My favorite type of job-one offs, something I’ve never done and will never do again. When CK called me to bid this I knew I was in, enough difficulty to make it interesting, a great customer, never seen it before, great access, all the things I weigh when making a decision to bid. It was a mid 1980’s hot tub with 18” reinforced concrete walls which was poured around all the plumbing which made it inaccessible for repair.

He took enough swings with a sledgehammer to quickly know there’s a better way.

A better way being a mini excavator with a hammer. Perfect machine for the job it allows demolition to take place from one area without driving and tearing up his well kept lawn. Plywood was down in case I needed to change positions.

Concrete was taken down to grade at which point he was going to take over which he did amazingly well.

Here’s where the fun begins watching him do an exceptional job installing the tub. The pictures speak for themselves. Thanks CK for hiring me and being great to work with and for!

This is a backyard landscaping project we did for Josh and Jenny in Spokane, Washington.

“We highly recommend Specialty Services! Mike is wonderful to work with, prompt, professional, and fair. He was so good we immediately hired him for the next phase of our project. He loves what he does and it shows. What more could you ask for? ”

Josh & Ginny

We did a lot of work on this project, all of the concrete was removed, the sub-grade was redone, and we added topsoil and sod in the end.

Getting Started

Aerial View (Before)

Topsoil being brought in, and graded out

Finished Landscape – Wittkopf’s Turf builder on this, a great product

What made this job a little unique is that the homeowners wanted to save a little money, well quite a bit actually. So Josh and Ginny did all the final raking, and laid all the sod! Well done guys, and it was a true pleasure working for you”

The first step in any excavation is to “Call before you dig”. Even if the job is all hand work it’s still a must. In this picture, the red says “no Avista” meaning no underground power, the yellow says the same, meaning no gas. The white marks were painted by me to show the locators where to mark.

Next, a string line is laid out, the painted to give a nice straight line to ditch.

Since the ditch was in between the sprinkler valves and the timer, the control wire had to run through dig area. Locator was hooked to control wires, so no damage would take place. Ya I go crazy with the pink paint, in this case it was to make wire plainly visible to the electrician.

Sod was slit on previously marked red line, then folded over. Plywood was laid out, the finally ditch is dug.

The end result- like a lot of construction doing the prep is most of the battle. Machinery was not an option here, lawn was very wet and soft, access was down a steep hill, customer had a nice yard with sprinklers, the ground was all sand, super easy dig.

We leveled this ground in the backyard in order to put a perfectly flat patio in place, the results speak for themselves!

We did this excavation on South Hill Spokane, WA,  he did all the hard work after, and it turned out great.