Site preparation
Designing and building a project in the most cost-effective manner to achieve a desired result starts with site preparation.
When Poolscape first visited the site it was during the dead of the Muskoka winter and snow was piled 3 m (10 ft) high along the winding gravel road that approached the cottage. Standing at the top of the snow covered property’s edge, looking down a steep 27-m (90-ft) drop to the frozen lake below, a mixture of fear and awe sunk in as it was realized a fail-proof plan would be required to build the pool on the edge of the cliff and make sure it stayed there.
With a plan in place, a local subcontractor with expertise in blasting and moving large quantities of bedrock moved onto the site with various specialized equipment. A local surveyor was also regularly on site to assist in laying out the project on the sloping grade. The blasting area had to be precisely defined to minimize the cost of removing excessive amounts of rock and to ensure there was sufficient space to build the project after the drilling rigs left the site. It was also inspected by a soil engineer to ensure there were sufficient ground conditions where the project was being built.
To do this, a plan was developed that would see a shelf blasted out of the cliff to create a ‘bench’ where the pool, spa, and decks would be built. The grade was dropped 5.5 m (18 ft), gradually sloping off to zero as the cliff descended towards the lake.
Another local expert was hired to blast the granite and relocate it to the far end of the site. Blasting this close to a multi-million dollar cottage was complex, thus it required numerous smaller explosions to loosen the granite bedrock into manageable pieces.
Developing a forest setting on a ‘quarry’ is no easy feat, but International Landscaping’s crew were up to the challenge. Close to 800,000 kg (800 tons) of salvaged blast rock was used to create retaining walls on the steep slopes. These pockets allowed for the installation of hundreds of mature trees and thousands of shrubs and perennials.
