Manhattan construction

[ron ll]

No, not NY is sinking, tho it is.

This is my Manhattan to celebrate the end of construction for the weekend. Our house is about 30’ from a 300’ vertical bank. It’s glacial till, (hardpan) and hasn’t moved in the 30 years we’ve been here other than a little topsoil slugging at the edge. But climate change is real, and we decided we needed a sleeping pill for the rainy season. So we are having the edge seriously reinforced as preventative maintenance. They are drilling 18’ caissons with steel wideflanges into the hardpan at 4’ o. c. These cantilever vertically to hold the bank in place. After several weeks, the drilling platform is in place and they’ll start drilling Tuesday.

Cheers!

8C1BB0A1-1409-4A6E-8F84-3C5CB29365DE.jpg

A303934D-6631-40D4-A812-AB178517AFB5.jpg

3C95CE84-EA51-44CC-9742-A3E96867A4B8.jpg

[ron ll]

Re: Manhattan construction

2B434E77-A094-4A8B-80D5-D5A098425091.jpg

A2FB25AE-6F3F-45C8-90B7-C49AEDAF85C2.jpg

450554D9-C2D1-4ACE-999B-23D897B6D0CF.jpg

[ron ll]

Re: Manhattan construction

Oops, they are drilling vertically, honest. This platform is about 14’ above grade.

[L.W. Baxter]

Re: Manhattan construction

sounds expensive. way to stimulate the economy, man! salud.

[hawkeye54]

Re: Manhattan construction

Really, really nice view from that deck - well worth the expenditure to preserve it, methinks !

[JamesCaird]

Re: Manhattan construction

Looks like Shilshole Bay Marina from Sunny HIll? Nice going. Cheers/ JC

[Breakaway]

Drill, baby, drill!





Cool project, Ron.


Kevin


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

[ron ll]

Re: Manhattan construction

Yes, Sunset Hill above Shilshole. I doubt the bank was endangered and probably would have been fine for the rest of our lives and until someone else decided to bulldoze this house and build anew. But climate change is making all bets off, and in the heavy rainy season the sleep isn’t quite as peaceful as it used to be. Several other houses along this bank have done this as well. The crew is great, and really hard workers. Amazing to see what they get done. Houses along here are close together so no room to drive any equipment in beside the house. Everything has to be brought in by hand and assembled in the back yard. The most noise so far has just been the cordless impact screw drivers. The drill is hydraulic and reasonably quiet except for the diesel engines driving the hydraulic pumps, which are inside an insulated shed.

So yes, a very expensive sleeping pill, and I’m sure we will always wonder if it was really necessary. But the consequences of a slide would be a lot more expensive. I guess views like this just aren’t cheap.

[ron ll]

Re: Manhattan construction

Here is the front yard where they had to build a ramp from the street up to the second floor level. All equipment and even the 18’ steel WFs had to be hand carried up this ramp and around a tight corner. Fortunately the neighbor is letting us use her driveway for the duration.

26BD0C63-65E8-4B00-9E03-5D06BA6D48EB.jpg

[Rich Jones]

Re: Manhattan construction

Expensive but also a good selling point down the road.
What are your homeowners insurance rates like?

That is a million dollar view!

That is a massive project just in the prep work needed.
It's wonderful that you have such a good neighbor.

[ron ll]

Re: Manhattan construction

Resale is not an issue. We’ll probably die here and they’ll just bulldoze the house with us in it. We have no kids and as they say, you can’t take it with you.

[Rich Jones]

Re: Manhattan construction

The first photo in post #2 shows some very long I-beams lying on the drilling platform.
Are these what gets dropped into the holes?
It will be interesting to see just how this all goes.
The drill should be starting up any minute now!

[ron ll]

Re: Manhattan construction

The first photo in post #2 shows some very long I-beams lying on the drilling platform.
Are these what gets dropped into the holes?
It will be interesting to see just how this all goes.
The drill should be starting up any minute now!

Yes, I can’t get to them to measure right now, but they look to be about W10x45 (~8”x10”) x 18’. They will be lowered vertically into the hole with the top at about 6” above existing grade, and grouted into place. There will be 10 total at about 4’ o.c. There are only five here now, they’ll bring the other five when these are in place and out of their way. I think drilling starts tomorrow (Tues). Probably several days drilling for each hole, if they don’t hit any large rocks.

[Nicholas Carey]

Re: Manhattan construction

Yes, I can’t get to them to measure right now, but they look to be about W10x45 (~8”x10”) x 18’. They will be lowered vertically into the hole with the top at about 6” above existing grade, and grouted into place. There will be 10 total at about 4’ o.c. There are only five here now, they’ll bring the other five when these are in place and out of their way. I think drilling starts tomorrow (Tues). Probably several days drilling for each hole, if they don’t hit any large rocks.

Erratics are always a crapshoot in the glacial till. A few years after we bought our house, we got a knock on the door on morning. It was the guy who owned our place in the 1960s and 70s. He wanted to see how the place was doing.

He was a farmboy from North Dakota, and had been in the Army Corps of Engineers, working at the Ballard Locks. Seems he was the one who had dug the basement and poured a foundation for the house back in 1971 or 1972. He'd gotten a quote for $5,000 at the time and thought that that was too big. So he bought himself a used dump truck and a dirt conveyor, and being a North Dakota farmboy, jacked up the house and started digging. We have something like 10 foot headroom in the basement because he discovered a giant 10-foot or so erratic under the house. Blowing it up with dynamite seemed out of the question, so he and a Boeing engineer friend came up with the idea of digging a deeper hole next to the erratic and rolling it into the hole. Which they did.

[LeeG]

Re: Manhattan construction

So it isn’t for the floating dock ramp to the water.