Dan! When you and Teresa go shopping for toys for your daughter, I
suggest that you ignore the "Toys R Us" store and head straight for the
nearest home rennervation depot and get her a half-sized concrete mixer!
She will be in heaven!
Jewel
----- Original Message -----
From: "Dan Rossi" <[email protected]>
To: "Blind Handyman List" <[email protected]>
Sent: Wednesday, September 09, 2009 7:18 AM
Subject: [BlindHandyMan] Basement door project update.
> About a week ago, I borrowed a cement mixer from Breeze, another Blind
> Handyman lister. Turns out that his mixer is significantly heavier than
> the one I rented in the past. However, it was much cheaper, only cost me
> a couple of magazine subscriptions for his kids fund raiser, and I get to
> keep it for more than a day. However, it did take three of us to drag the
> damn thing up the steps.
>
> Well, I had finally gotten the hole finished, the paver base tamped, the
> sand screeded off nice and flat and level, and the first course of land
> scaping blocks laid nice and flat and level.
>
> Sooo, I took Friday off, and my brother, wanting to see what it might be
> like to actually work with his hands, came over to the house Friday
> morning. Almost everything was ready and in place. I pulled the 20 40
> pound bags of cement from the basement and lifted them up to my brother
> who then stacked them beside the cement mixer.
>
> After that was done, we fired up the mixer and I was dumping the bags and
> water into the mixer five at a time. After it was mixed, we dumped the
> mixer, my brother shoveled it into the pit, and Teresa raked it out.
> While Rob was shoveling and Teresa raking, I would get the next load of
> cement mixing.
>
> After we had gone through all the cement, I helped Teresa float the cement
> off. I had set up a screed board to angle the cement down toward the
> drain, and that worked very nicely. We then kind of puddled the cement up
> around the edges so that water would flow toward the drain from any
> position on the slab. All went well. There was some extra cement, but I
> plugged a few holes around the yard and disappeared it reasonably well.
>
> On Saturday and Sunday, I managed to lay three courses of blocks and back
> fill behind the courses with gravel. I don't have to cut many blocks but
> have found it pretty easy, especially since a buddy at work loaned me his
> diamond blade for my circ saw.
>
> There is one problem corner where I have to cut the blocks in strange
> ways, and there was no way to anchor the first block, nor the blocks that
> sit above it, so I have been mortaring them to the house to keep them from
> shifting.
>
> the pin system works pretty well for the rest of the blocks, but it can be
> frustrating to scrape the gravel from the slots before laying the next
> course. Then trying to get them to line up so that the pins slide home is
> usually easy, but occasionally tedious.
>
> The damn thing is sucking up gravel faster than my back can recover from
> hauling 60 pound bags up the steps. I probably need another 20 bags
> before I am done.
>
> I placed sonno tubes at the ends of the side walls in preparation for
> anchoring posts for railings. I found a very cool device for helping with
> this. It is a 30 inch long spike with a 4X4 box on top. I will sink the
> spike into the cement in the middle of the sonno tube, then after it is
> set, I can just drop the 4X4 railing post into the box and bolt it in
> place.
>
> I should have the wall complete by the end of the weekend, but it will
> take another week or two before I get the railings in place, and the two
> wooden steps built and installed in the pit.
>
> --
> Blue skies.
> Dan Rossi
> Carnegie Mellon University.
> E-Mail: [email protected]
> Tel: (412) 268-9081
>
>
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