During construction it is likely that the lawn will sustain significant damage from building material storage, dumpsters, machinery, utility trenching, and general use. Once the finish carpentry begins, however, most of the heavy yard use is over – you can begin to clean up debris and plan any landscaping you want done.

Dig safely!

Iowa law requires that any person (including homeowners, professionals, and public or private entities) planning any type of excavation work within the state of Iowa, must notify the Iowa One Call notification system at least 48 hours prior to excavating. Iowa One Call will come to the site to mark the locations of all buried utilities.

To arrange for this FREE service, call 1-800-292-8989.

This article was written by Greg F., a member of the St. Louis Rehabbers Club. You can contact him at thewatershed@juno.com.

In order to prepare the hole for the new footings and foundation, we had to replace about three feet of expansive soil with crushed concrete. This provides a stable place on which to build the foundation for the house move.

The truck distributed the concrete into the hole where workers evened it out and flattened it with a plate compactor.

Nothing is as simple as it seems. About a third of the way into digging the hole for the new foundation, I got a call from the trackhoe operator. He informed me that he was concerned about the soil he was finding below the surface.

He kept digging and I called an engineer to inspect the soil. That afternoon the engineer called back and said we had a foundation hole full of "shale". Shale is a type of expansive soil, meaning that it expands and contracts with varying moisture levels. This is not good for a foundation to sit on!