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I got the back hoe back in and John dug the lines for the sewer and well that will be under the slab. He dug these as close to the proper depth as he could.
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Next I had to backfill the trenches to the final grade elevation with 1/4 inch drop per foot and compact them well so they wouldn't settle later. That was a lot of hard hot work. Use a level to do this and just have the bubble touch the line on one side of the middle markings that show you when you are level.
I also had to run strings from the sides of the form boards that went around the perimeter of the building to accurately locate where the drain pipes go through the slab so the vent pipes would be inside of the final walls and the drain pipes where in the right location.
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In this picture the pipe on the left will be the vent stack and go up through
the wall and the one on the right will be for a drain.
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This is a junction where the 2 inch line to the drain in the previous picture meets the main line exiting the building and going to the city sewer.
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After I had all of the lines in I had to plug the tops of them and put one piece of temporary pipe 10 feet into the air (by the ladder). I then had to fill it which also filled all of the other pipes with water for a leak test for the building inspector. No leaks, so I continued on.
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Another picture of a 2 inch branch line going to the kitchen and bath off of the main line. I kept all of my bends to 45 degrees so if I ever had a plugged line it would be easier to run a "snake" through it.
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The last line was one over to the well. I put 4 inch abs pipe in this trench and will be able to push my final water line through this pipe along with the electrical lines to the pump. If I ever have problems I won't have to dig this all up as it will all be inside the larger 4 inch line. This line is 4 feet deep to prevent freezing, but even if it every did I could blow hot air through the 4 inch line to thaw things out. Some of this area will eventually be covered with a cement pad going into the shop and I don't ever want to have to tear that up to get to a line.
After all the sewer lines where in and tested I had to backfill all the trenches by hand. I had help one day with
this, but it still was a lot of work. All the back fill had to be compacted with a bar by hand until we had at
least 12 inches on top of the lines. Then we could backfill and use the powered "wacker" for the final
compaction. Using it earlier would have meant broken lines from the force of the "wacker".
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