blitzkrieg updates: im back and we are putting in a man hole

blogging is no easy task, i never thought about how much time goes into creating a blog worth reading and i commend all of those creative and dedicated people out there that do produce amazingly interesting and quality blogs.  i on the other hand feel incredibly lazy about blogging but let me explain...

as you will probably notice the last time i blogged was back at the end of may when i told you about our excavation nightmares.  well also around that time the days got really long, with the sun not setting until well after 8:30 pm and what did that mean for björn and i?  it meant we were working from 8:00 am til well after 9:00 pm on most nights, and that did not leave me much time, energy or desire to sit down at the computer and produce anything worth reading.

i am thrilled that so many of you have asked "where's the blog" or "when are you going to give us some updates?"  i have also been thrilled to see that i continue to have readers even without any updates!  so many people have been interested to see the materials we used or the processes we went through and that makes me really happy.

its been almost 2.5 months since i last blogged and a lot has happened since then.  i am going to attempt to update you all quickly while still giving enough information on the details of our experiences.  so we left off with our huge excavation project in order to bring water, electrical and sewer systems to our house.  you can read about that here.

may 30 update

but it didn't end there, we also had to install our own man hole in order to house the sewer lift station.  once again we were faced with a huge problem and a huge potential expense, but as we have learned throughout this project its better to just go for it.  nothing is that scary once you set your mind to do something.  besides we could never afford to PAY someone to do this work so we kind of didn't have a choice.

matt and the excavator digging around the existing culvert pipe
which housed the existing lift station

the culvert pipe had to be removed and the lift station taken out in order
to dig a deeper hole for the man hole to sit in.

the concrete man hole was purchased from Grand Junction Pipe here in durango, which they delivered on a huge flat bed truck.  we had to rent a skytrak for the day just to lift these puppies off the flat bed and then into the 9' deep hole.

this bottom portion of the man hole weighed in at over 3,000 lbs.

the three sections of man hole were lined up along our street, including
the top portion with the typical man hole cover

it was then time to lift the pieces and place them in the giant hole

this bottom section really put the skytrak to the test.  the arm of the skytrak
had to be fully extended in order to position the piece while remaining stable
enough to lower it into place.

once in place matt adds the sticky rubber seal.  the next piece fits directly on
top.  the lift station will fit cozily into this hole.

the middle section, much lighter than the bottom

positioning the piece

finally the top section is put into place.  the entire man hole is about 8' deep.

After getting the sections of pipe in place all we had to do was drop in the existing lift station and hook it up to the new sewer pipes.  this involved cutting some holes through the concrete with a hilti drill.

matt using the hilti concrete drill to bore a hole for the sewer lines
that have to connect to the lift station

we also needed a few smaller holes at the top for the power line
and lift station alarm.

conquering this job was definitely something we never thought we would have to do but we are sure glad it over... just wait until you see what we have to go through for our water hook ups!