Movin' Dirt & Waterproofing

It was a hard work kind of day today. It started out with installing a layer of Tremco Paraseal, a Bentonite waterproofing product on all the front concrete walls. To fasten it to the concrete, I got to use a Hilti powder activated fastening gun, firing small explosive charges with inch and a quarter nails, about six inches on center all over the dang place. Pow, pow, pow all day long. (Owhrr, owhrr, owhrr!) After that, I put a layer of drainage mat/protection board over it to keep the backfill from damaging the Bentonite and to let water wick away from the wall. The photo below shows both condtions; on the left is the Bentonite with the fasteners all over it holding it to the wall; on the right it's been covered with the drainage mat. That's a chunk of concrete in the middle of it all.

So after all the bang bang bang, Heather and I spent the rest of the day hauling dirt and chunks of concrete from all over the back yard to pile it all up against the house for the patio and entry stoop. The ground level is getting up there slowly but surely, tomorrow we'll be doing it again.

I was also able to get the same two-layer waterproofing system installed on outer wall of Daniel's room where he garage door used to be. By then, Pete had shown up and was slapping up more mud on the drywall. He had never seen these high falootin' products before, so it was all new to him.

Tomorrow I'll probably get the demo hammer again too, so I can finish breaking up the old driveway into chunks that we can use to build up the patio higher too. It's going to be another hard working kind of day again.