Excavation How bad is it?

[palmettoinspect]

My PB is in the middle of the excavation. I have some real concerns about the dig. There have been walls collapsing, the perimeters layout and the 6' sunshelf have been over-dug and overall looks to be sloppy work.

How concerned should I be?

 

[Arizonarob]

I’m not a professional by any means, but just looking at the sand that’s in your soil would make me think it would be difficult to hold its shape.
What is your PB saying about your concerns?

 

[jimim]

Mention to your builder about flashing the hole to hold its shape for rebar. They did thstcto mins cause I’ll sand and it kept caving in. They dug it and then next day a gunite team came in and threw 1 inch on all the walls to hold back sand and then the bebar guys were able to do their thing.

 

[MinerJason]

I'm somewhat familiar with the geology of that area, and that looks like coastal plains sand to me, which is going to be very challenging to get to hold a shape. I don't see anything that would suggest poor workmanship, just a very challenging soil to work with. They're going to need to use a lot of shotcrete to build things up to the shapes/water depths that you want, but in the end that just means a thicker, stronger shell. And I totally agree with jimim about a flash coat of shotcrete to prevent further wall collapses. The sooner they can do that, the less work they'll make for themselves later.

 

[palmettoinspect]

Thank you all for the replies.

Our areas has had very little rain and is unusually dry. Of the seven well points installed, one only is pumping very little water. The sub used our hose bibb to put some water in the bottom of the dig so he could jet the well points.

I failed to mention my concerns with the sub stems from him excavating/laying out the tanning lege for almost a day then for some odd reason just dug half of it out?!?!? Also, the sub is claiming the clay and groundwater are what's causing the caving issues when in fact the ground is super dry. As mentioned above the only water was from him using the hose bibb for jetting the well points. My other concern is that the sub is back and forth between our job and another. I can't tell if he's overworked, incompetent or what! The dig started on Tuesday and has yet to finish. Almost all the dirt is still on site as well.

My PB foreman and another guy from their company stopped by to review after I voiced my concern and they agreed it was a combination of sloppy work, that the ground was just too dry and a different route should've been taken once it was realized how dry everything was. They're planning to form the walls using plywood, sandbags and Steeltex for the shotcrete and end up backfilling after the shell is in place.

I'm just hoping this PB doesn't hit me with any additional charges.

 

[jimim]

Oh I would check on extra charges. My contract had in it about a typical dig and if anything different has to be done it was on me for his cost with him making no profit. I had to pay for flashing. I got hammered because the gunite crew was 2 hours away and they don’t come up my way much at all so I ended up paying 700 on material only but 2300 in time and labor for a 45 min job. Sucked but needed to be done.

Construction is like that. Stuff happens out of thier control. When I dug my house we couldn’t get my 1 porch frost wall to stay back so we ended up digging all the way down and making the basement bigger. I had to pay for all the extra material. Luckily my buddy was the one digging it and pouring the foundation. Overages suck.

Hey maybe your builder will pick it up. But I would deff ask.