We started drilling today. Full production mode.

Drill with auger full of cuttings.

Back over the wall to drill deeper.

Drilling on the east wall.

After the holes were drilled to a depth of 15 feet, the pumper truck arrived to get set up for the first pour.

Concrete pumper arrives and starts to set up.

Our soil engineer was present to inspected the maximum depth of each hole prior to placement of the rebar cage. The structural engineer had to verify that the rebar cage was positioned correctly in the hole prior to pouring of concrete.

Steve Duquette (Duquette Engineering) reviewing progress with Tim Newman (Bill Brown Construction).

The operations got a bit messy once the drill hit water and we had to use the casing with the tremie. You can see the first completed holes below.

First completed concrete piers on east side.

The pump operator used a wireless console to control the pumping. This way, the operator could be positioned anywhere on the job site in order to manage the pumping operations.

Pumper operator with console.

Ready for tomorrow’s drilling.

You can see the 30 ft tremie in the foreground with the two 20 ft casings and the rebar cages in the background.

Tremie with casings and rebar cages.

Oh, I did manage to pick up the Dodge RAM 1500 in Antioch today.

Dodge RAM 1500 odometer reading (159,677 miles).

The LowDrill arrived and we started drilling the shoring piers today.

After preparing the site and the rebar cages, we started drilling and seeing what the soil conditions were truly like.

LowDrill arrives on site.

One of the first tasks was to position everything on the site, including the rebar cages that Darren and had worked so diligently on yesterday.

Tops of rebar cages, showing HDPE and spacers.

HDPE covered with flexible conduit.

Close up of rebar cages with HDPE.

It took a while to get everyone in position and then the drilling started. They started on the only hole on the north side of the property and used the auger bit. Initially, the soil was bone dry and they drilled down at to just over 20 feet.

Auger bit full of cuttings.

Give it a spin and drop the cuttings.

Clean auger bit.

Measuring the hole depth.

First hole completed.

Nice, clean hole ready for rebar cage.

Darren arrived on Friday from Edmonton and, unfortunately, brought the rain with him.

Yesterday we went to the job site and then bought materials. We had a tough time finding flexible conduit to put over the HDPE tubing so it could bend 180 degrees within the 12 inch rebar cages. But we found some.

Today, we had quite a time putting the cages together. It was ‘learn as you go’ and I think there is still lots to learn.

Darren and Bryan starting with coffee and their new boots.

Jo-Anne dropped by and had us pose for pictures in front of the gradeall.

Posing with new boots.

We worked all day, putting the high density polyethelene (HDPE) tubing into the rebar cages. There are 25 cages (20 thirty-foot cages and 5 thirty-eight foot cages) that two (2) U-tube loops must go into.

There was quite a learning curve as we completed almost 18 of the 25 cages.

Bryan working on the rebar cages.