The Big Dig

Yesterday was d-day, otherwise known as the big dig at the camp-ovich (like that last name combo thing?!) residence.  I was super excited.  Seriously.  Ask Colby how many times I woke up in the middle exclaiming, “it’s sewer pipe day” with a little squeal like a kid at Christmas.  I was wide awake first thing in the morning and was ready for the crew’s arrival at 7 am sharp.  It all started with trying to locate the sewer pipe.

Their little sewer pipe locator sounded alot like aliens, because apparently I know what that sounds like.  I had to check a few times to make sure we weren’t being invaded Independence Day style.  Finding the sewer pipe was slightly more difficult than expected.  Hmmm…perhaps because there was literally none of it left.  Then it was time to bring in the big guns…the heavy machinery!

Oh how I love me some heavy machinery!  Also note how I was taking pictures from the second floor window.  I didn’t want to be that creepy homeowner lurking around the job site taking pictures.  Instead, I chose to be the creepy homeowner lurking from their second floor office taking pictures out the window.  Classy.  After unloading all the equipment and prepping the detour for safety (yeah…we’re that important that we closed down the street) and the digging began…first with a little pavement cutting.

And then the big digging began and seemed to drag on all day.

The digging really seemed to take forever.  Here’s how it stood around lunchtime.

The crew had just barely found the sewer pipe.  Why was it taking so long when we were told it’s usually about a half a day job?  Well…you see…our sewer main runs completely parallel and underneath the water main.  For fear of breaking the pipe, there was a lot of slow and careful digging going on.  In the words of our excavator operator, “it sucked!”  If you look closely, you can see where they found the water and sewer mains.

It’s in the bottom right corner.  After lunch, the crew returned and widened out the trench, almost completely spanning the road.

Unfortunately for us, the city sewer line isn’t on our side of the street…booooo!  And is found way on the other side, making our project more labor intensive and more expensive….double booooo!  So the hand digging continued until the entire old, clay pipe was discovered and could be removed, then the new pipe installation began.

Yay for a new sewer pipe!

The city’s water department guy came over to check on the project at one point.  He looked at our new pipe and exclaimed, “That will outlast the house.”  It’s official…we’re never moving now that we have a brand new sewer main and will probably not have to dig it up EVER.  So next began the long, slow process of putting things back together.  It was also a boring process for the photo stalker.  But it was pretty cool when they brought in the gravel truck!

And dumped the gravel into the trench.  The excavator guy was amazing!  I couldn’t believe how easily he whipped that thing around!

The crew layered in gravel with dirt dug up from the hole and then compacted it all, which took for…ev…er (does anyone else channel The Sandlot when saying for…ev…er…gets me every time!).  Oh…and the compactor was uber loud.

They repeated the process of gravel/dirt/compacting several times while cleaning up the area.

Then around 8:00 pm they were finally done!  I don’t have an after picture since it was pitch black and we were running late for softball.  But it’s not terribly exciting, just a dirt patch in the middle of the road.  What is exciting is the peace of mind we get every time we flush!  No more worrying about if this is the flush or load of laundry that does the sewer pipe in.  So now I’m back to being broke after shelling out some serious dough yesterday…but it was so worth it for the happy flushes that will go down over the next couple of years!