Brick Round Under Parking Space 13

[sem_yeto]

I'll tell you..... that if you guys put all the bricks back in, and didnt water the hole real well , that asphalt is gonna drop like a 10 ton brick next winter. Better monitor that hole closely in the winter season guys, especially since it is in an active parking lot. Best to always use concrete and rebar for the repairs (you can dye or paint it black to match asphal)t. It is much stronger, and when the backfill settles, your patch wont.
If you dont compact the asphalt digs properly, it can come back and haunt all the diggers in the area in a real bad way. Just some sound advice from someone who's done 100's of tech privy digs.

 

[splante]

how did you guys know there was a privy located under spot 13, was it a sink hole or something>

 

[maxbitters]

Great picture! Bricklined depth-charges or a 6" foot woodies, it's all good. Just being out there while operating with such focused skill and having a good time is what it's all about, the bottles are the iceing on the cake. We save all the whole bricks for either home projects or sell em when we get a 500 unit pallet full.

Compaction is key to good a good job and insure that it doesn't sink after your done. I'd be interested in hearing how some of you guys do this or even if you do it??? We always end up fairly short on fill material due to compaction and have aided in cleaning up some of the most trashed parts of town!

 

[baltbottles]

ORIGINAL: Rockhounder55

Just out of curiosity, what do you all do with the bricks? ~Mike

Mike they all go back in the hole at the end of the dig. otherwise we would need a truck load of brought in fill to bring the pit back up to grade.

Chris

 

[baltbottles]

ORIGINAL: sem_yeto

I'll tell you..... that if you guys put all the bricks back in, and didnt water the hole real well , that asphalt is gonna drop like a 10 ton brick next winter. Better monitor that hole closely in the winter season guys, especially since it is in an active parking lot. Best to always use concrete and rebar for the repairs (you can dye or paint it black to match asphal)t. It is much stronger, and when the backfill settles, your patch wont.
If you dont compact the asphalt digs properly, it can come back and haunt all the diggers in the area in a real bad way. Just some sound advice from someone who's done 100's of tech privy digs.

We also use reinforced concrete in the top of the pits then pack all the layers of old asphalt back in then a skim of new asphalt on the top couple inches so it looks good.

Chris

 

[CALDIGR2]

A cheap fill method that ensures a well compacted pit is gravel. A PU load of road base only costs around 10 bucks and tops off the pit. If it's a parking lot, soft material is out of the question. In non-PL situations old tvs, sofas, and any other junk will do. LOL

Bricks sell for a dollar each around here, something that we call "gravy", and often add up to a larger dollar value than the glass in the pit. No 35' pits in this area. I have dug 12 footers with a 10' pontil layer in this town, but those are very few and far between. Most are 10' and less. The water table is too high to go deeper for anything other than a well. Old water cisterns were also used as trash disposers after the cholera epidemics that were determined to be caused from the close proximity to privy pits. Life was brutal in the early days of California.

 

[baltbottles]

Bricks around here are pretty much worthless. If I had someone that would give me a $1 each I'd be a rich man lol

Chris

 

[CALDIGR2]

One thing that you guys have, Chris, are barrel privies. Those are darned few and far between in CA. I have only encountered a couple of them in my diggin' years. Many pits on the left end of the US are totally unlined and cut from the hard clay. No "stonies" except in the mountains and Nevada mining camps. Even those are somewhat unusual. Commonest here are woodies and brickers. Mortared bricks, fugeddaboutit, unmortared, get after it.

 

[baltbottles]

Mike barrel privies are nice if they are more then one barrel deep. 2 and 3 barrel deep pits are usually good but you get alot of just one barrel deep pits that are usually completely dipped out. the other problem with all the dipping is they tend to damage and crush all the larger bottles. We rarely dig a nice embossed square or bitters or historical flask. The conditions have to be perfect to get one.we do find quite a few meds, perfumes, inks, foods, and sodas though. And the early ceramics are really nice.

As for brick liners and stone liners I will only dig them if they are behind a pontil age house and I can't find any wood lined pits in the yard. That's the other problem with digging here many yards used the same pit for many years and just kept cleaning it. Some of the smaller tows you get several pits in one yard but they are usually shallow and not that productive.

I like 6-10 foot deep wood and barrel lined pits and 6-14 foot brick lined pits behind pontil age houses best. Those types of pits pretty much always seem to have some decent stuff in them.

Chris

 

[CALDIGR2]

Sacramento is very small and over 150 years "newer" than most East Coast cities and towns. Not much here until the Gold Rush of 1848/49, but a large population explosion at that time. Sadly, though, most early buildings are gone, replaced by the construction boom years of the 1960s-80s. Residential is still available, but again many homes are second generation. Pits can be located in the entire age spectrum, from the 1850s to 1910s. A couple of years ago we were fortunate to locate and dig 2 pontil pits, 3 1860s and a 1870s hole in one yard. That seldom happens, but it can be done with determination, persistence, luck, and rock solid permission to wreak temporary havoc in someone's back yard. Those pits showed the vestiges of wood liners that had long since rotted away.

We have dug monster commercial pits in the early commercial districts that were constructed of 2"X10" redwood that defied penetration. It took a ton of work and double jacks to break into them. The wood had remained free of water penetration and was almost new looking. The contents were gaggers, but packed with early glass.