I've been working on a project for the last couple of weeks that some of you might find enteresting. I went to give the customer an estimate on a fence and ended up committing to saving a pond. In two weeks the customer has taken about three hundred pictures and I've taken about a hundred or so. So we've got lots of pictures. It's a very unique and challenging project. And we're not doing it in a very conventional manner, surprise, surprise. The first thing I saw was this.
	This is picture of the work area and what I had to work with.
	The area I was assigned for my materials and equipment looked quite organized peaceful before I set up camp.
	The area I was assigned for my materials and equipment looked quite organized peaceful before I set up camp.
	A picture of the area just to the left of the last one. Once again, before I moved in and well, changed things.
	As you can see it was a mess.
	The first thing I did was have a hundred and ten yards of "washout" brought in. If you order a load of concrete and don't use it all. It's taken back to the plant if they don't have someone willing to take a hot load. There the cement is washed out and the sand and gravel is sold at a discount. I almost feel guilty for what we paid for the material. I said, "almost". I have no qualms about using it for making concrete. We've used it for years in the fence industry. I've also poured slabs and done piers for my own stuff without any problems. I use it just like it was remix (concrete sand and stone remixed by the material supplier). We'll probably put a couple of hundred yards of it through the mixer before we're through with this job. I also had to cut in a road to the bottom. I used my forks on my JCB and then followed with the bucket. In less than an hour and a half I was was working the bottom making a dam between the pond by the wall and the main pond.
	Mixer in place ready to make concrete. As we use the material we'll keep moving the mixer into the work. Each load of the mixer is a third of a yard.
	The road wasn't tough to cut in as you can see.
	The dam was also easy to do.
	Then the customer used his Toro dump truck to bring in a pump and remove the water from the little pond.
	This is what I had to work with the next morning.
	After filling in the hole with a combination of washout and drier soil I dug my first haunch for the first pier. My plan was nine piers with haunches and to jack up the wall and secure it to the new piers. I figured since the limestone is just under the surface less than a block or so from the property it would be just down a little bit.
	I can go down about eight feet with the sixteen inch auger with this combination.
	All the way down and no rock to be found. So I decided to go back with the twelve inch set up that will allow me to go just below twelve feet. I decided to go down at an angle. That way if I don't hit rock I'll have more surface area for the pier to work with.
	All the way down and no rock to be found. So I decided to go back with the twelve inch set up that will allow me to go just below twelve feet. I decided to go down at an angle. That way if I don't hit rock I'll have more surface area for the pier to work with.
	It was still too wet to work well with the skid loader so I decided to start cutting the bank for a wall that's going around the pond.
	Think of real construction on a mini-scale. The eighteen inch bucket would take about four loads to fill the Toro dumpster. Then while it was being dumped I'd put the stuff in a pile.
	The excavator is a Vermier and surprisingly strong. It also convinced me the next skid steer that I buy will be a tracked one. It weighs about eight thousand pounds I'd guess and I can move around a lot better in the wet with it over what I can do with Iris and she only weighs about five thousand.
	Here we are in July where we can get occasional showers. In one week we had almost six inches at this one location. It made things interesting to say the least. After the second shower of only about two inches dried up we go to dig the twelve inch piers down twelve feet with the haunch and iron in place.
	Then it was a matter of filling the hole and haunch with concrete.
	You'll never guess who gets to make sweat by making concrete.
	Each haunch and pier took a yard or a little better of concrete.
	Each length of auger is four feet. Here we are going into position with eight feet of auger ready to work. You can see the additional section beside the hole to be. That V looking piece of steel is what we use to hold the auger up while we remove sections after we've dug down and are coming back out. This is hard work, handling wet clay with shovels removing the tailings as it comes up. Not to mention it being July in north Texas.
	The third storm snuck in on me while filling the last pier. Needless to say we had to leave the skid steer in the pit that night. It couldn't move in the slime.
	When the concrete was set up we had to jack up the wall. What we were really interesting in was straightening it out as much as possible but more importantly, picking up the weight and transferring it to the new piers. Funny as it may seem, jacking involves jacks.
	The idea is to jack up from the new haunch-pier and when it's in place to place blocks (concrete) and shims (steel) to maintain the new position. Here's a finished haunch with it's new block and shims in place.
	What is amazing is it works. You can see the movement gained in the above post and in this one.
	I mentioned earlier that there was a problem behind the wall. When we broke out the concrete we found a cavity, big cavity. Over the years the water had churned out all the soil between the wall and the foundation of the greenhouse behind it.
	This hole is a lot bigger than it appears in the picture. In fact when we first started putting debris (concrete) in the cavity it came out below the wall to be in our way again. Once the piers and haunches were complete and the was was sitting on it's new footings I moved to fill the cavity with a combination of new concrete and old debris. We're mixing the concrete with a fifty percent ratio of portland cement that we normally use. It's not about making is so much solid concrete as it is to get the fill to settle completely and not have movement at a later date. It was a big hole. Iris got to dance. And dance. And dance.
	This was a two stage affair. I filled in a couple of feet with the wet concrete day one. Then the next day I added debris and the more wet concrete. I was worried that if I'd poured it all at once the expanding concrete would move the wall. Here's a shot of us almost there.
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