I met Mark Christensen, the soil engineer at 8:00 this morning at the lot to check the excavation. Somebody from the excavation company was there too, but I didn't catch his name. Mark thought the clay was okay, but there were a lot of teeth marks from the excavator that he said we needed to remove. He also observed the roots in the Southeast corner and said we needed to take out six more inches. And he confirmed we did need to remove all the stuff in the middle where the interior footings go, but not necessarily the garage part. I decided to take the risk of leaving the stuff in the garage so we won't have to bring in as much fill.
The excavation guy let me drive the thing for a couple minutes. There was a lever for the left tread and another for the right. It was pretty simple to steer, both to go straight, one or the other to turn. I didn't try any digging.
After the extra digging was done I called Mark and he came back and approved the hole. He'll email the stamped approval letter tomorrow morning so we can re-apply for the permit.
