#246 In which our hero continues the discussion of his backyard--or what's left of it.

When last we spoke, the contractor had muscled the cement patio and sidewalk out of the backyard and side of house, respectively. That took all of the first day, more or less. Since the guy doing the work had budgeted two hours to finish the removal, well, let's say I was concerned.

That afternoon as he was cleaning up he said he'd be back at "about the same time tomorrow." Of course, he originally told me he wanted to be there at 8:30am, and didn't show up until 9:30am.

The next day, he didn't get here until about 10:45am. Now, to be fair, I have to say it was Memorial Day weekend, so it was probably a nightmare to pick up equipment, etc. If I ever have big work like this done again, I won't schedule it over a holiday. This guy probably lost an hour trying to get one of these:


THE TRENCHER! He unloaded this angry-looking machine and carefully rolled it around into the back yard. After some staking of lines and measurement, the trencher started to dig, well, trenches.




After sufficient dirt was dug up and piled on the remains of my grass, he started to lay out the perforated pipe.



This is the stuff that's supposed to really cure the water problems. In addition to the pipe, we're having two large catch-basins installed (the one at the back of the property line is shown above). This pipe/basin combo is supposed to suck up all the surface water AND help the saturated land dry out faster. I hope they work. Because if they don't, the next step is to build an 8' levee all the way around my property.

And here's a photo of my wife pressing her boobs against the window.

The trenching and layout of pipe took the remainder of the weekend, including Monday. We also had a significant amount of material (gravel, dirt, topsoil) delivered to (read: dumped on) the driveway:

And that's pretty much where we're at. The contractor told us he thought he could bust out the entire project in a long weekend, but clearly he could not. Part of that was the surprisingly thick patio, and part of it was that he had trouble getting some of his crew to work on Memorial Day.

Something he didn't bother to tell us when he bid the job was that he has a regular Monday-Friday job. Which means he can't work on weekdays. Which would have been fine if he really did finish the job on Monday... but again, he did not. So all the crap you see above has been sitting in our driveway for the week.

I'm a little pissed about it, but his work up to this point has been solid. And he did come in at $2K less than the next highest bid. I guess you get what you pay for. But if I can save two grand and have to deal with not being able to get my car in the garage for a week, I can deal.

Now, there's talk about rain this weekend. If this guy can't or won't work in the rain... then that's another issue. He'll be back tomorrow. Can't wait to see what time he gets here.

To be continued.

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