To Dig a Hole

To Dig a Hole

What my friend Juan and I will be doing is explaining the feat of creating a hole in a real life scenario by helping a family of our church. Juan is the overseer of the jobsite and I am his worker and cofounder of the company that we hold. He has the tools and transportation and I help him out on main jobs and sometimes when we need extra help we hire one or two people for the one job. In this case we have two extra set of hands to do the job we will be doing. I have known Juan a long time and we decided to help give back to the community and through our church we were going to help a family put in a pool. Digging a hole is no easy feat to do. It takes a lot more consideration on a contractors scale and that’s where I come in. First is the job itself, for most part work that comes in is from word of mouth and does not have a lot of advertising. So what will happen is we will get a call to come down and look at what the clients want done and in this case, they want a giant hole dug to put their dole boy pool in. So we take a look at the area, getting the measurements of area; in this case 17 feet by 9 feet and about 6 feet high so you multiply the three together to get 918 square feet of dirt to dig out. After we take the measurements we tell the client we will be back to give him a bid in about a day or so. That’s how we usually go about our business but in this case we just talk about how we are going to plan to do the job give them a date when we will come and start helping out. At this point we write the included costs of what it will take for the job including our flexible hourly wage. The costs of the bin to put all the dirt in the excavator so we have a ramp to pull the dirt up out of the hole the deeper we go. Lastly find someone to do the plumbing for the filter work that we hire. So all of these will go into the bid and presented, and if the client agrees to the terms he signs the paper and we start work at convenience of both parties. Then have client call the county for a servicer to come out and check for pipes and electrical lines so we don’t hit them. After we get the okay, Juan and I get all tools to the site and breaking down the dole boy and set to the side. After that we have to prep the sight of all debris and overgrowth and in this case the rock design that covered the outside of the dole boy originally and a palm tree that is growing very close to the pool. So we take a shovel and rake start collecting it into a wheel barrow and put it in a pile to the side out of the way and preferable on a tarp so that can keep area clean of rock going everywhere. Once the rock and pool are out of the way, we start working on cutting out the weeds that were growing in the torn pool into the yard waste bin. Then we get to work on probably the hardest part of the job yet: the palm tree. How a palm tree grows it has on giant root that goes straight down so you will have to dig very deep if want to get the entire tree out which makes work all the more hard. The plan is to cut the tree at bottom and have it fall where there is a clear area while we pull on ropes in the direction we want it taken down so there are no mishaps. Once that’s done, we start digging around the stump using shovels, stakes, and saws to take it apart, which will usually take a day in itself, if maybe even two. Once the tree is taken out, we set up a grid of the area of the pool using colored twine and stakes (or using colored spray paint).Then start the digging and picking of the area - probably start by using the pick axe to get the dry layer of dirt, so we can start using the shovels to get in there and clear it out, hoping that there is no excess of rock that is in the dirt, as well as roots which have to the be cut back and around to remove. So we work on digging for about 4 hours or so, then taking a break or lunch, and then do it again for another 4 hours. By then have 8 hours in and end the work day and depending on the weather as well if it gets too hot, we might have to cut off time by 2 ours or rain where almost stops progress altogether. Digging is a process that takes the most overhaul of job very repetitive work as well exhausting so staying hydrated is absolute necessary thing. After so many days the hole is dug to set standard that was measured and the dole boy is ready to be built inside it. After it is built the ground has to be stamped down for the new lining of the pool as well as treated with salt so that moisture and insects don’t go through the lining. After that we pack the sidings and fill the pool. Then we start the clean up and move the rock back around the pool, clean the dirt off the patios and haul off the dirt that was removed. After that we turn in our time cards for the final payment and our then on our merry way. That’s how you dig a hole. In this process that I used a more informational approach to my process in this essay. I chose this example because Juan is a dear friend to me and when we did this pool it really made me feel good about the kind of people we are. In each step there was a moderate amount of detail but not excessive that would help reader understand but not get bored of the reading. In a way there were parts that trailed off a bit like the tree and having a side process of how to take it down in order to continue with the first ideal one. Over the entire essay hits all the spots of detail and could probably be recreated if someone wanted to lower their dole boy into the ground by just digging a hole.