Design Insights

I would like to relate a story about how not to dig a hole. In the immortal words of humor columnist Dave Barry, I’m not making this up.

Some years ago, I was working as a carpenter for a contractor who was building a log cabin in the mountains of North Carolina. The footings had been poured and the cinderblock walls for the basement had been laid. Next up was the floor framing, but first we had to create a girder and support it from below with a column. Why the footing for this column had not been poured when the others were, I don’t know.

That day on the jobsite, there were myself, another carpenter, the contractor and two laborers. The contractor did some rough measurements in the basement, placed an X in the dirt with the toe of his boot, then called one of the lab