Building a secure place for the house

We learned from the initial excavations that the soil here was "interesting." On the surface it was soggy and permeated with roots and rhizomes of grasses and weeds. We didn't know how to build a pad for a solid foundation, so we hired a soil geologist to analyze it.

We learned the top 12-18 inches of the soil is called "muck" - squishy when wet and filled with decomposing organic material - not a stable base for a foundation.  But below this is a hard pack glacial till of clay and rock that has excellent load-bearing ability.

Ron scraped away the top layer down to the clay and piled it at the side. This left a very hard, almost impervious, base with excellent load bearing ability.