We are using our 1952 D6-9U Caterpillar 90 horsepower bulldozer to excavate our foundation. Our soil engineer tested the soil, and we have sand gravel soil which compacts very well. Our structural engineer put a footing depth requirement of a minimum of 24 inches below final earth grade. Given that we had to go 2 feet below final grade, the garage was lower than the main floor level and we had to compact a solid foot below the bottom of the footing where we decided to go down a total of 4 feet. We had to excavate around 6000 square feet to fully cover all the area 5 feet beyond the perimeter of the house and the courtyard. The best way is with a powerful bulldozer. 70+ years later our 1952 Caterpillar D6-9U is still hard at work. With its 10-foot-wide blade we can dig in and push upwards of 2 to 3 cubic yards at a time. That’s about 5000 to 7500 pounds of earth per pass. The bulldozer can only run up a slope; it cannot dump the earth like a payloader. So, the slope starts at the foundation edge and builds from there. All new earth that’s excavated gets pushed off the back of the slope as it gets built up. Getting slightly higher and further out from the foundation on each pass. It takes some practice to get efficient at this and you’ll see plenty of ups and downs as we get better at feeling the pitch and dealing with varying strength of the ground as we dig through it.

Subscribe to watch Drs. Harke build their dream Bay Area property from the ground up.

#harkeestate #construction #homebuilder #homestead #builder #newconstruction #foundation #heavyequipment #heavymachinery #concrete #D6 #Caterpillar #bulldozer #build