Damn dude, I'd just have to say the hell with it and move. On Aug 12, 2008, at 9:58 AM, Dan Rossi wrote:
> Yes, I am a big wuss. I am a balding, hairy backed, little girl in > knee > socks. > > Here is the deal. I am finally going to build the landings and > stairs for > my deck. There will be an upper landing at the level of the deck, > and a > lower landing with three steps leading down to the yard. The lower > landing will have steps going down from two adjacent sides. The third > side will obviously have the stairs going up to the upper landing. > and, > the forth side will just have a railing along the edge. > > There will be two posts holding up the outer edge of the upper > landing, > and the inner edge will be bolted to the rim joist of the deck. The > lower > landing will have four posts. > > I have to pour footers for each of these six posts. Around here, rules > are that footers have to be 36 inches deep. Well, when I dug the > footers > for the deck, after 36 inches we were still bringing up top soil and > a bit > of gravel. No clay, no big rocks, no sand and certainly no bedrock. > So, > we put the extention bar on the power auger and went another 18 inches > down. We only just started hitting clay and rock at the 54 inch deep > level. > > Those holes were 12 inches in diameter and they sucked up about 7 80 > pound > bags of cement each. > > These landing footers will only be 8 inches in diameter but will most > likely still go 54 inches deep, plus a little above grade. Each hole > will > take a bit more than 3 80 pound bags to fill, a total of about 20 80 > pound > bags. > > I'll will now describe where I live for those of you who haven't > heard my > rantings before. For those of you who have, just ignore me as usual. > > From the street you have to walk up 10 steps, then there is a little 2 > foot landing. Then you go up another 10 steps. Then there is a 60 foot > long landing. Then up another 10 steps, 2 foot landing, 10 steps, 5 > foot > landing, three more steps. OK, you are almost there. You are now at > one > end of a courtyard. I, of course, live at the far end of the > courtyard. > So, walk about 170 feet down the courtyard trying to stay on the > sidewalk > without kicking over the little mushroom lights or flowers along the > edges. Now turn left and go around the side of my house, through a > gate, > and into the yard. Now imagine humping 80 pound bags of cement along > that whole thing. > > Rather than do all 20 bags in one day, I decided we would do 4 bags > per > evening, each night of this week. > > When we got to Lowes last night, and were looking at the bags of > concrete, > I just couldn't face it. I did not want to hump those 80 pound bags up > all those damn stairs and along the courtyard. So, I noticed that > next to > the 80 pound bags were these nice 40 pound bags of cement. Sure, it > would > cost a bit more money, on the order of 20 or 25 bucks more, and > require > twice as many trips, but 40 pound trips are sooo much better than 80 > pound > trips. I caved. Yep, I admit it, I am a girly man. I slung 8 40 pound > bags onto the cart, loaded them into the trunk of our car, and since > Teresa insists on helping, we unloaded the bags at home. I ran the > bags > up to the long landing. Teresa took them from there to the house. She > had the longer distance so I unloaded the bags faster than she could > bring > them up to the house, so I hauled them from the landing to the top > of the > stairs and she moved them from there to the house on a dolly. It > actually > only took a few minutes, but was so much less painful than those 80 > pounders. One night down, four more to go. > > Hopefully, we'll get the footers dug and poured this weekend. I'll let > the list know how it goes. > > -- > Blue skies. > Dan Rossi > Carnegie Mellon University. > E-Mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Tel: (412) 268-9081 > > Scott Howell [EMAIL PROTECTED] [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
