Category: On the Home Front

No shots from the existing patio today since you can’t see much change from there. But here we have a shot showing one of the trenches that were dug on either side of patio in preparation for the monolithic pour. Lanai supports will be bolted to this footing.

and on the East side

and the bird’s eye view putting everything in context

Much of the Electrical Gas and Water conduits have been roughed in. The $1400 gas line needed some tweaking in order to hold pressure. Below you can see a pressure gauge on the white heater supply and return pipes. They were sealed and about 5 psi of air  put into them after all the back filling and tamping were complete to ensure that there were no leaks introduced. This way we can repair them NOW before the deck is poured if something got damaged. Likewise the hyper expensive gas line – that thick black piping immediately to the left of the heater pipes – has a gauge at the far end that was showing a small leak. This was eventually traced to the fitting not being quite tightened properly on this end. It is now hosting 15 PSI of nitrogen to see if it can hold the pressure. I understand that the gas line pressure will normally be closer to about 3 PSI on this side of my meter.

Here the gas line trench lies open waiting for county inspectors. I have about 4 inspections pending that should all happen on Monday.

Just an overview of the house with the rest of the driveway and the former patio slab removed. The end of the plain concrete driveway will now be right about where Michelle is standing. From there everything will be stamped concrete to match the pool deck to make this area an outdoor patio / planter area.

And, of course an obligatory shot of the ever smaller dirt pile

2012 Home Renovations – Part 14 -Backfill of pool retaining wall complete

2012 Home Renovations – Part 16 – Pool deck area ready for pouring, All patio walls removed

Continuing along at our rapid-fire pace, back fill and leveling around the pool has been completed.

The French drain was installed behind the lanai retaining wall and the gap there was back filled and tamped

The back yard has been recontoured into pretty much its final configuration. There will be a bit more done once work is completed on the cement slab next to our shed. The dirt will be sloped up a bit both at the shed and at the retaining wall that is front and center in this picture below. The idea is to help encourage water AWAY from those areas to be guided away by both the slope behind the retaining wall and by the French drain to the catch basins that were put in near the beginning of this project and then out to the front yard and street.

The hill that used to be in front of the shed has been largely leveled. We have opted to replace the originally planned stairs that were to lead up to the shed with a low incline ramp that will run from the beginning of the retaining wall (part closest to us in the picture below) and ending even with the remainder of the legacy slab near the middle of the picture. The yard to the right will be contoured to butt up against this ramp and match its incline.

For contrast here is how the yard looked before. Basically it was a steeper, shorter ramp up with a more significant hill beginning closer to the house.

And we continue to make significant inroads into our “Dirt Everest” in the front yard.

In the beginning, Michelle was hoping that we would find some significant boulders so we could pull them out to use as show pieces. I don’t think she realizes how fine a line it is between “cool boulders” and “immovable objects that will mess up your project”. But she was thrilled that one was found and put where she can evaluate what to do with it. It’s pictured here just right of center, somewhat framed by more rubble from the driveway and the pile of gravel that is being used for the French Drains.

2012 Home Renovations – Part 13 – Backfill has begun Electrics have begun

2012 Home Renovations – Part 15 – Rest of driveway by house removed, Electrical, Gas and Water Returns in place

The French Drain has been installed around the pool base and has been tied in (as far as I know) to that of the driveway retaining wall. It’s at this point that you realize exactly how much trust you have to have in your contractor and in the subcontractors. There is not a lot you can do about the subs unless you REALLY don’t like who’s on site or unless you want to very much micromanage the project. Our commitment to this project was predicated on a number of factors but high among those was our confidence that the two primaries on this project – Rich from DC Enclosures and Scott from DesJoyaux pools – were trustworthy and competent. We have visited sites and spoken with people who have worked with both companies and with Rich and Scott in particular.

If you are going to do this on the cheap, or you think you need to keep an eye on things because you are worried about cut corners, the only way you are going to do that is to either work from home and endure MANY interruptions or take time off work and oversee the project. S

Anyway, today back filling began, you can see that there is no longer a gap around the pool

Okay, maybe a small gap where they haven’t quite finished laying down and tamping the layers of dirt around the outside of the pool. Note in the picture below that the East wall is now gone from the current screened patio.

The air conditioner has found a new home, out of sight and hopefully out of hearing too…

From ground level you can see that the filter unit is still the most prominent feature of the pool wall. Those black hoses to the right of the filter unit are the Fastlane hydraulic hoses.

Driving the bobcat up and down the driveway is providing some de facto tamping which will help prevent later settling. Note the conspicuous absence of the air conditioner. It used to be between those two upright brown pillars.

Below is the retaining wall from our neighbor’s side. We will be tinting this a brown color of his choosing to try to make it aesthetically pleasing. Of course the change from “rotting pressure treated wood” to “solid retaining wall” is enough to have him very pleased with the work as it is. Note the holes in the wall that provide additional protection against hydraulic build up should the French drain become blocked or prove inadequate to the task.

That large pile of dirt is now starting to shrink as more and more of it is hauled back for back filling and, next, to build the driveway back up.

Inside the house, our small, maxed out 20-spot electric panel has been replaced with a larger 30 spot unit. Even though we have verified that the feed from the street can handle a 200 amp load, the feed from the meter to our existing unit is only rated at 150 amps so we elected to not upgrade to the greater capacity at this time. Even though our electricity needs are greater in many ways than were those of people in the 70’s (Computers, large screen TVs, room lighting) most of those items are so efficient these days that the actual consumption has increased only minimally.

2012 Home Renovations – Part 12 – Retaining walls revealed

2012 Home Renovations – Part 14 -Backfill of pool retaining wall complete

 

 

 

Today the forms were removed revealing the new retaining walls. Michelle has some reservations about the height of the wall at the back of the lanai. In the original plan it was supposed to step down as you go from left to right finishing off maybe 2 feet off the ground

When we revisited this so that we could NOT have the 7 foot high section on the left, we ended up with a plan where the wall would be 4 feet across the entire back and we would resculpt the hill in the back yard to accommodate this. However I think “the cheerleader effect” had taken over and she was blending the best aspects of both plans in her head and was taken aback when only the latter plan “won”.

As you can see the wall looks pretty formidable. But if you consider that the hill it replaces was as high if not higher for much of its run AND the concrete pool deck has yet to be poured. There will be another 6 inches shaved off of the perceived height of the wall.

Here at the top left of the wall you can also see an extension that will hold back part of the re-contoured back yard hill. This will allow us to put a ramp from the back yard up to the shed. There *were* going to be steps there but 1) we still wanted to be able to move dollys and other wheeled things between the house and the shed and 2) that would have introduced the first steps to the property and I kind of like the idea of a “stepless ranch”.

The East wall of our existing lanai has been removed. Note the air conditioner to the left. This is its last day on this side of the house.

More of the driveway has been removed. Only enough of it remains now to support the air conditioner and we’re avoiding the various utility conduits

Below we have the basis for a French drain in the making. A large corrugated tube with holes with a sock over it to screen out muddy particulates. This is embedded in gravel (you can see this against the retaining wall in the picture above).

2012 Home Renovations – Part 11 – Second round of cement pour completed

2012 Home Renovations – Part 13 – Backfill has begun Electrics have begun

 

The forms are up and the upright portions of the lanai and the driveway retaining walls were poured today.

From the current lanai

In the picture below, if you look on the left side of the pool closest to us and at the far end, on the left side of the pool wall facing us, you can see the fittings for the heated water outlet and inlet respectively.

Originally the heating was supposed to be integrated into the filtration unit. But the distance we are mounting the heater away from the pool meant that the filter pump would need to be on high all the time to circulate the water through the plumbing even when the heater was not being used. It was more cost effective (and will be quieter) to split out the two systems and use a separate  booster pump to circulate water through the heating system only when it is needed and then use the iAqualink system to tie everything together.

The driveway retaining wall looks like nothing so much as a fortress bulwark. I’m very glad our neighbor is on board with this project.

2012 Home Renovations – Part 10 – First round of cement pour completed

2012 Home Renovations – Part 12 – Retaining walls revealed

When I came home from work today, the pile in the front yard was even bigger than when I left. I’m starting to think I should leave it there, carve into it the faces of some famous people and charge folks admission. It really is quite the sight.

This is day 6 of construction proper (ignoring the tree clearing step). The start date was Monday February 27.

The big advance for today was that a lot of the rebar work was completed.

First the usual views from the existing lanai

Then peering into the pool you can see the rebar making up the bottom

And the retaining wall in the back yard is showing the skeleton of its eventual final form

The trench for the base of the driveway retaining wall has been dug, in the back you can see how they’ve creatively strung up my coaxial cable (orange) so they won’t be running heavy machinery over it.

Looking at the trench from the other end show the steps that it needs to accommodate the down hill

And here is the view from the top of the driveway. Obviously we’ve been parking next to the street lately…

2012 Home Renovations – Part 08 – The pool walls are up, half of the driveway is gone

2012 Home Renovations – Part 10 – First round of cement pour completed

Wow! The promised bad weather finally hit us. Our tornado watch was upgraded to a tornado warning last night some time before 9 pm. There were some spectacular rains and some damage affecting the major roadways near our house.

Fortunately the folks working on our site were farsighted enough to put tarps over everything that needed it and anchored them securely so we had no problems at all.

We began the process of removing about 3 feet off of the driveway to prepare for the needed trench for the footer that will brace our major retaining wall by the side of the house.

Here is a kind of crappy picture, taken through a screened and somewhat dusty window, of the jackhammer in action (far right)

and the driveway (with tarp covering) is a wee bit narrower

especially when contrasted with how it looked at the beginning of this project

All that dirt had to go somewhere, so here are a couple of pictures to try to give you a sense of the size of the pile of dirt in our front yard. I characterize it as being about the size of a school bus.

Traffic has been slowing just to stare at it both in its tarped and untarped forms. I wonder how many of them are regretting not voting for reinstatement of the neighborhood covenants figuring that we’re going to do something monstrous.

Never fear fair neighbors. Much of that dirt will go back to supporting the driveway and much of the rest will modestly adjust the slope of the front yard. The rest, if any is left, *will* be hauled away.

One minor annoyance, the folks who were supposed to mark the utilities missed the coaxial cable supplying my internet connection. It managed to survive the jackhammering, but met its match when the mini-bulldozer attempted to remove the concrete pieces.

Apparently the last contractor who had worked on this driveway 1) poured a brand new driveway OVER the existing driveway and 2) embedded the cable (within some pvc piping) WITHIN the newly poured concrete. The first is a cardinal sin and whoever did that job should be standing in an unemployment line someplace. The second I’m told is also a terrible idea for exactly the reason that you have no choice but to wreck it when you work on the driveway.

The crew was so paranoid after that that they very carefully dug out the area by hand to ensure that nothing else had been missed.

To their credit (I can’t believe I’m about to compliment Comcast), the cable company had a rep out the next morning who reconnected service and gave us a generous amount of cable so that we could shift it around as we need to for the remainder of the project. Mind you, they still are charging me $49 for the visit because we cut the cable. I suppose they are just hoping that it will be too much bother for us to argue the point with them.

The pool walls are now up!

The usual shots

Now showing the filtration unit attached from the back end

And my favorite perspective.  After seeing the hole in the back yard my mind was picturing the pool as being larger than it really was. Once the lanai is in place the pool will fit very nicely but, just like when you get that flat panel TV home from the store and in your room you always second guess yourself and think you maybe should have gone for the larger unit, I found myself thinking that we really should have gone for 50% more pool. Silly… but that’s just the way things are.

 

2012 Home Renovations – Part 07 – Tha major part of the Pool dig is done

2012 Home Renovations – Part 09 – Rebar for the pool and its retaining wall is up

In the morning we met with Rich (DC Enclosures) and discussed what we were going to do with the dirt being pulled out of the back yard. Much of it will go into leveling our driveway to make the top portion a bit handier for people who visit. Typically, anybody who parked in the “turnaround pad” found their car to be on a steep enough angle that opening the door and getting out proved to be somewhat of a challenge.

So we will be widening the driveway and making the bottom part of it somewhat steeper. This will allow us to bring the top part much closer to level. We also will not be nearly so aggressive in the slope that is built into the driveway (the side to side curve that will help redirect water where we want it to go – the reverse of a crown).

The pile of dirt in the front yard continues to grow and will grow even more tomorrow as about 3 feet of our driveway – at the side of the house – is broken off and then the underlying dirt is excavated in order to prepare a massive footing that will be required to properly secure the new retaining wall.

Our driveway is really taking a beating. When you combine the fact that it was already showing some signs of shifting with the removal of the support the old, rotting retaining wall provided and the pounding of the heavy equipment moving back and forth over it it is small wonder that it’s now sinking and cracking so much

I looked over at our neighbor’s house to check out their retaining wall which was rebuilt about 3 or 4 years ago and can see that it is already leaning noticeably. I don’t want to mess about with a half-assed job like that. We’re going with a properly engineered solution so that my investment in the new driveway and the security of both me and my other neighbor below this wall will be assured.

The pool dig is largely done. You can see the actual shape of the pool as the deeper hole inside of the larger hole. The extra room of the larger hole is for the rebar, support and drainage that needs to be installed around the pool.

The black panels are the walls of the pool from DesJoyaux. The big “grooves” or “pockets” that you see on the bottom of the smaller pile will be filled with concrete when all is said and done.

The blocks you see at the bottom of the pool hole represent the bottom of the finished pool. The guys spent a LOT of time working with leveling devices to carefully place these. These will assure that the rest of the pool is set up correctly.

This unit in the center of the picture is the filter unit for the pool (upside down). One of the appeals of the DesJoyaux system is that there is very little plumbing involved, no bottom drain, no skimmers beyond the one on the filter unit itself. So there is less to worry about breaking due to freezing or heaving. The filter is positioned to promote a clockwise flow of water. Because you’re not moving water around through an array of pipes, you don’t need as powerful a motor. The unit I’m going to have will consume between .3 kWatts and 1.6 kWatts depending on whether I’m using the high or low setting (that’s about .4 to 2 horsepower).

2012 Home Renovations – Part 06 – The Pool dig has begun

2012 Home Renovations – Part 08 – The pool walls are up, half of the driveway is gone

Today had the majority of our new drainage infrastructure put in place. The yard was re-graded to properly divert water both away from the house and away from the pool area. The way our yard sloped before, the water would naturally flow across the intended pool area toward the neighbor’s back yard (and so on down the street). Now we’re redirecting all that toward the front yard instead. Three collection/catch basins were also installed where most of the downspout and runoff water will be collected. These may be overkill, but we’re engineering on the conservative side so that we will not have to go back later to address a problem that could have been avoided. We have relatively low profile curbs so the original plan to have the water piped down to the street and then out through a hole in the curb is in question at the moment. I’m looking at this as a possible solution.

You can see both downspouts are now redirected into the new drainage system and the grate for one of the catch basins in the center of the image.

Here is another of the catch basin grates, plus a couple more downspouts redirected and at the top of the picture you can see trenching for the pipes that will carry the water to the curb.

These are the pipes ready to go when we’ve sorted out how to introduce the drainage water to the street in an attractive fashion

But the big news is that the actual pool dig has begun. You can finally get a sense of our plans becoming reality as we see the pool carved out of the ground.

Note the sloppy clay from last night’s rainfall

This picture gives a sense of the formerly forested part of our back yard. I’m hopeful that we can do something back here that can recapture some of that untamed aspect.

This blue pipe is a rough-in for the downspout that will eventually come from the “supergutter” that will serve both drainage and support functions in the finished lanai

We’re doing a fair amount of planning right now to ensure that we make the most of our other planned enhancements. Namely to change the slope profile of the front yard and the driveway and to widen the driveway. We may be lucky enough to consume nearly ALL of the dug soil/clay in these other parts. Meanwhile the pile of dirt in the front yard continues to grow.

Of course all of this is not without cost. Rich (of DC Enclosures) is working with us to try to find cost effective options for issues as they arise. We have not had any real surprises so far.

2012 Home Renovations – Part 05 – Digging the trench for the retaining wall footer

2012 Home Renovations – Part 07 – The major part of the Pool dig is done