Today was a much slower day than usual as both Brad and Corey had classes in the afternoon, Bill S had some personal appointments, and I had been fighting a dirty cold for the last two days. Notwithstanding our aches and pains, we did manage to add about an extra 8'-10' of trenching to the project.
To give you an idea of what we're now up to, we have to dig a trench 18"-24" deep around the inside perimeter of the baggage room basement. Because of a shortage of manpower, we're piling the excavated clay in a pile in the basement which we will later haul outside when we get the extra manpower.
The diagram below illustrates what we have to do. The solid line indicates what we've done and the dashed line indicates what we have left to do.
Once we get the trench dug, we then install a 6" "Big-O" drain tile in the bottom of the trench and back to the sump pit. And then backfill the trench with 1" clear septic-bed crushed stone. The crushed stone is hauled from the north end of the Museum's property.
But we're not there yet so we'll keep on working away on the trenching.
This morning we went down the basement stairs into the bowels of the basement in anticipation, wondering if our sump pump installation had been working all week. If it was working, we should be working on firmer ground instead of mushy clay. If it was working, the clay would be dropping off the shovel instead of sticking like a 10-ton weight to the end of the shovel. Would we see solid clay or would we see mushy?
It wasn't obvious as we stepped into the baggage room basement as our eyes hadn't yet adjusted to the light. I took the "trouble light" that had been hanging over the top of the sump pit and flicked it on. Eureka! The water level was down to where it should be and..... wonder of wonders!!..... we were walking on solid clay!!
For the next two hours, Bill S, Brad, Corey and I pounded in a couple of 2"x 4" stakes, screwed in some 8-footers into the stakes and into the floor joists, providing support to the plastic ABS piping so that a) people wouldn't fall into the sump pits, b) the sump pumps and the discharge pipes would have some support, and c) the ABS piping along the floor joists would have a proper slope so that the water would drain.
After a short break at mid-morning, we got down to the business at hand. There's a window well that used to provide fresh air into the basements from the breezeway. This was covered in donkeys ages ago with a concrete slab and the window well had a whole pile of rubble piled on the ledge. Ross had wanted this cleared out so that the concrete slab could be busted to allow air to be drawn into and through the basements and sucked out by the big fan that's in the furnace room basement. First, we shovelled the rubble from the well and at the base of the window well into buckets which was hauled outside. Brad and Corey did double duty in getting the 50 - 60 buckets of this junk out of the basements, up the stairs and dumped over the side of the swamp. This brought us up to noon hour and time for lunch.
After lunch, Bill S had to leave us which only left Brad, Corey and me to do the grunt work. Our objective was to start excavating for the trenches. Given that there were only 3 of us, we weren't about to kill ourselves trucking full pails of clay through the basements, up the stairs, across the tracks and over into the swamp. So we had to resort to "Plan B" instead of "Plan A".
To get started Brad and I started digging a trench on each side of the sump pump, dumping the clay into the pails
When Brad had dug his trench down to the depth of two shovels, we would then switch sides and he would carry on at the end of my trench and continue digging the clay out to the depth of two shovels, dumping the clay into the buckets.
Working on Brad's trench that he just left, I would then dig the trench down to its final depth of 24" with a slight slope on the bottom of the trench so that the water will drain towards the sump pit. When we get to the far end of the baggage room basement, the trench will be about 16" deep instead of the current 24". As you can see from the photo below, we've go the trench down fairly deep. (You can also see some of the bracing we added to the ABS plastic pipe to stabilize the sump pump and to provide some protection for the sump pit so that you don't fall into the sump pit.) On the left in front of Corey, you can just start to see the pile of dirt rising up the side of the old concrete column that used to support the floor.
With all of these pails being filled with clay, what do we do with the clay we've dug out? As I said above, we had to resort to Plan B. Since there was only the 3 of us, instead of trucking the pails up the stairs, Corey dumped the clay in a big pile in the middle of the baggage room basement. Here's what the pile looked like halfway through the afternoon as Corey dumps a pail of clay onto the pile. (I've highlighted the bottom edge of the pile to give you an idea of how much clay we dug out of the trenches.)
The clay came out relatively dry - if you can ever call clay dry - instead of the usual sticky, gooey mess that we were working with in the bathroom basement. Aside from the fact that the water levels in the swamp are at their lowest, the sump pump had been doing its job all week lowering the water table as the water was pumped out of the baggage room basement.
We're now short of manpower as two of the lads have gone back to school. However, we may be getting a couple of extra lads in the next couple of weeks, at which time, we'll be able to start trucking the clay pile outside. In the meantime, the pile is going to get bigger, and bigger, and bigger.
By the end of the day, we had made a good start with about 12' of trenching dug to the proper depth. Next week, it'll be more of the same.
Today was quite a different pace from what we had been doing for the previous 2 1/2 months. No digging clay or slinging crushed stone today! Hard to believe it eh!? For the past 10 weeks we've been doing nothing but digging out wet, mucky clay out of the basements and trucking back crushed stone - it's been hot, sweaty, grunt work.
When we arrived this morning, the first thing we looked at was the sump pit - the 45-gallon steel barrel that we had installed last week. The water in the barrel was about 12" from the top - a good indication of where the water level out in the swamp was at. Our objective for the day was to get the sump pump and the necessary plumbing installed so that we could start pumping out the water and lowering the water table in the baggage room basement.
Cory, Bill S and I started with 1 1/2" ABS rigid plastic pipe working both ends against the middle - first fitting fitting bits and pieces of pipe and fittings together at the sump pump end and then moving to the other end by the drains - cutting into the mains, installing a Y and working the pipe back to the sump pump. We had a couple of "oops" moments but we were able to quickly recover (that's what I like about ABS plastic pipe!). In between all of this, we had to make several trips over to Rideau Lumber to pick up bits and pieces (big and small) to make it all fit together.
By lunch time it seemed as if we hadn't made much progress but it's always the case that the prep work is the most important. We went back at it on our return at 1:15 and by 2:30 we had the plumbing pretty much completed. We took some extra time to judiciously place a few 2"x 4"s so as to keep the sump pump upright in the pit.
And then came the moment of truth. Corey kept an eye on the plumbing in the bathroom basement and I kept an eye on the plumbing in the baggage room basement. On signal, we plugged in the sump pump. We heard the whirr of the sump pump motor - but no sound of the water swooshing through the pipes. Or so it seemed. Had we installed the check valve the wrong way!? Did we have a major leak? Why can"t we hear the water running through the pipes!?
And then we heard the sound of music. No! Then we heard the sound of water rushing through the pipes. It had just taken a few seconds longer for the pipes to fill up with water. No leaks in the stuff we had glued together!! And only a few drops around the check valve (I forgot to put on some teflon tape!). And a small stream of water coming out of the union but that was easy enough to fix with a few twists, some moving of the pump and some teflon tape.
The sump pit was quite full of water so it took a few minutes for it to empty out and then the moment of truth - would the sump pump shut off??? Yup. Right on cue.
And so we have another success story. Last week we successfully installed the sump pit. Today we successfully installed the sump pump and plumbing. And in the weeks to come, we'll have even more success stories as the pump keeps working to lower the water table and we start digging some trenching to install some drain tile and crushed stone.
Stay tuned for when we start to dig the trenches in the baggage room basement - the continuation of the adventures of "The Swamp Chronicles".
After a two week hiatus, we were at it again this morning. Mike and Jesse have gone back to school so we had Brad and Corey with help from Bill S and Steve G to start the second major step in draining the swamp in the baggage room basement.
The key to any drainage project, whether it's a swamp, the bottom of a sewer trench or your basement, is a good sump pit. I've seen sump pits so shallow that the sump pump works overtime constantly pumping out small pails of water at a time instead of 45 gallons. Okay, so I exaggerate a bit on the volume but I have seen sump pumps burn out because the sump pit wasn't of large enough capacity.
In our case, we weren't going to have that problem because we had a 45-gallon steel barrel (kindly donated to the cause by Allan W) with both ends torched out (actually they were plasma-cuttered) and two 8" diameter holes cut in the sides as inlets for the "Big-O" drain tile that's going to be installed into trenches to be dug around the inner perimeter of the baggage room basement.
The challenge was to dig a hole 48" deep and 36" in diameter in sufficient time in thick gooey clay so that the hole didn't fill up with water before we had the hole finished. So we started the usual task of digging out 2 shovels of thick mucky clay, dumping the clay into the plastic pails, with Corey, Brad, and Bill trucking them through the basements, up the stairs, across the tracks and dumping the clay over the edge of the berm.
In short order we had the hole dug down to 24" and so far the water was only a small trickle, easy to contend with. Of course rubber boots were a necessity as, the deeper you dug the hole, the muckier it got to be. Corey and Brad were kept busy with a continuous flow of pails full of clay and water going up the stairs and outside and a continuous flow of empty pails coming back downstairs. (That's Corey in the photo below hiking full pails of wet clay out of the baggage room basement. Each pail weighs a good 40-50 lbs.)
It was a race against time as the minute I stopped digging to take a break, the water would come pouring in and no telling if we would have to abandon this hole. With a bit of steady shovelling, we were able to get the hole down to 36" deep and we were still smiling as we seemed to be winning the race. However, there was no time to stop for a break as you never knew if there was going to be a crack in the soft clay and a torrent of water might start pouring through. (You can see that my shirt's a bit more wet than in the photo above.)
It's at the depth of 36" that the soil structure starts to go through a drastic change. Instead of thick clay, the soil starts to change into a porous gravel mixed in with clay. That's when the water starts to pour in. As you shuffle your feet around in the bottom of the hole, the clay and gravel turn into a soupy mess. And the only way to shovel this stuff out is to use a McDonald's drink cup as a bailing can and bail the soupy mess out into a half-size plastic pail which you then dump into the large pails. Don't try carting that mess outside as it will never make it. It'll slop all over the place on its way up the stairs and out the door. So we simply dumped it into one corner of the baggage room basement. Give it a week or so to dry out and it will be solid clay.
By 11:30 (2 1/2 hours after we started), we had the hole down to 48" deep - the depth that we wanted. You can see in the photo below how fast the water has started to seep into the hole from the surround clay and gravel. That water is a good 3"-4" deep and below that is another 4"-6" of soupy clay. It took both Brad and Corey to haul me out of that hole as there was no way I could have climbed out all by myself.
Brad and Corey took 6 pails down to the north end on one of the lorrys and filled the pails up with 1" clear septic bed crushed stone which they then hauled down the stairs, and into the baggage room basement. I poured the 6 pails of crushed stone into the hole. The crushed stone sank to the bottom and formed a firm foundation to set the 45-gallon steel barrel on. I next placed some slabs of concrete block into the basement as a base for the sump pump.
In the meantime, the lads, along with Bill W and Steve G had gone back down to the North End to get another load of crushed stone, repeated the process of hauling it into the baggage room basement as I started to backfill the hole with crushed stone. Twelve buckets of stone later we had the sump pit back-filled to the mid-point of the barrel and it was time to break for lunch.
After lunch it was another trip to the North End for another load of crushed stone and we soon had the hole backfilled to the top. However, take a close look at the water level in the photo below and compare it to the levels in the photos above. The photo below was taken at 2:30 and the photo above was taken at 11:30. See how fast the water has risen in 3 hours. I expect that by next Thursday the water will be right up to the top of the barrel. That's how high the water table is in the basement. Our objective is to lower that water table by 24".
With the hole now completely backfilled to the top of the barrel, it was time to clean up and put the tools away.
Here's a photo of Corey and Brad inspecting the work before we invited the Board and guests to inspect the work. They do look kind of fatigued. And so was I.
As I told the Board members who were there today, those guys have done a tremendous job. Without them, I wouldn't have been able to even think about starting this job. So, next time you see them, make sure you thank them for their efforts.
Next week, we'll be taking a different tack as we install the 2" rigid ABS plastic pipe that will take the water away via the sump pump.
Last week, after 6 weeks of work, we got the bathroom basement completed - sump pit dug deeper with the 45-gallon steel barrel sump-pit liner put in place and backfilled with 1"-clear septic-bed crushed stone; trench 18"-24" deep dug all around the perimeter of the basement with 6" "Big-O" drain tile put in place and the trench then back-filled with crushed stone; excess clay all trucked out...... er........ bucketed out of the bathroom basement, through the baggage room basement, the waiting room basement, into the furnace room basement, up the stairs, across the tracks and dumped into the swamp outside;
How To Replace A Shovel Handle (In One Easy Lesson)
The lads were moving the stuff out so fast that one of the shovel handles started to split so we had to take it out of commission for some repairs. First thing to do was to grind the steel rivet that holds the handle in place off and punch it out with a pin-punch. Next thing was to give the shovel a couple of raps with the hammer to release the wooden handle. Next was to find a replacement handle as that was the cheapest alternative to buying a new one.
Would you believe that it's almost impossible to find replacement shovel handles? I had to go to 3 stores before I found a shovel handle at the 4th store? Home Hardware didn't have one. Home Depot didn't have one. Princess Auto didn't have one. Last stop was at Rona. And they had one!
From that point, it was easy installing the handle. Insert the handle into the shovel. Give handle a couple of good raps on the floor to seat it into the handle. Drill a 6mm hole through the shovel and the handle. Insert a 2 1/2"x 6mm bolt through the hole. Fit the nut onto the bolt. Tighten the bolt down.
The shovel looked a bit grungy when compared to the shiny new wooden handle that I then wire-wheeled the steel on the shovel. I was going to sandblast it but, as I had already installed the wooden handle, it was too long to put into the sand-blasting cabinet. After wire-wheeling the shovel, I polished it up with a bit of oil. Brand new shovel, ready to go back to work!
The Baggage Room Basement - The Saga Continues
Actually, the lads had gotten way ahead of me on the work. I had to leave early last week but they carried on with the task of removing the excess clay out of the baggage room basement under George M's tutelage and eye. On inspecting the work last Sunday (I was in MF on other matters relating to the G-Men), it was very obvious that a large amount of clay had been shovelled and bucketed out of the baggage room basement. We had gotten a good start on the next phase of "The Swamp Chronicles".
For most of the morning, Bill S and I were on the shovel-end of things down in the baggage room basement loading a whole pile of clay into the buckets. The lads were kept very busy trucking the stuff outside and dumping it into a pile on the edge of the swamp or throwing it over the edge. The pile you see below (with Mike on the end of the short shovel) is what had been pulled up out of the basement by mid-morning, to say nothing of the stuff that had been dumped or shovelled over the edge.
After lunch, Brad took over the shovelling chores and had the opportunity to use the sledge hammer on some large chunks of concrete. With the exception of some extra large pieces, we managed to get most of the visible concrete and rock into the buckets and dumped outside.
By the end of the day, we had about 3/4 of the excess clay, concrete and rock moved out of the baggage room basement. Let me tell you, that was quite a feat!!
This is what things looked like before we started. This is a photo of the northwestern corner 4 months ago.
And this is what things looked like at the end of today (the northwestern and northeastern corners at the end of the day. It's hard to believe that the clay was at least 12"-14" higher than what you see in these photos.
And the only tools we've been using is this stash of 15 buckets (a couple of them have bit the dust...... er..... clay), two shovels and a sledge hammer inside, plus two shovels outside. That's quite an accomplishment.
In the meantime, Merrill W and Bob C were working on the CP Wickham and managed to get it banging on 6 cylinders (unfortunately it's an 8-cylinder engine so there's a bit more work to do on it).
And Steve G was at it again with his weed whacker, whacking down the weeds (he left that big tall one that you see in the middle of the tracks standing to see if anyone would comment on it).
We'll be away for the next two weeks but Bill S has agreed to be the job-superintendent. If you're looking for something to do, Bill could use your help.
The Crushed Stone Saga
There's been some comments about our source of crushed stone down at the North End. So let me give you a bit of history on the various piles of crushed stone that you find at that end of the property.
The photo below is what I call the "Clarence McDonald Construction" pile of crushed stone. Back in 2005, Clarence and the boys rebuilt one block of Church St (new sewer, water, curbs, asphalt, etc) and used the North end to dump about 400 loads of fill into the swail. That made a big difference to the property! He left behind about half a truck load of crushed stone - sort of a going-away present to the Museum. As you can see from the pails, that's where we've been taking our crushed stone from. It's been sitting there for the last 5 1/2 years.
The next year, we brought in about 6 loads of crushed stone and tail-gated it along the new mainline re-alignment. Ties and rails have since been laid on top of that. Part of those loads was dumped alongside the switch so that it could serve as ballast. There's only been a couple of buckets that's been taken as ballast from that partial pile. That crushed stone was paid for by the Museum. We have taken half a bucket from that pile.
Somewhere around 2008 - 2009 (I probably have the dates all wrong), Steve Hunter and a bunch of guys laid down the ties and spiked the rail in place. They then brought in some crushed stone and used a "stone slinger" to place the stone. We haven't taken any crushed stone from those piles.
Just to set the record straight.
In conclusion
Part Deux of Draining the Swamp is progressing very nicely and we should have that job done in about another 3-4 sessions. Things are nicely moving along, eh!?
Next up, we're gonna dig the pit for the sump pump and play in the soupy, muddy water.
We got well into Phase 4 of draining the swamp in the bathroom basement today. In fact, we got so well into Phase 4 that we finished the job!!!
Yup, we got the sump pump installed and working, excess clay hauled out of the basement, trenches 18"- 24" deep dug around the perimeter, drain tile installed, and all backfilled with crushed stone - all completed today.
The three most difficult things to shovel are asphalt, concrete (before it's set), and crushed stone - in that order. I've shoveled two of the three. If you don't do it right, your forearms are aching after 45 minutes, every bone in your hands are screaming, and you're ready to throw in the towel...... er...... shovel. Fortunately, I had an old construction labourer give me a couple of lessons on how to shovel crushed stone (you don't) which I still use to this day.
Step #1 - Don't use a pointed shovel - use a flat shovel (problem is we only have round shovels).
Step #2 - Don't try to ram the shovel into the pile. Start at the bottom and bring your shovel up into the stone. Your shovel will start to fill up, stone-by-stone.
Step #3 - Don't try to "overfill" the shovel. It won't happen. Take what's on your shovel and dump it into the plastic pail.
And a couple more tips and tricks that I just happen to do automatically without thinking. So, using my lessons-learned from a few decades ago, I tried to show the lads how to do it. Some of them learned and some of them didn't. But there definitely is a big difference in the way everyone's been working from when we first started on Thursday, June 30th - only 6 weeks ago.
Now, if you don't believe that there's a right way and a wrong way to use a shovel, come and join us for the next phase of draining the swamp - the baggage room basement.
In the meantime, we managed to get 8 lorry-loads of crushed stone from our pile at the North End back to the station, down the stairs, through the basements and dumped into the trenches. That may not seem like much until you do some calculations.
We had 12 plastic buckets - 6 perched on each side of the lorry, filled almost to the brim with 1" clear, septic bed crushed stone. Each bucket had to weigh at least 50 lbs. Some quick calculations reveals that we hauled back 12 x 50 lbs = 600 lbs of crushed stone with each trip. As you can see from the grimacing on Mike's face, those buckets do indeed weigh at least 50 lbs.
We made 8 trips from the North End down to the station with 12 buckets of stone, each bucket weighing at least 50 lbs for a total of 600 lbs on each trip. The 8 trips with 600 lbs of stone meant that we hauled back 4,800 lbs of stone from the North End today. Almost 2 1/2 tons of crushed stone!!!
We now get to the difficult part of the job - hauling the buckets down the stairs, through the basements and into the bathroom basement. Here's how we do it.
We made 6 trips from the North End last week so that was an extra 3,600 lbs of crushed stone. Which, if we add in the 4,800 lbs of crushed stone, gives us a total movement in crushed stone of 8,400 lbs of crushed stone - over 4 tons in all!!!
But we got the job done!!!
Once we get the bathroom basement done, we'll be tackling the baggage room basement and giving it the same kind of treatment - sink a 45-gallon steel barrel 4' into the ground to create a sump pit for the sump pump. Glue some 2" rigid ABS plastic pipe together, bend it around, under and over some duct work, holes between basements, and around some wires. Connect it into the rest of the drains so that we can pump the water out of the basement. Then start digging some trenches around the perimeter of the basement, at the same time, busting up some of the old concrete columns that were pushed over when the floors were rebuilt, in addition to moving a whole pile of junk out of the basement.
In the meantime, if you see any of these lads, tell them they did one heck of a terrific job!!
Stay tuned for next week's continuing adventure of "The Swamp Chronicles!"
Okay, so it's not as big an event as landing on the moon, but we finally achieved what one might think was the impossible. This morning, we completed the 18"-24" deep trench around the inside perimeter of the bathroom basement. We got a whole pile of excess clay moved out so that if you wanted to put in a lift 6" of clear 1" septic-bed crushed stone over all of the bathroom basement and then add a 6" layer of concrete on top of some 6-mil plastic, the bathroom basement would all be ready. However, that's not on the top of the priority list. You should'a seen the pile of clay that was piled up outside when we broke for lunch. It was quite the pile.
In the meantime, we took the big coil of "Big-O" drain tile and rolled it from the main waiting room basement into the baggage room basement. If you think holding on to an Anaconda is a trick-and-a-half, you want to try uncoiling some "Big-O" drain tile. Brad uncoiled the pipe from the coil, threaded it through the opening into the bathroom basement and passed it on to Corey.
Corey then passed it on to me. All the while, the pipe was trying to recoil itself back into a big roll.
And I tried to push it into the bottom of the trench, all the while trying to keep the coil straight so that it would roll naturally into the bottom of the trench without it coiling back up again. While I've never wrestled an Anaconda, I kinda got the sense of what it might feel like as we tried to fit the "Big-O" drain tile into the bottom of the trench.
It was a bit of a task but we had the job done in about 30 minutes. By this time it was time to break for lunch so we all hiked up the street to Burger King where we recovered in the cool of their newly renovated restaurant.
After lunch, we then shifted into Phase 4 of the project, Phase 1 being lowering the 45-gallon steel barrel an extra 24" into the ground, Phase 2 being digging the trench around the perimeter of the bathroom basement, and Phase 3 being installing some 6" "'Big-O" drain tile into the bottom of the trench.
Phase 4 involves the moving of some 1" clear septic-bed crushed stone from the north end of the Museum back down to the station, and then lugging the crushed stone down the stairs, through the basements, into the bathroom basement, and filling up the trench with the crushed stone.
This is a different kind of grunt work. It's not glamourous or glitzy. It's back-breaking, hard on the knees, legs, arms, and muscles, to say nothing of the back. But it has to be done if we're to succeed in draining the swamp.
It's that same old question again.
How do you eat an elephant?
One bite at a time.
How do you move crushed stone into the bathroom basement?
One bucket at a time.
How do you fill a bucket?
One shovel-full at a time.
There's no other way to do it.
And that's how it's done.
First we liberated one of the lorries and moved it down to the north end next to the pile of crushed stone. This is stuff that's been left over from 2006 when we relocated the mainline onto its new alignment.
Then we shovelled the stone into the 8 plastic buckets that we used to move the heavy clay out of the basement (they're doing double-duty now, eh!?)
We then moved the loaded stone back down the tracks to the station.
We then off-loaded the buckets onto the station platform.
Then the fun begins! Each one of those pails weighs about 40 lbs. Truck them across the platform, down the stairs and into the furnace-room basement. Then it's into the waiting-room basement. Across that basement and shove the pail into the baggage room basement. Then across the baggage-room basement and shove the pail into the bathroom-basement.
Take that pail full of crushed stone and dump it into the trench. One bucket at a time. Slowly but surely, the trench gets back-filled with the crushed stone.
Repeat the process all over again.
We managed to get about 1/4 of the trench back-filled in spite of the heat and humidity. We made some really good progress today. If we can keep it up, we should have the baggage-room basement done in about another 2 weeks (we only work on this project on Thursdays).
In 5-weeks worth of work, working only on Thursdays (I'm only available on Thursdays), we've managed to get rid of the alligators (How do you drain the swamp when you're up to your eyeballs in alligators?), and get rid of the water. It's quite the difference between then and now!! Fer shur! Fer shur!
Today we had George M, Steve and Cliff, and John W inspect the work that's been done. If you want a personal guided tour, let me know. And make sure you let those young lads know that they've been doing a really good job. Without them we wouldn't have achieved what we have achieved.
Stay tuned for next week's episode.
PS - Steve and Cliff were really tearing up a storm cleaning the mainline track from the weeds. Cliff was running behind the lawn mower (This lad doesn't walk. He runs!). And Steve was right behind him with the weed-whacker cleaning up right next to the rails. Lotsa progress being made today, fer shur, fer shur!!
