Who wants to blow something up? Oooh pick me!! ✋🏻 💣 🎇 ☄️

While doing some of the excavation in the basement we came across a huge rock. It is about 12′ around and about 3′ above grade and it has to go. There are a couple of options.

1- Rock Breaker- Using equipment that is like an oversized jack hammer to break up the rock.

2- Blasting- Drill multiple holes, fill with explosives and ignite to break apart the rock.

We had to go with option 2 due to the size and makeup of the rock. This entailed getting a blasting company (A & A Blasting and Drilling) to check out the rock (Wednesday). They were able to get us in the schedule today, which was awesome so we jumped at it.

Blasting consisted of the following
– Drilling 61 holes approximately 24″-30″ (This took about 5-6 Hours)
– Installing explosives 100 lbs. of Ammonia Nitrate = 30lbs of Dynamite
– Installing Blasting Caps that were daisy chained together to make sure all of them went off.
– Phone call to Park County to inform them of the coming blasting
– Warning that blasting is coming (2 sets of 3 horn blasts) and a “Fire in the Hole”
– Set off the charges
– Boom!!!!!!

So I put together a video of the day and what it entailed. Funny thing is once it was blown, Dad and I were a bit shocked over the event. In a word, it was “Awesome!!”.