Saturday, March 04, 2006

The big rock

Now I'm wondering if maybe I took out too much concrete....The foundation at the corner is not straight; it bows out at an angle. Maybe the concrete was reinforcement for earthquake protection? Regardless, it was not properly put in, for example, with forms and then smoothed off.


I might stuff a rock right next to the concrete in the corner or show it to my landlord and offer to pay to have it fixed properly. But I really don't want concrete extending too far from the house because that's the sunniest spot.

I wasn't intending to dig too deep, but as I started digging out the soil, I struck a big rock. So I had to dig down and around it to get it out. It's on the left next to the pile of dirt. There are also a lot of roots left from the tree. So I'll need to cut those out.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Janice,

It looks to be like it was just an extra blob of concrete. Sometines, footings are poured using the trenched earth as a form, in which case extra concrete can ooze out near the uneven earth at grade level.

I don't know about California, but footings in Kentucky are at least 18"-24" below grade, so I would very much doubt that had anything to do with the footing.

Jeff

Janice Bakke said...

Thanks for the information, Jeff. I really don't know much about housing construction.

This duplex has been a rental for a long time and went through periods of neglect and random repairs. I'm also not sure of what earthquake damage might have occurred in the past.