not quite artfully arranged at the end of the sidewalk.
A backhoe operator was preparing to wreak yet more havoc. There was more wet and sticky clay soil to remove. On Thursday afternoon, they were quite certain they'd found the source of the leak. By Thursday evening, it was evident they were wrong.
If they needed further evidence, by Friday morning, the 7 to 8 foot deep hole had become a small pond. It seems that the break in the pipe is on the OTHER side of the street. After clearing out the muck, they were able to see a cavernous void on the OTHER side of the street. The side where there is no beautiful garden to be destroyed.
So the workers quickly went about the process of filling in the hole and cleaning up the mess on MY side of the street. Clean builder's sand was shoveled in and thoroughly compacted. They set forms, laid rebar and then brought in the cement mixer.
The crew poured and smoothed the cement mixture in what seemed like a matter of minutes.
At the end of the day, this was all that remained of the presence of 5 or 6 pieces of heavy equipment and 10-12 workers. But we won't be lonesome for them for long: since they're now certain the leak is on the other side of my street, they'll return on Monday to start the process all over again!
One would think that the presence of this large pothole/sinkhole in the street would have indicated that something is drastically wrong on that side of the street and caused them to dig on that side first. Hmmppph.
And since I know y'all are wondering just how this affected the garden, here's how things look post depredations. I won't pretend that I'm crying for that little patch of lawn out front. I may even replace it with some other sort of groundcover.
Since the crews have done the best they could, given the circumstances, to limit the disruptions to the garden, I did my best to be pleasant about any dissatisfaction on my part.I'm not looking forward to Monday, though!
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David :-)