We're back!

So much dust everywhere!!!!!!!!  I got down on my hands and knees and washed all the floors twice today - I feel like Cinder-freaking-rella!

Here is what we have going on down below:

Remember in grade school when you had to form teams during gym class or an assembly, and the teacher would make the class count out: "one, two, three..."? ...and you were always sitting beside your best friend and as soon as you saw what was coming you tried to move apart so that you and your bff could both be on the number two team?...but the teacher saw you and put you on different teams? This is the flashback I have when I look at the basement. The contractor made the wall count out and separate into teams. (I hope there were no hard feelings down there). Team one was the first to be underpinned.  (They don't do a whole wall at a time because they don't want the house to collapse, in case that wasn't obvious to you).  All the one's were further excavated, and a new concrete footing was poured beneath the existing footing.  The crew will give it a day to dry, then they will dry pack some grout between the old and new footings to fill the cavity. The engineer called for some steel braces to be inserted into the new footing, and bolted into the floor joists; which will act as extra support since we opted to go for 8'6" clearance.  

Take a look at the white pipe in the bottom photo.  This is the path that all of our poos & pees travel on their way out of the building. They rerouted the line from the large pipe that was in the center of the floor (see previous photos).  The upstairs sewage will exit by the grace of gravity, and the downstairs sewage will be forcefully ejected out of the house.  (The basement bathroom and laundry room pipes will be below the main sewer line, so we will have an ejector pump to handle the waste from downstairs. I guess this is pretty standard when you dig out your basement.) 

The crew also disconnected the eaves troughs from the main sewer line.  The storm water runoff will now go into the backyard instead of joining the dirty sewer water and causing the city's sanitation system to over flow into Lake Ontario and pollute the lake every time it rains.  (How did that ever make sense?)