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Normal amount of lumber to find when digging a hole?


scotts90ranger

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So, as I've said somewhere I'm building a shop, 36'x48' pole barn style with 14' rafters and two roll up doors with 2 post lift and such... Anywho, have permit now and dug the holes for the poles. They're supposed to be a minimum of 2' diameter by 4' deep from the top of the 6" of concrete footing to the top of the 4" of gravel that will be under the slab so if you do your math that's 50" from dirt to bottom of hole. The bottom of the hole has to be on "native soil" for compaction reasons. 13 of the 14 holes went just fine, but #9 was a pain in the rear...

So how much lumber is normal to find under the ground? So far that one hole is about 6' diameter and I'm down to about 4' deep in a "lumber soup" since I got to water. I'm pretty sure there's 6" or so left but I'll wait until the water dries up... I've pulled up 6 wheel barrows full of lumber scraps (I'm pretty sure one of the previous owners got the scraps from the truss company down the street) just today, some pieces about 3' long, and probably 100 nail plates of various size and a few pounds so far of nails and staples. I've already taken two tractor buckets of wood scraps to the burn pile... I don't want to pour a slab and have the wood break down and leave a large void, so it has to go...

If it wasn't for that one hole I'd only need one pallet of concrete and would probably be a couple steps further than I am now...
 


sgtsandman

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The old timers were great for filling holes with trash, especially during construction projects. It know it ticks me off. Makes more work to get a project done cleaning up that legacy BS.
 

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The ex's parents owned a farmhouse when we were dating, and after they built a new one behind it, they knocked down the house and filled the basement of it with the debris, and what did not fit in the basement, they dug a huge pit way out back and bulldozed it in and covered it.

You might have something like that..... might be worth a backhoe rental if you haven't already to dig it out the mess.

AJ
 

PetroleumJunkie412

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I live with this shit with my shop. Had a 10,000 gallon oil tank removed in February. I found out it was there by questioning why my sidewalk was sloping.

That was the side of my building.

My front sidewalk dropped 2" over winter in one spot.

****.

Oh. And it was built by tri Valley waste, now waste management.


I've seen some sh*t, man.
 

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I know a guy that tore an old deck off the back of his house and burried it in a hole in the back of his property. Kinda sounds like what youre dealing with here...

You hit water on that one but not the other ones?
 

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Dont dig holes. Whats under the ground is none of your damn business!
 

scotts90ranger

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It's truss pieces for sure, there's pieces of trusses and almost all ends are cut not broken, and only hit lumber in one hole out of 14. I hit water on all of them, plus it rained 1/2" on Saturday... There's all sorts of small triangles of wood as well, it's gotta be scrap, also found a few unit labels from 2x4's and 2x6's from 2010...

For the pad I pulled out a 30'x40' patch of grapes, this was on one edge of it. A few years ago I think the previous owners that did this stopped by out on a drive and mentioned something about this but I forgot about it since I didn't have a shop plan at the time...

So I'm not the only one to deal with this BS then
 

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The ex's parents owned a farmhouse when we were dating, and after they built a new one behind it, they knocked down the house and filled the basement of it with the debris, and what did not fit in the basement, they dug a huge pit way out back and bulldozed it in and covered it.

You might have something like that..... might be worth a backhoe rental if you haven't already to dig it out the mess.

AJ
SOP.

Usually they dig a big hole, push all the buildings in it, touch it off and then push the hole back in after the fire goes out.
 

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Oh yeah. It’s what you do for a living. Isn’t it?

If you find trusses 10,000 ft down, I want to hear that story and see photos
Maybe like another Curse of Oak Island with buried treasure and everything.
 

PetroleumJunkie412

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Oh yeah. It’s what you do for a living. Isn’t it?

If you find trusses 10,000 ft down, I want to hear that story and see photos
I've found bacteria, petroleum, water, minerals, and asteroids.



Annnnnnnd..... That's about it.
 

PetroleumJunkie412

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