Entrenched

It's been a couple of months, and busy ones at that, so today's post will be a bit of a mish-mash covering the highlights.

 

Farm House Fireplace

fireplace surround primed

First, I am realizing that I never posted on our idea to change a blank wall in our living room to have a fireplace. We live on a street with overhead power lines, and we lose power once or twice a winter to ice and wind. We sourced a (Valon H5) gas fireplace and had it installed against and in the middle of that wall in March or April. Being near the end of the cold season, we only fired it up a couple of times. It does not have a fan, so we will be covered in an electrical outage, but we were impressed with how much heat it produces at a low setting and how far from the unit you can feel the warmth.

 

After absorbing that cost, we got our contractor friend, Ray, to do the side job of putting some kind of built-in around it. He did that work a day here and a day there, ultimately finishing at the end of July. I spent this last weekend doing the paint prep and brushing on a coat of primer. I expect to return to that work in a couple of weeks, sanding the primer fixing all the little holes and such that I missed and then applying more paint.

 

Shop Progress

closest thing to "before" image

In an inspired moment in late-July, I emptied the black rolling tool cabinet, pulled it across my hard-as-a-rock clay backyard and into the shop. Once there, I vacuumed it out, Armor-All cleaned it, set it in place and then returned its contents. That represented the last of the things that needed to move. I since have worked through most of the heap, putting like things together on shelving.

 

Electric Hum

While Ray was working on the built in, we noticed that our main electrical panel would hum when his air compressor fired up. We thought that was probably not good and showed him. He agreed and soon we had his go-to electricians over to see what we had going on. The humming breaker ought to have flipped, not hummed. So, soon we were getting the main panel replaced and some outlets fixed and some other lighting things solved. Once we were in that deep, Boo asked them what the incremental cost would be to running electricity out to the shop. Love her. They made us a great deal ($1600US for an active circuit, 60-amp sub-panel wired from the main through conduit in the trench), but the numbers hinged on the trench being dug, and the work starting about a week later.

 

Trenching

cave-in at the turn

This is the lead-in that found me running a 24" trencher on a Monday morning. The weekend before I had cleared all the mulch and other undergrowth, shrubs, etc along the approximate 100' path. I also needed to hand-trench around the french drain I had installed around the shop last summer. Once cleared, I marked the future trench line with spray paint. I rented a trencher from HomeDespot, not because I love that store, but because they had the best-by-far price (like half what everyone else offered) and they would deliver /pick up. So, with that trencher, I dug 100' of 24" deep trench. Considering how many Holly trees, wild roses and other things we have found in this yard, I was prepared for a long difficult day.

 

The trenching started difficult enough. I thought I would do the line from the garage down to the 90* turn south first. That meant starting the trench up against the garage where I found the first foot below the surface was bricks and chunks of concrete. Fortunately, once I was able to get that cleared, the rest of that east-running line was uneventful. I got as far east as I could go, setting my back up to the neighbor's fence and then wrestled the machine to face north. These trenchers do not turn at all easily, you have to muscle them by lifting and shoving. So, once facing north, I started trenching southward, leaning and pushing west to offset the slight pitch of the yard.

 

future trench line

The next 40 or so feet (almost 15 meters) were efficient. I did not hit big roots until I got to the apple tree just outside the shop's main door. Even then, I only need the sawzall to cut a pair of thick roots. The trencher took care of the rest. Once I got to the 90* turn west to get to the shop wall, I wrestled the machine so I was facing west, moved it up to hand-trenched section and ran it east until I hit the fence. Similar to the other end of the long trench, I could not connect the big trench with the shorter sections without trenching in both directions. This meant wresting the machine over a trench at some point. Inevitably, those moves caused cave-ins. Still, the main trench work was completed, so I ran the trencher out to where it was dropped off at the start of the rental and hosed it off.

 

After work on Tuesday, I was out at the trench with a disposable plastic "go food" container, hand scooping out the cave-ins. I discovered that my last "cave in" was actually an incomplete trench where it turned 90* south near the garage (see 3rd picture from the top). I had to finish that trench by hand. It was at that point that I really appreciated the trencher. The clay soil in the backyard is as hard as a rock at this time of year. So just clearing less than a foot deep, maybe 18" long trench was a considerable effort. I was already beat-to-shit from wrestling a trencher in nearly 90*F (32*C) heat the day before and Tuesday was just as hot.

 

black "rollie" in the shop

We passed inspection for the trench this week. So, I will be filling the trench back in and then I will be able to move cars in and out of the shop again. While I did not plan to lose access to the shop this summer, I am so grateful for having electricity, even if it is just a sub-panel with no outlets nor circuits. We will be that much closer to having lights without depending on a partially buried 100 foot extension cord running from the old garage. And, once the trench is filled back in, I only would have had the path blocked for maybe a month.

 

We had a different inspector than we have had with our other inspections. This guy was a bit of a hard-ass relative to the others and inauthentic. I only bring that up because what he said to me and what he put into his report were not the same. He said everything was good except he needed some detail around a ground for the water heater (which wasn't in the scope of the work, but whatever). The report identified a bunch of other things that he never mentioned and were also outside the scope of the work performed. Needless to say, I'm unimpressed and hope he doesn't inspect anything around here again. I would have no reason to trust what he says, and expect him to add things to his report after leaving, including things which may have nothing to do with what's within the scope of the permit. Inauthentic sucks.

 

Wrap 

This got long, and I never got to any car stories. There are a few. I'll post on them, and whatever new ones happen, next time. Thanks, as always, for following along-