Mobile foundation removal complete!

After four days of breaking and hauling, the four ribbon slab foundations from the mobile home are now gone!! Woohoo!! We rented a CASE 580 backhoe with a breaker bar and a diamond blade saw from Eastside Rentals in Bellevue/Redmond. Doug, one of the owners, was fantastic aiding me with the right piece of big equipment and training me on it in the yard prior to rental. I would highly suggest these guys if you ever need heavy equipment. The machine handled the slabs great. They ranged in thickness from 6 inches to 3 feet! The thicker chunks took a bit more work but we got them moved off. The breaker bar attachment, kind of like a gigantic jackhammer, popped thru most of the cement with no problem. Here it is breaking up the old mobile driveway. I had a ton of help from a few friends and would have not been able to complete the task in four days with out them. The vast majority of the chunks of cement are being used by my neighbor as fill. So we didn't have to pay to have it all hauled to the recycler.

After the cement was removed we switched out the breaker bar for a normal bucket and dug the trenches for the water and electrical lines. Now all is covered and ready for winter. We are hoping to get more work done if the weather allows. We will need a good stretch of dryness to get a truck in with soil and rock. We are planning on using 1 to 1 1/2 man basalt rock for the retaining wall to tie in with the basalt raised beds on the north and south of the house. Paul out at Pine Creek Nursery has been a great help with decisions on the rock and hardscaping. He's got a great place out on Hwy 2 off Sophie road. So for now we have a large soupy semi-level mud pit for a backyard, perfect for raising two boys.

Here is the view from the master bedroom after all the cement was taken off. The remaining slab was the old garage and will become a second level to the patio. We will surround it with raised beds of similar basalt rock and stairs off the back then acid stain it a dark olive/brown. The upper patio will match up to the front and back slabs for a walk around effect. It will reach out about 30 feet into the the backyard with access to the main house through the double doors. There will be three sets of stairs from the upper patio to the yard. (Completion date projected to be in the fall of 2011.)

We are also getting ready to head out to Scotland for the Adventure Travel and Trade Summit. We are good friends with the Prez and he is flying us out to help run the event. While we are out there I will be running in the Baxters Loch Ness Marathon. I will update as events unfold. hopefully with pictures from Scotland.

Tony