Garage Update

With all of the things going on recently I haven't had any time to blog about the progress of our major project for the summer yet. I'll try to do a quick recap of everything that has happened over the last month.  I offically started the project in the begining of May my clearing out the Rubbermaid shed, and moving Ev's Playplace.  It was a fair bit of work just to get everything out of the way.  The first step in official garage work was to locate the proerty corners so that I could find the garage location.   

Luckily as I work for an engineering firm I was able to enlist the help of one of our surveyors on a worknight.  The finding of the property corners involved re-establishing the block location because all of the property pins on my half of the block had been knocked out the two years ago by sidewalk work.We set up the total station, and re-established the locations based on existing evidence, and what monuments/pins that still existed on the other side of the block.  The next day I was able to borrow the instrument again to put in the corners of our proposed garage.  I decided to set the corners just off the minimum setbacks with a 2" margin for error.  Ordinarily you would leave a bigger cushion, but in my case the yard is really small, and I had access to survey equipment so I decided to set it closer.

The next week it was time to start digging.  I called diggers hotline, waited until the flags showed up, borrowed my father's tractor, started digging... and found the phone line.  As it turns out, I miss-counted the flags, and the phone company was running late on the locate.  O well, our phone is on the cable line anyways.  That week, after getting the topsoil cleared away I had 15 yards of sand delivered.  Here's a pic of Me, Ev and the Tractor before it was spread out on the 21st of May.

Spreading the sand didn't take long with the tractor around, but then the form setting began.  I had plenty of help from Karl and my Father which was essential because whenever I tried to work solo progress was painfully slow.  We managed to go from a pile of sand on Friday after work to completed forms Sunday Evening, and tied the rebar Monday evening.  The slab is decently reinforced, because rebar tying goes quick (after 2 years at bowen lab) and is much cheaper than the extra concrete that would be required for a thicker slab.  Here's a pic of the nearly finished forms on the 23rd.

With Memorial Day Looming, and the prospect of prepared forms, rebar, vapor barrier etc sitting in the rain while all of my help went of vacation, I decided to push ahead and pour that Thursday before the holiday weekend.  On pour day, I enlisted the help of all of my co-workers and family that were free.  We got a bunch of beer and brats to feed people and called the truck.  My boss brought over all of his trowels/tools from his concrete days so I didn't have to buy everything, and everything went fairly smoothly.  The only hiccup was that we ended up with too much concrete.  I calculated what we needed, and then added 10% and well.. we had 10% extra and ended up pouring a bunch of hastily formed replacement sidewalk around the house.  I will have to end the story here for the moment.  I will pick up where I left off later...  Here's a pic of Me, my boss and Carl finishing on pour day.