Packing Your Log Home Excavation Site

Once the wood forms were in, the footings poured, and the forms removed from the footings, it was time to repack the ground that had been distrubed during excavation.

Although packing the ground mechanically in this way is only a necessity on both sides of any frost wall of your home (log home or any other home), Eric spent a few hours and packed the site’s ground to ensure no unnatural settling would occur.

Our entire building site took 4 hours to pack (and remember that we went overboard and spent more time at packing our log home foundation base than was required by building regulations). We rented our plate packer for $40/day from a local tool rental outfit and the machine itself was a walk-behind unit. By this I mean that most teenage girls or boys, or any able-bodied adult could have done this work without breaking a sweat.

There is not much skill in operating a tamper, packer, or any other name you may have for it. If you are using ICF or Logix blocks for your log home foundation as we are, you only want to be certain not to bump the unpoured wall forms during operation.

When finished, our log home site looked like the photo below. The ground will never settle unevenly now as a result of our excavation and our frost wall is secured for all seasons and temperatures.