The Wall Saga Continues

The recent rains have been a real obstacle in the construction of the wall, and the waterlogged soil caused additional pressure on the already failing wall causing it to bulge alarmingly an additional two inches into our neighbor's property. This also caused the post supporting the NE corner of our dining room to slip, jeopardizing the structural work our contractor is presently working on upstairs.

We had to scramble to ensure everything was shored up properly before continuing work on either the wall or the upstairs. Plenty of contractor drama ensued which we won't elaborate on here; suffice it to say, communication and trust is very important in a contractor relationship (which is why we value our general contractor so highly!), and things seem to be smoothed over now.

Above is the photo of the first section of wall, completed more than a week ago. As of today, the concrete construction company has put up additional shoring for the dining room post, knocked down the remainder of the old wall, and are a good way through digging by hand through bedrock to excavate the footing for the new wall, which is deeper and thicker than the completed section. They move surprisingly fast considering what they have to do.

The temporary shoring consists of a massively long 25-foot parallam (engineered wood) beam, supported in our neighbor's yard, visible in the lower picture. This provides maximum safety such that even if the wall had collapsed into our neighbor's yard, it would not have compromised the shoring and cause further (potentially catastrophic) damage to the house.