survey says…oops!

Our original contractor made a pretty serious error during excavation. In fact, there seem to be many of them. We started measuring the size of the wall, and comparing it to the survey markers…and there are big problems. All these red string lines should be lined up with the actual wall, and our new concrete guy, Brent Harris, is standing in the gap that should not be. No wonder we removed twice as many truckloads of material as we expected to.

(We’ve terminated our contract with the original contractor, who shall go unnamed. In fairness, they did tell us they were moving the house location by “a foot”, but they never told us there was any kind of error. We’re going into mediation and/or binding arbitration with them, to resolve a whole ton of issues. In the mean time, we’ve hired Bob Hartwell to complete our house and Brent to complete the foundation construction. Everything is going incredibly well with Bob and Brent.)

Because measurements seemed off, we got the site resurveyed, and our worst fears were confirmed:

• the wing walls are excavated 3 feet too far into the hillside
• the back wall is excavated more than 1 foot too far into the hillside
• the shelf in the left side is about 6” too high
• the back wall is not square to the side walls, it’s 9” deeper on the left
• the shelf in the back wall is not level, it’s about 9” higher on the right

Here are some pix, showing details.

Looking along the back wall in the first photo. See how the pink string is more than 2 feet out from the wall? It should be 10” from the wall, showing the front face of the retaining wall we will build up against the shoring wall.

The string is also more than a foot above the ground, showing the surface of our 1st floor slab. They excavated a bit too far down, too. No wonder we hauled so much extra dirt and rock from the site.

In the next photo, see the pink string across the middle, about 10 feet in the air? This string is level. You can see how the shelf is not level with the string, nor with the fence line or the upper foundation.

The project manager for our original contractor REALLY fucked up. Our architect and engineer are working on moving the house, and changing dimensions to fit. More $$$!!!