Over three years ago, on a rainy, chilly morning in March 2020 large machinery set up under the tree to drill for core samples on our lot. Greeted by a sign bidding neighbors to "say goodbye to this tree/view" it didn't feel terribly welcoming. But, change is hard and folks don't like it.
When Scott and I approached the geotechnical engineering firm the first thing we told them was "Rule #1. The house can't slide down the hill." Rule #2? See rule number one. After initial geotechnical review we were told that we could likely get by with a standard foundation - Yay!! Standard foundations are much less expensive than more complicated ones. Further reviews and a change of ownership of the geotechnical firm resulted in the bad news. Yes, the lot is buildable, but you will need a much more robust foundation which includes pilings and grade beams and it will cost significantly more. Sigh. But rule #1, the house can't slide down the hill.
So here we are three years later annoying the neighbors once again. Actually, the neighbors have been really great for the most part and Scott has done his level best to be a good neighbor. But it's easy to understand how disruptive new construction can be, especially when the new constructions requires pilings. Twenty of them.
Starting in the northeast corner of the foundation, Pile King (yes, it's really the name of the company) pounded a 21 foot piling into the earth with a 3,000 pound weight. With the aid of a coupling they added another 21 foot piling, and another... In total the northeast most piling was driven in 45 1/2 feet! Fortunately that corner of the lot was the softest ground and most of the pilings didn't need to be driven near as far down.
Compelling video...right? And just a bit noisy. You can empathize with our future neighbors! Over two and a half days twenty pilings were driven into the earth. Still, the plans called for 546 feet of 6 inch diameter pilings with 1/2 inch walls. Due to soil conditions a total of 811 feet of pilings were driven into the ground. The pilings were load tested to ensure they could handle the weight of the structure to be built on them. We were told we could build a skyscraper on them. I guess that checks off rule #1!
