Excavating For The Patio Extension

We recently decided to extend our existing patio to provide more room because the current patio is a little bit crowded with a fire pit, grill, and 8 person dining table.  After a lot of debate and consideration of materials and budget we finally decided that we would simply install a poured concrete patio which we could top with pavers or tile in the future. 

While we are having the concrete professionally poured and installed we need to do all of the prep work which includes excavating the hole where the new patio will be installed.  Additionally I will need to deal with several sprinkler lines that run under the new patio as well as the addition of few new stages to the sprinkler system which I will cover in subsequent posts. 

Know Whats Below

Since this project involves digging you need to make sure to call your local blue stakes organization to have the local utilities mark up your yard so you do not inadvertently dig through that all important cable or pipe. 

Marking The Boundary

Since we are adding a circular patio which will measure 18' in diameter the easiest way to mark the boundary is to use a center stake and a string that measures half the distance across the patio.  

The first step is to place the stake in the center of the new patio. With the stake hammered into the ground I placed a small nail in the top of the stake that I could loop the end of the string over so that it would spin easily as I swept out the perimeter of the hole. 

Next I tied a loop in the end of the string so that a can of spray paint would slip in the end of it. Then I tied a small loop in the other end and hooked it over the nail. Since the patio is going to be 18' wide when it is finished I tied the loops in the string so that the distance from the nail to the center of the paint can was close to 9'6" long.  I made the string an extra 6" long so that there will be room for the concrete contractors to place their stakes and forms. 

With the paint can looped into the string and the string pulled snug I simply swept out the circle painting an orange line in the grass.  The image shows two orange circles. The inner one was a result of a mistake on my part because I didn't measure the length of the string correctly (8 definitely does not equal 9).

New Patio Boundry Marked With Orange Paint

Removing The Sod


While the thought of manually digging the hole wasn't completely terrifying I thought it was well worth the expense of renting a sod cutter to remove the sod as well as ultimately excavating the hole. You should be able to rent a sod cutter from your local rental center and it cost me $36/2hrs. It took us about 4hrs to complete the whole job.  


Using a sod cutter is not terribly complicated but it does take a little bit to get a complete handle on operating one. 

Using The Sod Cutter To Remove The Sod

Using The Sod Cutter To Remove The Sod

Excavating The Soil


With the sod removed I used the sod cutter to excavate the soil down to the desired depth. Using the sod cutter made shoveling out the sod really easy because it came up in sheets without any effort. 

Using The Sod Cutter To Excavate The Soil

Using the sod cutter for this meant that the underlying soil remained compacted and it is was so easy to scoop up I used a snow shovel to scoop it into the wheelbarrow. 

Shoveling The Cut Soil Into The Wheelbarrow

We repeated this process by cutting the soil and shoveling the it into the wheelbarrow. For our patio we needed to dig the hole to a depth of about 4".

Excavated To ~4" Deep

The next step in this project was to deal with a series of water sprinkler lines that run under the new patio.