I've been talking and thinking about doing this for 3-4 years now. Two days ago we finally took the first "ground breaking" step toward making it a reality.
The garage on my house started out as a flat-roof, open-sided carport when the the house was built 40 years ago. Some previous owner put sides on it, but no garage doors. When I bought the place 15 years ago, the flat roof was leaking badly, and the front wall where the two openings are was rotted badly enough that I had to rebuild it before having garage doors installed.
While the house foundation is sound, the garage foundation has had numerous problems from cracking and movement. I've always planned to one day tear it down to the ground and start over. My original plan was to just rebuild a two-bay garage of the same size, but with a peaked roof. Eventually, I realized that by making use of the slope, a tall RV bay could be added without ending up with a roof-line taller than the rest of the house.
Discussing the project with the DW resulted in further "scope creep", such that we'll also be adding a fair amount of square footage to the living area of the house as well. My garage/RV bay/man-cave has ballooned considerably since I first started dreaming, but this is what we've settled on. The old garage is about 28' deep, and 24' wide. The new garage will be 30' deep and 60' wide. The RV bay will have one wide door, rather than the two narrow doors shown. I was planning to allow 14' of vertical clearance, but I'm not sure I really need to go that high. Twelve feet would be plenty for my camper, the garage depth and driveway approach will never accommodate an RV much longer than mine.
About 10 years ago I had an asphalt driveway paved down behind the house, and then had a Jamar RV shed constructed over it where I'm currently parking my truck and camper. It's sitting right where my new garage RV bay will be, so it'll have to be moved. That's what we've started, which doesn't sound too difficult. Except.........
My property is on the side of a hill. There's no naturally level ground anywhere, so a pad will have to be constructed. Also, about a year ago (anticipating the loss of my garage and the storage space inside it) I constructed a 12'x20' storage building right next to the house to hold all of my man-stuff while the garage is being built. Once the garage is built, the storage building will be taken apart and moved farther away from the house. So that's two level pads to construct.
I also have a ton of trees on my property, mostly white oak, some of them pretty big, and pretty close to the house. Of course, there are trees in the way of everything I want to do.
So, Wednesday morning, bright and early, the tree cutting pro's got started. The weather was gray and gloomy that day. This is where my metal RV shed will be moved. I'm going to reduce it's height a little and use it to park other equipment under.
Getting the boom truck setup for another tree.
They were having fun maneuvering that 2WD boom truck around on my slope.
This tree was hanging over my RV shed.
My storage building. They dropped a big limb on it's roof, but it doesn't appear to have suffered any damage.
My truck and camper out of harms way in the front yard.
Wish I had one of those trucks to play with.
Pulling one down close to the power lines.
I'm saving these for another project.
I'll add more as we make progress.
:):)
The garage on my house started out as a flat-roof, open-sided carport when the the house was built 40 years ago. Some previous owner put sides on it, but no garage doors. When I bought the place 15 years ago, the flat roof was leaking badly, and the front wall where the two openings are was rotted badly enough that I had to rebuild it before having garage doors installed.
While the house foundation is sound, the garage foundation has had numerous problems from cracking and movement. I've always planned to one day tear it down to the ground and start over. My original plan was to just rebuild a two-bay garage of the same size, but with a peaked roof. Eventually, I realized that by making use of the slope, a tall RV bay could be added without ending up with a roof-line taller than the rest of the house.
Discussing the project with the DW resulted in further "scope creep", such that we'll also be adding a fair amount of square footage to the living area of the house as well. My garage/RV bay/man-cave has ballooned considerably since I first started dreaming, but this is what we've settled on. The old garage is about 28' deep, and 24' wide. The new garage will be 30' deep and 60' wide. The RV bay will have one wide door, rather than the two narrow doors shown. I was planning to allow 14' of vertical clearance, but I'm not sure I really need to go that high. Twelve feet would be plenty for my camper, the garage depth and driveway approach will never accommodate an RV much longer than mine.
About 10 years ago I had an asphalt driveway paved down behind the house, and then had a Jamar RV shed constructed over it where I'm currently parking my truck and camper. It's sitting right where my new garage RV bay will be, so it'll have to be moved. That's what we've started, which doesn't sound too difficult. Except.........
My property is on the side of a hill. There's no naturally level ground anywhere, so a pad will have to be constructed. Also, about a year ago (anticipating the loss of my garage and the storage space inside it) I constructed a 12'x20' storage building right next to the house to hold all of my man-stuff while the garage is being built. Once the garage is built, the storage building will be taken apart and moved farther away from the house. So that's two level pads to construct.
I also have a ton of trees on my property, mostly white oak, some of them pretty big, and pretty close to the house. Of course, there are trees in the way of everything I want to do.
So, Wednesday morning, bright and early, the tree cutting pro's got started. The weather was gray and gloomy that day. This is where my metal RV shed will be moved. I'm going to reduce it's height a little and use it to park other equipment under.
Getting the boom truck setup for another tree.
They were having fun maneuvering that 2WD boom truck around on my slope.
This tree was hanging over my RV shed.
My storage building. They dropped a big limb on it's roof, but it doesn't appear to have suffered any damage.
My truck and camper out of harms way in the front yard.
Wish I had one of those trucks to play with.
Pulling one down close to the power lines.
I'm saving these for another project.
I'll add more as we make progress.
:):)
I didn't realize until today that my wife had taken pictures of the septic field work, so here are a couple of pictures of that.
This is the guy that came out and dug the soil pit, drew up the plans, and submitted all the proper forms to the Health Dept. for me.
And this is the septic installer digging the drain field trenches.
Now, on to current events!
We passed a milestone today, one that I was worried we wouldn't be able to accomplish. I lost some sleep last night thinking about this.
The crew from the power company showed up this morning with my electrician to get our electric service swapped over to the new feed. There were several issues with this that could have shut us down, but the crew that came out was great to work with and we all eventually managed to get the job done. Not without a lot of sweat and a few bad words, though.
This is what we were working with:
The old conduit is running horizontally, the new conduit is laid in the trench up to it. The last 35 feet or so of the original service to the house runs under my red barn, which would be a big PITA to move. After the garage is built, the red barn will be taken apart and moved to the level pad I had built down in the back yard. But right now, it has all the junk that used to be in my garage in it. Fortunately, the engineer agreed to let us splice the new conduit into the old at this point. It's not strictly by-the-book, but sometimes things are like that.
The way underground electric service is moved is this: Your electrician digs the trenches, lays the conduit in them and back-fills the trench. Once the new conduit is all ready, the electric company install crew shows up, disconnects the power from the transformer, pulls the meter off the house, and pulls the wires out of the old conduit. My electrician then cut the old conduit at the splice point, and (with some difficulty) joined the new and old conduits together.
The install crew didn't really like the 45 deg. connector used, but they agreed to give it a try. While the electrician was joining the conduits, the install crew pulled the new wires from the pole to the pedestal that had been set at about the mid point in the run. This part went OK, with the wires pulling in without much difficulty. They used one of their big trucks to pull the wires though the conduit.
The portion between the pedestal and the house was the tough part. They tried pulling the wires in just using the old arm-strong method, but they couldn't get them all the way through. They'd get about 3/4 of the way in and stop. I heard them talking about using one of their smaller trucks to help pull, but they were going to have to move a lot of their equipment to get it in close enough. I told them I had a little tractor, and I was pretty sure it could pull the wires if they could rig up a pulley over the conduit going into the ground. They positioned the trailer that was carrying the spool of wire so the roller shaft was over the conduit, hung a sheave from it, and then ran the pull rope through it. I hooked onto it and rolled slowly downhill. It worked, which made me very happy I had stayed home today.
This is the pedestal after the wires were pulled, and connected together.
Here's the conduit after they've been spliced together.
This shows how the old conduit runs under the red barn.
Had we been unable to get the wires to the meter through the conduit, we'd probably be running off our standby generator for a few days while some sort of temporary overhead service was installed.
I was so happy at the end of the day when my wife came home that to celebrate I turned on all the lights in the house and flushed all the commodes! Why? Cuz I can! :B
Now, the old garage foundation can be demolished.
:):)
This is the guy that came out and dug the soil pit, drew up the plans, and submitted all the proper forms to the Health Dept. for me.
And this is the septic installer digging the drain field trenches.
Now, on to current events!
We passed a milestone today, one that I was worried we wouldn't be able to accomplish. I lost some sleep last night thinking about this.
The crew from the power company showed up this morning with my electrician to get our electric service swapped over to the new feed. There were several issues with this that could have shut us down, but the crew that came out was great to work with and we all eventually managed to get the job done. Not without a lot of sweat and a few bad words, though.
This is what we were working with:
The old conduit is running horizontally, the new conduit is laid in the trench up to it. The last 35 feet or so of the original service to the house runs under my red barn, which would be a big PITA to move. After the garage is built, the red barn will be taken apart and moved to the level pad I had built down in the back yard. But right now, it has all the junk that used to be in my garage in it. Fortunately, the engineer agreed to let us splice the new conduit into the old at this point. It's not strictly by-the-book, but sometimes things are like that.
The way underground electric service is moved is this: Your electrician digs the trenches, lays the conduit in them and back-fills the trench. Once the new conduit is all ready, the electric company install crew shows up, disconnects the power from the transformer, pulls the meter off the house, and pulls the wires out of the old conduit. My electrician then cut the old conduit at the splice point, and (with some difficulty) joined the new and old conduits together.
The install crew didn't really like the 45 deg. connector used, but they agreed to give it a try. While the electrician was joining the conduits, the install crew pulled the new wires from the pole to the pedestal that had been set at about the mid point in the run. This part went OK, with the wires pulling in without much difficulty. They used one of their big trucks to pull the wires though the conduit.
The portion between the pedestal and the house was the tough part. They tried pulling the wires in just using the old arm-strong method, but they couldn't get them all the way through. They'd get about 3/4 of the way in and stop. I heard them talking about using one of their smaller trucks to help pull, but they were going to have to move a lot of their equipment to get it in close enough. I told them I had a little tractor, and I was pretty sure it could pull the wires if they could rig up a pulley over the conduit going into the ground. They positioned the trailer that was carrying the spool of wire so the roller shaft was over the conduit, hung a sheave from it, and then ran the pull rope through it. I hooked onto it and rolled slowly downhill. It worked, which made me very happy I had stayed home today.
This is the pedestal after the wires were pulled, and connected together.
Here's the conduit after they've been spliced together.
This shows how the old conduit runs under the red barn.
Had we been unable to get the wires to the meter through the conduit, we'd probably be running off our standby generator for a few days while some sort of temporary overhead service was installed.
I was so happy at the end of the day when my wife came home that to celebrate I turned on all the lights in the house and flushed all the commodes! Why? Cuz I can! :B
Now, the old garage foundation can be demolished.
:):)
In case you were wondering what the "red thing" behind the pile of ballast rock is, it's an old billboard vinyl that I've cut up and used as tarps. When old billboard ads are taken down, the vinyl is salvaged and sold. They come in a single piece that's bigger than a 60'x20' billboard. Very heavy vinyl, and they have hemmed edges. This one happened to have a WaMu ad on it.
I've got one piece covering a flat-bed trailer, and another covering my firewood.
My wood pile (and the Great Wall of China) can be seen from space! :B
:):)
I've got one piece covering a flat-bed trailer, and another covering my firewood.
My wood pile (and the Great Wall of China) can be seen from space! :B
:):)
Here's some pictures that cover the recent progress.
Finally getting close to the end.
Stacking blocks.
And it's gone.
All the reclaimed ballast rock that was behind the wall. I didn't think there would be this much when I started piling it here. Kinda buried that poor tree. The mess in front of the pile is the filled in trench. Lots of cleanup to do now.
Digging the trench for the new electrical feed to the house. Those two white pipes running across the trench are the septic lines we dug through. It's probably better that we found this now, the lines and D-box were pretty choked with tree roots. Not a fun job, though.
The new conduit is in the trench. Due to the length of the run and the number of turns, there will be a "pedestal" here to make pulling the wires easier.
A big stump. This will be on my burn-pile for a while. Those things take forever to burn up.
Our camper refuge to help us get through the septic problem. Now that the tank has been pumped, we'll continue to use the camper for showers and such. We can use the toilets in the house sparingly for quite a while without having to worry about filling up the septic tank. Everyone who should know says it's 1000 gallon tank.
Gotta figure out where to put the new field lines and D-box now. Somebody from the county is supposed to come out and do perk tests. I don't expect any issues there (famous last words) as this hillside seems to have excellent drainage.
:):)
Finally getting close to the end.
Stacking blocks.
And it's gone.
All the reclaimed ballast rock that was behind the wall. I didn't think there would be this much when I started piling it here. Kinda buried that poor tree. The mess in front of the pile is the filled in trench. Lots of cleanup to do now.
Digging the trench for the new electrical feed to the house. Those two white pipes running across the trench are the septic lines we dug through. It's probably better that we found this now, the lines and D-box were pretty choked with tree roots. Not a fun job, though.
The new conduit is in the trench. Due to the length of the run and the number of turns, there will be a "pedestal" here to make pulling the wires easier.
A big stump. This will be on my burn-pile for a while. Those things take forever to burn up.
Our camper refuge to help us get through the septic problem. Now that the tank has been pumped, we'll continue to use the camper for showers and such. We can use the toilets in the house sparingly for quite a while without having to worry about filling up the septic tank. Everyone who should know says it's 1000 gallon tank.
Gotta figure out where to put the new field lines and D-box now. Somebody from the county is supposed to come out and do perk tests. I don't expect any issues there (famous last words) as this hillside seems to have excellent drainage.
:):)
We have a small garage, wouldn't fit a car unless I ha a Carmen Ghia! Anyway we just brought our rig home for first time. We had been planning to raise garage anyway, now we need to lift it 8 ft! Here it is in front of rig, TC is taller than peak of garage!
Thanks Dak. As long as I'm not being pressured by deadlines, which I'm not at this point, I enjoy doing some of this stuff myself. Taking this wall apart has turned into quite a chore! I had forgotten just how much ballast stone was put behind it, and since it continually collapses on top of the lower blocks, I'm having to scoop it up and put it in a pile away from the construction site. At least I'm able to reclaim some of the stone that way. Under all that back-fill are the big rocks that covered the slope below the garage foundation. Those are adding their own fun to the job: when I hit one with the loader it almost loosens my fillings!
The DW and I moved another 50 or so blocks today. I do all the lifting, she helps cleaning them up for stacking. I can fit five of the wall blocks and one cap stone in the bucket, and can lift them about 2 feet off the ground. The work is slowing down as the wall gets higher because I have to move so much more back-fill.
My little tractor is a JD 455 that I bought new in 1999. It has a Yanmar 23 HP 3-cylinder Diesel engine. It was the smallest tractor JD made at the time that could handle a loader. It's not 4WD, but it does have a locking transaxle. I've had it bogged down in the mud a few times, but I've never had to get it pulled out by something else.
It has about 850 hours on it now, all with me in the seat. It has about 700 lbs. of ballast weights on the rear to counter-balance the loader. It's got a nice low center of gravity, and it's very maneuverable. Perfect for operating on my slope and around the trees.
It's class is sub-compact, or Cat-0. It's got a 3-point hitch that can handle Cat-1 ground-engaging implements as long as they aren't too big. When it's not doing front-end loader chores, it mows the grass. It's also got power steering, cruise control, and a tilt steering wheel. No, I'm not kidding!
Here's what we accomplished today.
I'm going to try adding a video my wife took of me working today. I've moved it to Youtube so it plays better now.
Video Link
:):)
The DW and I moved another 50 or so blocks today. I do all the lifting, she helps cleaning them up for stacking. I can fit five of the wall blocks and one cap stone in the bucket, and can lift them about 2 feet off the ground. The work is slowing down as the wall gets higher because I have to move so much more back-fill.
My little tractor is a JD 455 that I bought new in 1999. It has a Yanmar 23 HP 3-cylinder Diesel engine. It was the smallest tractor JD made at the time that could handle a loader. It's not 4WD, but it does have a locking transaxle. I've had it bogged down in the mud a few times, but I've never had to get it pulled out by something else.
It has about 850 hours on it now, all with me in the seat. It has about 700 lbs. of ballast weights on the rear to counter-balance the loader. It's got a nice low center of gravity, and it's very maneuverable. Perfect for operating on my slope and around the trees.
It's class is sub-compact, or Cat-0. It's got a 3-point hitch that can handle Cat-1 ground-engaging implements as long as they aren't too big. When it's not doing front-end loader chores, it mows the grass. It's also got power steering, cruise control, and a tilt steering wheel. No, I'm not kidding!
Here's what we accomplished today.
I'm going to try adding a video my wife took of me working today. I've moved it to Youtube so it plays better now.
Video Link
:):)
Still working on removing a section of the retaining wall, which is taking longer than I anticipated. The top two or three courses of blocks are easy enough, but the backfill starts collapsing as I go lower. Have to stop and clear it away periodically. Also, the bottom course of blocks is below ground level, so those have to be pried out with a long iron rod.
It may look like the old foundation is being undermined, but it isn't. The old garage was there long before the retaining wall was installed. It used to be just a steep, rock-covered slope below the foundation. In the background, my power pole and transformer can be seen.
I've got about half of what needs to be removed out at this point. In the new garage, a poured concrete wall will sit in this area between the upper and lower bays.
The blocks of course can be reused. I always was a good block-stacker. That's 112 blocks @ about 90 lbs. each. Over 5 tons, not counting the cap blocks, which I didn't count.
The underground utility locators finally show up, and confirm what I already suspected: the underground electric feed from the pole runs right under where I want to build. A new one will have to be run around the perimeter of the new construction. Ouch! The wife is going to have to put in some overtime to fund that!
Sleepy, are you still jealous?
:):)
It may look like the old foundation is being undermined, but it isn't. The old garage was there long before the retaining wall was installed. It used to be just a steep, rock-covered slope below the foundation. In the background, my power pole and transformer can be seen.
I've got about half of what needs to be removed out at this point. In the new garage, a poured concrete wall will sit in this area between the upper and lower bays.
The blocks of course can be reused. I always was a good block-stacker. That's 112 blocks @ about 90 lbs. each. Over 5 tons, not counting the cap blocks, which I didn't count.
The underground utility locators finally show up, and confirm what I already suspected: the underground electric feed from the pole runs right under where I want to build. A new one will have to be run around the perimeter of the new construction. Ouch! The wife is going to have to put in some overtime to fund that!
Sleepy, are you still jealous?
:):)
