digger242j
Administrator
This is similar to DK's thread about customers asking for prices when they're not really sure of what they want. It's a different kind of question though, in that the customer knows what he wants--how big, and how deep, and exactly where. It's just that *I* don't know (and I know I don't know), how hard it's going to be to dig. An aging mother-in-law might be moving in with them soon. Whether he does the job at all, as opposed to selling his house and moving to somewhere bigger depends on the answer.
Here's the situation--The potential customer knows what he wants. He'd like a foundation for an addition where his backyard is now. It'll be 30' wide and reach 16' out from the back of the existing house. He'd like it to be a full basement. Here's the problem--The house sits 50' back from the street and is probably 15' higher than the street, so the trip to the backyard will be a constant struggle up and down the front lawn. There's no way a truck will get up and down there to get loaded, so it'll a long run with every bucketfull to reach the truck. There's only about 12' between his house and the neighbor's, so the neighbor will have to be very understanding about his lawn getting trashed in the process too.
It gets worse.
The back of the house has an existing concrete patio, and a retaining wall. The wall is at 14' from the house, so the excavation will extend 4' past the existing wall. The wall is about 4' high, but the ground slopes up beyond it, to a bench that's been cut into the hill about 7' above the level of the patio. In other words, by the time the addition is built, if there's a doorway in the second floor it won't be more than a few steps down onto that bench. There's rock showing back there already. It's shale where it's showing, but around here it can go from real easy digging the real hard digging in the space of a few feet. It can go from shale to blue limestone in a few feet. The retaining wall is a soldier wall--steel beams placed vertically, with timbers inserted between them. The guys who built the wall had to jackhammer to set the steel, and they only went 2' deep.
So, the problems with digging this foundation are obviously going to be the tight quarters, the long run down the hill to the truck, and the very high potential for rock that'll need to be hammered out. None of that is impossible to deal with, but with the rock there, only a clairvoyant will be able to tell how long it might take.
The real problem is that the go/no go decision hinges on the cost of the excavation. I guess he's got the rest of it budgeted out to a number he can live with, *if* he can afford to get the hole dug. He'd go with a crawl space if the full basement is impractical. Add to this problem the fact that I may be too busy otherwise to do the job, so whatever I think won't necessarily be the same thing that the excavator who actually gets the job will think. He's a friend of a builder that gave me five houses to dig last year, so I do feel a little pressure to not just blow him off.
I have a couple of thoughts about how to handle this problem but I'll keep them to myself for now. I'd like to hear what other ideas might come form the group here.
What would you guys do? What do you tell the customer?
Here's the situation--The potential customer knows what he wants. He'd like a foundation for an addition where his backyard is now. It'll be 30' wide and reach 16' out from the back of the existing house. He'd like it to be a full basement. Here's the problem--The house sits 50' back from the street and is probably 15' higher than the street, so the trip to the backyard will be a constant struggle up and down the front lawn. There's no way a truck will get up and down there to get loaded, so it'll a long run with every bucketfull to reach the truck. There's only about 12' between his house and the neighbor's, so the neighbor will have to be very understanding about his lawn getting trashed in the process too.
It gets worse.
The back of the house has an existing concrete patio, and a retaining wall. The wall is at 14' from the house, so the excavation will extend 4' past the existing wall. The wall is about 4' high, but the ground slopes up beyond it, to a bench that's been cut into the hill about 7' above the level of the patio. In other words, by the time the addition is built, if there's a doorway in the second floor it won't be more than a few steps down onto that bench. There's rock showing back there already. It's shale where it's showing, but around here it can go from real easy digging the real hard digging in the space of a few feet. It can go from shale to blue limestone in a few feet. The retaining wall is a soldier wall--steel beams placed vertically, with timbers inserted between them. The guys who built the wall had to jackhammer to set the steel, and they only went 2' deep.
So, the problems with digging this foundation are obviously going to be the tight quarters, the long run down the hill to the truck, and the very high potential for rock that'll need to be hammered out. None of that is impossible to deal with, but with the rock there, only a clairvoyant will be able to tell how long it might take.
The real problem is that the go/no go decision hinges on the cost of the excavation. I guess he's got the rest of it budgeted out to a number he can live with, *if* he can afford to get the hole dug. He'd go with a crawl space if the full basement is impractical. Add to this problem the fact that I may be too busy otherwise to do the job, so whatever I think won't necessarily be the same thing that the excavator who actually gets the job will think. He's a friend of a builder that gave me five houses to dig last year, so I do feel a little pressure to not just blow him off.
I have a couple of thoughts about how to handle this problem but I'll keep them to myself for now. I'd like to hear what other ideas might come form the group here.
What would you guys do? What do you tell the customer?