In my line of work we regularly have to dig 40cm x 40cm test pits in the ground, one every 15 meters. Occasionally we get a frantic client who royally messed up his planning and needs us to go out and do this in January. We have to take an oil drum out and light a fire in it, wait a long time, waddle it out of the way, dig the hole, and do it all again and again and again. Takes forever. When we know we’ll have to dig out a specific spot, we’ll take hay bales out a week ahead of time and cover the ground with them. The decomposing hay creates heat, which will slowly thaw out the ground most of the time.
And once, a client needed soil analysis during a severe cold spell. It had been 10-20 below zero all week, and who knows how bad the wind chill was. My boss didn’t want to spend any more time outside than he had to, so he made some calls. We were met at the dig site by a backhoe with an enormous wrecking ball in its bucket. While we stood well back, the backhoe would raise its bucket as high as it could go and let the ball drop. After several of those earth shaking thumps, the frost would be broken and the soil could be scooped up fairly easily.
My aunt died in the winter of 1991, in the UP of Michigan. There was a funeral, but no burial. Her body, in the casket, was stored in a small building at the edge of the cemetary until spring, when we went back for the burial. I was back at that cemetary this summer. The small building is still there and being kept up. I’m assuming it’s still used for that purpose. This area is rather poor. I can’t imagine them spending money on a machine to thaw the ground in February, to bury someone.
OK, I’m putting way too much thought into this, but if the undertaker estimates the winter kill, and pre-digs the graves in the fall…then how does he keep the piles of dirt (removed from the graves) from freezing so that the graves can be backfilled?
So that’s what that little building was. I grew up down the street from a big and very old (300-odd years on the oldest graves) cemetary in NJ. It had a little stone house on the property that was too small to be an actual house and at least 150 years old. Could never figure out what it was. I learn something new every day.
My dad was an engineer’s mate on a destroyer in Korea. They picked up some of those guys and his crew took them down to the engine room where it was warm - he said he’d never seen anybody so cold in his life. They gave them the potatoes they used to steam on the pipes and those guys were just pathetically grateful for it.
This was an episode of Northern Exposure also- Hollins as mayor had to estimate the number of people who would die and was asking various patrons in his bar “How’s that flu you had? Think you’re gonna pull through”. They knew why he was asking and weren’t insulted.
At the time I remember wondering if this really was a consideration in places with harsh winters and, in fact, it is, though mostly for the remote ones without equipment to thaw/dig.
Heck, I live in Orange County, New York. Hardly Watertown. We’re only about 75 miles from NYC. The local cemetery burns thick oil in a small pot with steel rods driven into the dirt the night before a burial. Makes it easier on the backhoe, apparently.
–grimacing-- I learned about this the embarassing way. I was on duty with the local ambulance corps, and called in a small fire that’d been set in the cemetery. Vandals, doncha know.
I was told to swing by the police station, where a very amused Sargeant informed me of exactly what that fire was.
My grandfather’s arches fell in WW1 disabling him from marching, but since he was a carpenter by trade before the war he was instead set to work in a unit that did nothing but build coffins. They also had full-time undertakers (WW1, America’s first large-scale foreign war, was actually when embalming became routine IIRC) and grave diggers, the graves often being intended for temporary use, and he said that they had quotas based on expected casualties. The army ultimately had a surplus of coffins at the end of the war, then the Spanish Flu came and they were all filled.
Arlington Cemetery had p.o.w.s and daylaborers working constantly during the Civil War digging graves for the soldiers they knew were coming. Bethel Cemetery in Knoxville TN was a Confederate cemetery where slaves and p.o.w.s were set to constantly digging graves for the impending East Tennessee Campaign (though a typhoid outbreak filled up several hundred). Many armies throughout history dug individual graves before the battle for their own fallen and mass graves for the enemies and horses.
Soldiers have access to powerful explosives . Really, if you have to have a foxhole right now, explosives or the military equivalent of specialized construction equipment is frequently how it’s done, winter or summer. Lacking those, it was done by hand or you waited until spring. In WWI most of the original trenches were dug over a period of time, with the original defences based on existing things such as villages or farm complexes, where the buildings and cellars could be used, or even craters left by the larger artillery shells.
What I’ve seen up here in the winter is that someone will start a bunch of wood or coal on fire and then when the embers get good and hot they will spread them over the area they want to thaw and then cover the embers with 50 gallon steel drums cut in half. With the upside-down U shape of the drum reflecting the heat back into the pile of embers (speeding the thaw) whilst keeping the burn at a constant pace by starving the flames. I suppose they could do this at a cemetery with about 4-6 drums over a spread of embers. It would probably be thawed overnight if the ground had about 18 inches of frost or less.
I’m pretty sure that even now folks who die over the winter aren’t buried until the spring around here too. There are announcements for interment ceremonies for people dead for months.
I would also like to point out that up in the Great Land there are numerous contractors who specialize in thawing things out. One of the contractors I work with in Fairbanks will not only will thaw frozzzzzen sewer lines they will also thaw the ground too. This comes in handy for those emergency utility repairs when it is forty below.
They do this with steam gennies. The steam is forced into the ground with pipes to the appropriate depth. The pipes are driven deeper as the ground thaws. You do have to watch out that you don’t paint yourself into a corner.
I don’t know if they do this for graves. I doubt it. I don’t see where there is a pressing need to plant somebody. You’d think living up there you’d want to be cremated anyway.
This is the webmaster for Groundthaw.com. Kevin, one of our Ground Thawing Specialist wanted to clarify about the equipment we sell.
Kevin says, “Granite City Rental specializes in frost removal and heating for the construction industry. We have equipment that can remove frost in an area as small as a gravesite to as large as a super size department store . We also can prevent frost from going into the ground, along with thawing septic systems.”
I would also like to mention you can find that specs for the grave thawing Power Blanket on our website. Kevin or Shawn can both help you if you have any additional questions, feel free to call us at 1-800-328-7094 or call Shawn directly 320-260-9602.
. Really, if you have to have a foxhole right now, explosives or the military equivalent of specialized construction equipment is frequently how it’s done, winter or summer. Lacking those, it was done by hand or you waited until spring. In WWI most of the original trenches were dug over a period of time, with the original defences based on existing things such as villages or farm complexes, where the buildings and cellars could be used, or even craters left by the larger artillery shells.