Re: [BlindHandyMan] Color me pink.
Dan, I kinda figgerd it'd be too little for a truck. That's what concrete does for a living after all, be dense and heavy and strong. Tom
RE: [BlindHandyMan] Color me pink.
your method allows you to keep all of the beer. I am interested in adding that climbing exercise to my workout routine just to change things up a bit. Do you use any special pack or any special kind of weights? What kind of foot-wear are you guys using so as not to blow ankles ? -Original Message- From: blindhandyman@yahoogroups.com [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Dan Rossi Sent: Tuesday, August 12, 2008 8:39 PM To: blindhandyman@yahoogroups.com Subject: Re: [BlindHandyMan] Color me pink. I definitely considered a truck for the deck footers, but the problem is that the truck would have as much cement in the hose as I would need in the holes. IE, believe it or not, 35 80 pound bags of cement is about 2/3 of a yard. Not much cement for a truck. Plus, the closest the truck could get to the drop point is about 100 feet horizontally and about 10 feet below. And, I would have to negotiate with the neighbors to have the truck parked in their driveway. This would have been from a house behind mine. This set of holes is only about a third of a yard at most. So, I think it might be difficult to get a truck to deliver that little. We picked up another round of 40 pounders this evening. It goes pretty quickly and I swear those 40s feel like a lot less than half an 80. I actually discussed getting my mountaineering club involved in helping out. They often climb stairs with heavy packs so thought this would be a good workout for them. I've only climbed stairs with a 30 pound pack on for training, but one of my buddies is training for Everest and he climbs with a 100 pound pack. I kid you not. He does six climbs up a building near here that is 37 stories tall. We couldn't work out timing for everyone though. So I am doing it this way. It really isn't that bad with the 40s. -- Blue skies. Dan Rossi Carnegie Mellon University. E-Mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Tel:(412) 268-9081 Send any questions regarding list management to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To listen to the show archives go to link http://www.acbradio.org/pweb/index.php?module=pagemaster&PAGE_user_op=view_p age&PAGE_id=33&MMN_position=47:29 Or ftp://ftp.acbradio.org/acbradio-archives/handyman/ The Pod Cast address for the Blind Handy Man Show is. http://www.acbradio.org/news/xml/podcast.php?pgm=saturday Visit The Blind Handy Man Files Page To Review Contributions From Various List Members At The Following address: http://www.jaws-users.com/JAWS/handyman/ Visit the archives page at the following address http://www.mail-archive.com/blindhandyman@yahoogroups.com/ If you would like to join the JAWS Users List, then visit the following address for more information: http://www.jaws-users.com/ For a complete list of email commands pertaining to the Blind Handy Man list just send a blank message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Groups Links -- BEGIN-ANTISPAM-VOTING-LINKS -- Teach InfoWest Spam Trap if this mail (ID 199822106) is spam: Spam: https://spamtrap.infowest.com/canit/b.php?i=199822106&m=5a999f3d6219&c=s Not spam: https://spamtrap.infowest.com/canit/b.php?i=199822106&m=5a999f3d6219&c=n Forget vote: https://spamtrap.infowest.com/canit/b.php?i=199822106&m=5a999f3d6219&c=f REMEMBER: Never give out your account information, password, or other personal information over e-mail. -- END-ANTISPAM-VOTING-LINKS
Re: [BlindHandyMan] Color me pink.
I definitely considered a truck for the deck footers, but the problem is that the truck would have as much cement in the hose as I would need in the holes. IE, believe it or not, 35 80 pound bags of cement is about 2/3 of a yard. Not much cement for a truck. Plus, the closest the truck could get to the drop point is about 100 feet horizontally and about 10 feet below. And, I would have to negotiate with the neighbors to have the truck parked in their driveway. This would have been from a house behind mine. This set of holes is only about a third of a yard at most. So, I think it might be difficult to get a truck to deliver that little. We picked up another round of 40 pounders this evening. It goes pretty quickly and I swear those 40s feel like a lot less than half an 80. I actually discussed getting my mountaineering club involved in helping out. They often climb stairs with heavy packs so thought this would be a good workout for them. I've only climbed stairs with a 30 pound pack on for training, but one of my buddies is training for Everest and he climbs with a 100 pound pack. I kid you not. He does six climbs up a building near here that is 37 stories tall. We couldn't work out timing for everyone though. So I am doing it this way. It really isn't that bad with the 40s. -- Blue skies. Dan Rossi Carnegie Mellon University. E-Mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Tel:(412) 268-9081
Re: [BlindHandyMan] Color me pink.
Dan, I am a wuss too. The whol time, I'm thinking "60 lb bags for pete's sake!" I had a "fixer upper" apartment set up. 3 rentals, and I got used to carrying 60 lb bags. Up 3 steps, cross the porch, down, 5, then down 5, turn the corner and go into the basement or garage. I hefted an 80 onto my shoulder and thought I hadn't enough coffee that morning. i knew I had made a mistake when i got to the bottom of the "bouncing down the first set of 5 steps". That little string of muscle that goes along the collar bone, um, hurtin! So 40 bags, you can't buy as much beer, but you have a deck upon which to rest. Where's the fool? Enjoy it! On Tue, 12 Aug 2008, 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 >
Re: [BlindHandyMan] Color me pink.
if there is a lions club in your town they may have a Leo club in the local high school they are always looking for community involvement projects you might check there they might work for pizza and soda saving the beer for you go to lions.orgto find the nearest club best of luck sounds like a daunting task a terrible design for sure Allen Dunbar - Original Message - From: Bob Kennedy To: blindhandyman@yahoogroups.com Sent: Tuesday, August 12, 2008 7:24 PM Subject: Re: [BlindHandyMan] Color me pink. Maybe you could get the high school football coach interested and he could get his boys to run some agility drills by carrying the bags up stairs and over landings and around corners and everything... The worst they could say is no. - Original Message - From: Dan Rossi To: blindhandyman@yahoogroups.com Sent: Tuesday, August 12, 2008 10:46 AM Subject: RE: [BlindHandyMan] Color me pink. Yeah, I've thought about hiring a crew, but am not really sure where to look for "guys willing to bust there asses for a few bucks." My friends in other cities say they can just go to the local bigbox store and there are guys standing around the parking lot, you wave some cash at them, tell them what you need, and take them or they follow you and the job gets done. I have not come across that here in Pittsburgh though. You can usually bribe friends with pizza and beer into helping you move, but somehow it doesn't work as well when moving bags of cement. The word from Lowes is that their delivery people won't do it. They will drop it off at the bottom of the steps but that's as far as they will go. I assume that I might be able to bribe them with $20 bills once they were their, but haven't tried it. -- Blue skies. Dan Rossi Carnegie Mellon University. E-Mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Tel: (412) 268-9081 [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
Re: [BlindHandyMan] Color me pink.
Maybe you could get the high school football coach interested and he could get his boys to run some agility drills by carrying the bags up stairs and over landings and around corners and everything... The worst they could say is no. - Original Message - From: Dan Rossi To: blindhandyman@yahoogroups.com Sent: Tuesday, August 12, 2008 10:46 AM Subject: RE: [BlindHandyMan] Color me pink. Yeah, I've thought about hiring a crew, but am not really sure where to look for "guys willing to bust there asses for a few bucks." My friends in other cities say they can just go to the local bigbox store and there are guys standing around the parking lot, you wave some cash at them, tell them what you need, and take them or they follow you and the job gets done. I have not come across that here in Pittsburgh though. You can usually bribe friends with pizza and beer into helping you move, but somehow it doesn't work as well when moving bags of cement. The word from Lowes is that their delivery people won't do it. They will drop it off at the bottom of the steps but that's as far as they will go. I assume that I might be able to bribe them with $20 bills once they were their, but haven't tried it. -- Blue skies. Dan Rossi Carnegie Mellon University. E-Mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Tel: (412) 268-9081 [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
Re: [BlindHandyMan] Color me pink.
Dan, I assume you considered having the mixed cement delivered in a big truck with ahose and pump so they could just pump it right where you want it? maybe the range is too far and probably it'd cost like sin. Or am I incorrect that they can pump wet concrete through a long hose? Tom
Re: [BlindHandyMan] Color me pink.
Well, I am not sure if I really need to go the extra 18 inches deep. My brother-in-law was the one who suggested it when he saw the condition of the soil when we dug the deck footers. he's the contractor, not me. Probably, with the landings, it is not as critical. I considered a pad, but wasn't too sure about how much it might migrate with frost heave. I will definitely be using the sono tube. I used it on the deck footers and it was pretty useful, and made the tops of the footers nice and perty. I am seriously considering going over to Breeze's place, (another BHM member from Pittsburgh), and borrowing his cement mixer, with or without his permission. Mixing all those bags of cement by hand last year nearly killed me. -- Blue skies. Dan Rossi Carnegie Mellon University. E-Mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Tel:(412) 268-9081
Re: [BlindHandyMan] Color me pink.
OK Girly-man, But do you really have to go all that deep? Surely the soil at 36 inches is well compacted and plenty sufficient to hold up a couple of hundred pounds of landing and your fat uncle? The base of a 12 inch diameter footing is about 80 square inches times two for the one landing and four for the second. That bottom landing I would be tempted to pour a pad will they permit that? Well of course now that you have bought and loaded it you might as well use it up. Are you forming it up with sonotube? Again, that helps keep frost from lifting the post,. Bent over mixing all that in a barrow is the work that really bothers me. Have a wonderful week-end. - Original Message - From: Dan Rossi To: BlindHandyman@yahoogroups.com Sent: Tuesday, August 12, 2008 9:58 AM Subject: [BlindHandyMan] Color me pink. 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 -- No virus found in this incoming message. Checked by AVG. Version: 7.5.524 / Virus Database: 270.6.0/1604 - Release Date: 8/11/2008 5:50 AM [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
Re: [BlindHandyMan] Color me pink.
Wow, now there's a much more economical solution than I offered. I'll keep this in mind should I have such a project and need help moving loads of wood etc. On Aug 12, 2008, at 10:39 AM, Barry Levine wrote: > > Stack a few bags of cement on the sidewalk just before the stairs > begin > to ascend, sit down on top of them, and start crying. Somebody's bound > to come along and offer to help. > > > -Original Message- > From: blindhandyman@yahoogroups.com > [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Dan Rossi > Sent: Tuesday, August 12, 2008 9:47 AM > To: blindhandyman@yahoogroups.com > Subject: RE: [BlindHandyMan] Color me pink. > > Yeah, I've thought about hiring a crew, but am not really sure where > to > look for "guys willing to bust there asses for a few bucks." My > friends > > in other cities say they can just go to the local bigbox store and > there > > are guys standing around the parking lot, you wave some cash at them, > tell them what you need, and take them or they follow you and the job > gets > done. > > I have not come across that here in Pittsburgh though. You can usually > bribe friends with pizza and beer into helping you move, but somehow > it > doesn't work as well when moving bags of cement. > > The word from Lowes is that their delivery people won't do it. They > will > drop it off at the bottom of the steps but that's as far as they will > go. > I assume that I might be able to bribe them with $20 bills once they > were > their, but haven't tried it. > > -- > Blue skies. > Dan Rossi > Carnegie Mellon University. > E-Mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Tel: (412) 268-9081 > > > > Send any questions regarding list management to: > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > To listen to the show archives go to link > http://www.acbradio.org/pweb/index.php?module=pagemaster&PAGE_user_op=vi > ew_page&PAGE_id=33&MMN_position=47:29 > Or > ftp://ftp.acbradio.org/acbradio-archives/handyman/ > > The Pod Cast address for the Blind Handy Man Show is. > http://www.acbradio.org/news/xml/podcast.php?pgm=saturday > > Visit The Blind Handy Man Files Page To Review Contributions From > Various List Members At The Following address: > http://www.jaws-users.com/JAWS/handyman/ > > Visit the archives page at the following address > http://www.mail-archive.com/blindhandyman@yahoogroups.com/ > > If you would like to join the JAWS Users List, then visit the > following > address for more information: > http://www.jaws-users.com/ > For a complete list of email commands pertaining to the Blind Handy > Man > list just send a blank message to: > [EMAIL PROTECTED] Groups Links > > > Scott Howell [EMAIL PROTECTED] [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
Re: [BlindHandyMan] Color me pink.
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]
Re: [BlindHandyMan] Color me pink.
Victor, Possibly if I had a proper stair climbing dolly it would be a lot easier. But I have found that bouncing the dolly up the stairs is a pain in the ass. And, and with bags of cement, you have to be really careful to not let them shift and then slip off the dolly. I've tried this before. One possibility is to drive up the neighbors driveway and then we would be at the level of the middle long landing. Then we could stack the bags on the wall separating the driveway from our landing, cutting off the first 20 steps. However, it was late, they have 8 kids, several of whom are toddlers and were sleeping when we got home last night. So we didn't want to disturb them by knocking to ask if we could use their driveway. I think we will ask before we head out tonight. Plus, there are some tensions between the courtyard people and the neighbor, because I think the driveway use has been abused in the past when courtyard people didn't ask permission to use the driveway. There are 20 townhouses on the courtyard. -- Blue skies. Dan Rossi Carnegie Mellon University. E-Mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Tel:(412) 268-9081
Re: [BlindHandyMan] Color me pink.
Ah Jennifer, But how impressed would she be when she found out that he was all tuckered out from all the heavy lifting for her, to find out he's too tired to lift her? Exactly my point honey, because as sexy as that man is, he'll be way too tired to perform anything short of a snore fest. Smile. Victor Co-moderator Blind Movie Buffs List Guidedogs List
Re: [BlindHandyMan] Color me pink.
Guys, you have missed the point that there is nothing sexier than a man who will move heavy stuff for you. :) I am impressed, and I am sure Teresa was too. Jennifer - Original Message - From: William Stephan To: blindhandyman@yahoogroups.com Sent: Tuesday, August 12, 2008 9:31 AM Subject: RE: [BlindHandyMan] Color me pink. Dan: I'm with Barry on this one. This is a job that's got "crew" written all over it. -Original Message- From: blindhandyman@yahoogroups.com [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Barry Levine Sent: Tuesday, August 12, 2008 08:54 To: blindhandyman@yahoogroups.com Subject: RE: [BlindHandyMan] Color me pink. Dan, Say 4 Hail Maries, 2 Our Fathers, and forget about it! I would have hired someone from the get go. --Barry -Original Message- From: blindhandyman@ <mailto:blindhandyman%40yahoogroups.com> yahoogroups.com [mailto:blindhandyman@ <mailto:blindhandyman%40yahoogroups.com> yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of Dan Rossi Sent: Tuesday, August 12, 2008 8:58 AM To: BlindHandyman@ <mailto:BlindHandyman%40yahoogroups.com> yahoogroups.com Subject: [BlindHandyMan] Color me pink. 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 Carne
Re: [BlindHandyMan] Color me pink.
Dan, have you considered using a dolly or hand truck to lug those things up the stairs? I'm just thinking that it would take a lot less energy to lug it up using your arms, then your entire body. I remember when I had to cart fridges and stoves up stairs for some people, and remember thinking that it would have been so much easier to use the hand truck to lug the stuff up, then it did to carry it. Just a thought, in case you get those feelings of being a girlie man again. Grins. Victor Co-moderator Blind Movie Buffs List Guidedogs List
RE: [BlindHandyMan] Color me pink.
Stack a few bags of cement on the sidewalk just before the stairs begin to ascend, sit down on top of them, and start crying. Somebody's bound to come along and offer to help. -Original Message- From: blindhandyman@yahoogroups.com [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Dan Rossi Sent: Tuesday, August 12, 2008 9:47 AM To: blindhandyman@yahoogroups.com Subject: RE: [BlindHandyMan] Color me pink. Yeah, I've thought about hiring a crew, but am not really sure where to look for "guys willing to bust there asses for a few bucks." My friends in other cities say they can just go to the local bigbox store and there are guys standing around the parking lot, you wave some cash at them, tell them what you need, and take them or they follow you and the job gets done. I have not come across that here in Pittsburgh though. You can usually bribe friends with pizza and beer into helping you move, but somehow it doesn't work as well when moving bags of cement. The word from Lowes is that their delivery people won't do it. They will drop it off at the bottom of the steps but that's as far as they will go. I assume that I might be able to bribe them with $20 bills once they were their, but haven't tried it. -- Blue skies. Dan Rossi Carnegie Mellon University. E-Mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Tel:(412) 268-9081 Send any questions regarding list management to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To listen to the show archives go to link http://www.acbradio.org/pweb/index.php?module=pagemaster&PAGE_user_op=vi ew_page&PAGE_id=33&MMN_position=47:29 Or ftp://ftp.acbradio.org/acbradio-archives/handyman/ The Pod Cast address for the Blind Handy Man Show is. http://www.acbradio.org/news/xml/podcast.php?pgm=saturday Visit The Blind Handy Man Files Page To Review Contributions From Various List Members At The Following address: http://www.jaws-users.com/JAWS/handyman/ Visit the archives page at the following address http://www.mail-archive.com/blindhandyman@yahoogroups.com/ If you would like to join the JAWS Users List, then visit the following address for more information: http://www.jaws-users.com/ For a complete list of email commands pertaining to the Blind Handy Man list just send a blank message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Groups Links
RE: [BlindHandyMan] Color me pink.
Yeah, I've thought about hiring a crew, but am not really sure where to look for "guys willing to bust there asses for a few bucks." My friends in other cities say they can just go to the local bigbox store and there are guys standing around the parking lot, you wave some cash at them, tell them what you need, and take them or they follow you and the job gets done. I have not come across that here in Pittsburgh though. You can usually bribe friends with pizza and beer into helping you move, but somehow it doesn't work as well when moving bags of cement. The word from Lowes is that their delivery people won't do it. They will drop it off at the bottom of the steps but that's as far as they will go. I assume that I might be able to bribe them with $20 bills once they were their, but haven't tried it. -- Blue skies. Dan Rossi Carnegie Mellon University. E-Mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Tel:(412) 268-9081
RE: [BlindHandyMan] Color me pink.
Dan: I'm with Barry on this one. This is a job that's got "crew" written all over it. -Original Message- From: blindhandyman@yahoogroups.com [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Barry Levine Sent: Tuesday, August 12, 2008 08:54 To: blindhandyman@yahoogroups.com Subject: RE: [BlindHandyMan] Color me pink. Dan, Say 4 Hail Maries, 2 Our Fathers, and forget about it! I would have hired someone from the get go. --Barry -Original Message- From: blindhandyman@ <mailto:blindhandyman%40yahoogroups.com> yahoogroups.com [mailto:blindhandyman@ <mailto:blindhandyman%40yahoogroups.com> yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of Dan Rossi Sent: Tuesday, August 12, 2008 8:58 AM To: BlindHandyman@ <mailto:BlindHandyman%40yahoogroups.com> yahoogroups.com Subject: [BlindHandyMan] Color me pink. 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] <mailto:dr25%40andrew.cmu.edu> cmu.edu Tel: (412) 268-9081 Send any questions regarding list management to: blindhandyman- <mailto:blindhandyman-owner%40yahoogroups.com> [EMAIL PROTECTED] To listen to the show archives go to link http://www.acbradio <http://www.acbradio.org/pweb/index.php?module=pagemaster&PAGE_user_op=vi> .org/pweb/index.php?module=pagemaster&PAGE_user_op=vi ew_page&PAGE_id=33&MMN_position=47:29 Or ftp
RE: [BlindHandyMan] Color me pink.
Dan, Say 4 Hail Maries, 2 Our Fathers, and forget about it! I would have hired someone from the get go. --Barry -Original Message- From: blindhandyman@yahoogroups.com [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Dan Rossi Sent: Tuesday, August 12, 2008 8:58 AM To: BlindHandyman@yahoogroups.com Subject: [BlindHandyMan] Color me pink. 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 Send any questions regarding list management to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To listen to the show archives go to link http://www.acbradio.org/pweb/index.php?module=pagemaster&PAGE_user_op=vi ew_page&PAGE_id=33&MMN_position=47:29 Or ftp://ftp.acbradio.org/acbradio-archives/handyman/ The Pod Cast address for the Blind Handy Man Show is. http://www.acbradio.org/news/xml/podcast.php?pgm=saturday Visit The Blind Handy Man Files Page To Review Contributions From Various List Members At The Following address: http://www.jaws-users.com/JAWS/handyman/ Visit the archives page at the following address http://www.mail-archive.com/blindhandyman@yahoogroups.com/ If you would like to join the JAWS Users List, then visit the following address for more information: http://www.jaws-users.com/ For a complete list of email commands pertaining to the Blind Handy Man list just send a blank message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Groups Links
[BlindHandyMan] Color me pink.
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
