The Great Wall - Day 4

No need to delay the inevitable. The Great Wall is complete! The wall part at least, nothing else.

Bask in the glory that is geometric patterns of form pressed stone composite material!

This past Saturday consisted of 10 hours of picking things up and putting them down. Only I had to glue said things and place them in an appropriate pattern. And by appropriate pattern I mean I had a basic pattern for something that isn't a wall and used that for the first half, then started to just put the stones wherever they fit for the second half. Still with glue. So moderately permanent, hopefully.

See all the squiggles of glue? That was a whole tube.

A pattern begins to emerge!

After spending many hours meticulously laying down the first course of stones and ensuring the straightity and levelitude, the rest of the stones went fairly quickly. Goes to show that doing proper prep work makes the rest of the job quicker. Hopefully I learned my lesson and apply this to my next projects. Although it looks like cleaning up from this one is going to be a project by itself. Wondering if I can just ignore it till it cleans itself up or if I could hire out for a sweet montage segment where it gets done in 30 seconds.

This came up when I did an image search for 'sweet montage cleanup segment'. Seems appropriate.

If you have to build a wall or some other type of stone based monument in your yard, I highly recommend these RumbleStone stones by the PaveStone Stone Company. Or the Stone Brewing Company, either will do. The stones all just fit together perfectly. Even when I went off pattern and started free forming the wall it still worked. Just make sure you have enough of each type of stone and you can build pretty much anything. If you build it, they will come.

Look at the patterns!

31.75 feet of perfectly fitted masonry.

The one thing to pay attention to however is to make sure you have enough landscape adhesive to get the job done. I drastically underestimated how much I would need, 3 different times. When I got my first set of supplies I figured 5 tubes would work. The tube said it would cover 31 feet and I assumed that meant 31 feet of wall, which is exactly how long my wall is. Well it meant 31 feet of goop, not wall. So after doing the first couple courses of stone and some of the columns I ran out and had to run to the home improvement store. This time I got a case of 12 to finish up. Figured that was plenty.

A few hours later I went back and got 6 more. That had to be enough.

Then I had to go back and get 4 more....

Finished the step with 1 tube left unopened.

Like the aftermath of a crazy party. 500 used tubes of adhesive, a plastic lawnmower and one empty beer bottle.

Once the wall was up and sufficiently glued together I had to put nice capstones on to make the wall look pretty. Apparently even walls have feelings. But then I had to build a step! What is a wall if you can't easily climb over it? My first idea was to build an inset step that went up to the patio. I had been wracking my brain about how I was going to do this as part of the wall without messing everything up. Then I had a brainstorm. Well, my brainstorm was to fret about it to my staff at work. That was all I needed though! One of my guys, Dan, said "Why don't you just build a step in front of the wall?"

He wasn't a free mason but I still requested his help.

That is why I hire A players for my team. Critical thinking skills that I lack. That makes me the best manager ever basically.

They love and adore me.

Yeah, if you could just come in on Saturday and build the patio for me, that would be great.

All I needed to do was take the stones I had left over and build a half wall step thing. Amazingly enough, I actually had left over stones. Back to the pre-planning part... I had guessed how many rocks I needed. Did some measurements and then just plain old guessed when I got to to the home improvement store. Amazingly I ended up with only 2 flat stones (which I promptly broke trying to chisel them in half), a handful of mini ones and probably more than my fair share of square ones. I was thinking that wasn't too bad but as I'm writing this I realize that I need to figure out what to do with those extra rocks... I'm sure I'll think of something. Maybe I'll put turrets on the wall. And a moat!

Trying the Flintstones method of writing this blog.

It isn't an exact science though....

Now that the wall is done I just need to deal with the ditches on either side of it. Link has gotten fairly adept at jumping over the ditch then using the small stair to get down to the yard. The Wee One isn't as lucky, nor as agile as the dog. With that the wall is really separating two different projects. On one side I need to till up the yard, level it, and then grow a new lawn. On the other side I need to build a patio. Both sides are huge projects that I have no idea how to do. But hey, if I can build a wall then I can build anything!

Can't decide between a joke about the tiny wheelbarrow or the spent adhesive tubes.

- The Porter -

The Great Wall - Day 3

The forecast was wrong! There wasn't any rain and that means no excuses for not building a Great Wall. This is the part where things start to get a bit dicey. Ripping down walls, moving rocks, those don't really take any particular sets of skills. Laying the foundation for a retaining wall and getting the first course of stones level.... that might need something. Not sure if I have that certain thing or not, but here goes!

Just like making the bed. Throw the sheets down  in a heap and when I get home from work the bed is made. Magic!

I researched how to do this on my phone while at the home improvement store for about 5 minutes. So I'm assuming that I'm an expert on this now. The first thing you are supposed to do is lay out this fabric stuff to keep the dirt away from the wall. The wall is the thing that is supposed to hold back the dirt.... I could have saved a lot of time and money if I just used this black sheet in the first place. The wife is concerned about 'aesthetics' and whatnot, so rock wall we go. There doesn't seem to be any skill to this portion, I just rolled it out and held it down with some bricks. Meh.

At this point I was considering just wrapping the whole thing up for a to go order.

Once my trench was dressed in its finest black frock I had to fill it, 'it' being the trench not the frock, with sand. Although technically I filled the both the frock and the trench with sand. We were still on the easy parts. I pushed the sand around and then put the level on it. Wicked Shocker Alert. It wasn't level. The yard is very, very non-level. I dug about 6 inches down in the ground and the bottom of the trench on the right (or left depending on where you are standing) side of the lawn is above the top of the lawn on the other side. We have a good 8 inch drop in the yard with a big bulge in the middle. Looks like I found my next project...

This is why you use the orange string!

Now we are getting into the skilled portion. If not skilled then at least the part that needs careful attention. A wall is only as straight and level as you make it. It is fine if it isn't totally straight or level, but all the stones need to be at the same straightification and levelness for it to work. Like a choir. Everyone needs to be singing together. Except the tenors, they can just be loud and awesome to make up for everyone else. However I can't have any tenor stones in this wall. One awesome stone that stands out and everyone looking at the wall and says:

"Man.... Look at that one stone there. It is the best stone out of all of these other untalented stones. Too bad it is too young and shouldn't be holding up that type of wall until it is well into its wall holding career. It could damage its ability to hold walls. No one wants an awesome stone for 25 years, we would rather have it sing art songs for 60 and be mediocre because we are full of ourselves and causing our industry to die."

Whoops, a little repressed resentment of the opera world came out there...

Nevermind, orange string isn't fixing s**t.

Oh yeah, I was talking about straightity and levelness. I brought the string back! Tied a nice orange piece of string to two sticks and strung it out along the pit. High tech I know, but it gave me a line to line the stones against. I saw a picture of this at the home improvement store, so I know this is what I needed to do. This should ensure that the wall is at the very least going in one direction.

At least the wall isn't going Bieber. I would have to torch the whole house and salt the earth.

With the combination of sand and stones, luck and sweat, cursing and crying, I was able to get a full course of stones down! Night had fallen, it was a cold and dark night, full of mystery and intrigue, and I was using the light of my cell phone to see the level for each individual stone that I set, but by God I was going to finish that whole run before the night was through. Determination!

That end is above ground.

This end is below! Magic!

As you can see I also put some columns on the ends of the wall. The columns can be little plant holders or something. Most likely they will just be places where the Wee One climbs up and jumps off. I won't make them too high. Or whatever, he has to learn somewhere. I never broke anything jumping off stuff when I was little. Sprained my ankles a ton but if it doesn't kill you it makes you stronger. Or makes your ankles weaker so you fall to the ground if there is a piece of gravel on the road and you step on it. Either way. Also I need to put stairs somewhere in there.

Now that I see the picture full size and not on my phone I realize that it slopes to the left.... Crap...

Now that this first course is done I think the rest should go faster. This first set is all level and straight so the blocks on top should, theoretically, follow suit. The best thing about these stones, no mortar needed! It uses landscape adhesive to hold everything together. So I will literally be gluing rocks together to make a wall that should hold up the patio and the back of my house. Seems legit.

- The Porter -

The Great Wall - Day 2

3 Hours.

4 Pallets.

176 Trips.

600 Stones.

7500 Pounds.

By. Hand.

*flex*

They look a lot bigger than they did on the magazine. Also a lot heavier.

Yesterday we received the delivery of the stones to build the Great Wall with. Helpfully they were delivered right into our driveway. That meant 7500 pounds of stones needed to be moved, by hand, before we could park our cars again. No rest for the weary, home from work and onto manual labor!

Tried to contact this group for help but I couldn't find their number in the yellow pages.

Why by hand you ask? Well because I needed to get the stones down the house, then down a 2 foot drop from another retaining wall, then over to another pallet near the Great Wall. I could have used a wheelbarrow but that would have involved filling the barrow, moving it 20 feet, emptying it, moving the barrow down the terrace, refilling it, moving it 10 feet, emptying it. That seemed like more work at the time, so I opted for 176 trips back and forth with between 2-10 stones in my arms.

Halfway through pallet #2 I started rethinking a lot of the life choices I've made that got me here.

The exciting thing about these stones is that they, like I keep telling the wee one, are pretty much big boy Legos. They are all different sizes, but the dimensions add up so that you can just stack them in different directions and get a nifty design. I got some of your large rectangles, your small rectangles, your flat rectangles, and also some of your traditional square type rocks. Not sure what quarry they found with these magical beasts, but nature is amazing.

I've been training for this project as well. Play more video games kids, they prep you for life.

All in all, I did not accomplish much. An entire day of the project, well only 3 hours, spent entirely on moving the supplies. Moving them a grand total of about 10-15 meters. On top of that I ache. Not like a great workout type of ache, or when your high school sweetheart breaks your heart type of ache. The type of ache where sleeping hurts. Driving to work hurt. Even my hands hurt typing this. All that pain and suffering just so that I can have the stones closer when I have to build the wall. Pain and suffering and it didn't even lead to dark side Force powers. :( Had that happened, moving the rocks would have been a ton easier.

I'm no structural engineer, but that looks safe enough to me.

Assuming the forecast is incorrect and it doesn't rain for the next few days, this wall is going up. Of course if, for once, they got it correct... I'm fairly confident that rain combined with 7500 extra pounds of weight on the terrace are going to topple over lawn into the neighbors. It will be the fastest land grab in history.

- The Porter -

The Great Wall - Day 1

Warm weather and birds chirping. That can only mean that Spring has sprung! I guess it can't only mean that one thing, because it also means that it is time to get back to Porterhouse Projects^TM! We took the winter off mostly because it was flipping cold and we were buried under 8 feet of snow for a good 2 months. Now that it has melted we are back in action. The first project of the year, replacing the old rotted retaining wall in the back yard!

Even the Wee One's fake plastic lawnmower is overcome with this job.

This was not my first choice of project for the year but really one that was forced on me due to planning. We need to redo the upstairs bathroom and tile the front entry and dining area. Before I do that we need to replace the temporary jacks with permanent supports in the basement so that new tile doesn't crack due to shifting. Need to hire a dumpster to clean out all the crap in the basement before we can navigate it easily to replace those posts. Have to pull up the old retaining wall first so that we can throw the rail ties away in the rented dumpster. Have to wait for the snow to melt before we... and so on. With the amount of work travel that I'm doing, I have to get a jump on these projects now if I want to finish them this year. I mean, I can't always be in Ireland.

Lies, I totally could be there all the time.

I try to put a paragraph in between each set of pictures. It helps with the balance of the post. However I didn't do anything in between this and the last set of pictures... Ummm... Worky worky, I went to Ireland again. I didn't do any projects all winter. Purple monkey dishwasher.

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That should be good.

I tried to contact the owner, they appear good at digging and could help me out.

Alternately Mother Nature is more than capable, she just doesn't like to work on a fast schedule.

Aside from the fact that most of the ties are hollow with rot, housing the carpenter ant hives that provide our yearly swarm and who knows what else, last fall something(one?) dug underneath one of the stairs. Pretty sure it was the dead rat that I found inside one of the ties but I wasn't taking any chances. The hole looks larger than a rat though...Maybe the dreaded Rat King.

If only he was as graceful in death as I chucked him over the fence into the neighbors yard.

The (only) nice thing about rotted wood is that it makes the demo a lot easier. I was able to get the first course of ties up fairly quickly. They just kind of fell over like a barbarian who comes out of his battlerage to learn that he has lost all his blood, they gave up their final sigh and fell to the earth. Well they fell after I picked them up from the earth and put them on the pile with their dead brethren.

Ahh my good friend tetanus, we meet again.

Pictures are worth 1000 words. All of those words are 'rot'.

It was the ones buried a bit that gave me the trouble. All old and stuck in their ways. First, these ties are old hard wood. The rotted bits had turned to soil, but the non-rotted parts were hard as steel. Chopping with an axe barely made a dent in it. However, I hacked away because I bought an axe and I was damn well going to use it. After not chopping them in half though, 8 feet of waterlogged rail ties are very heavy to move. They also had grown roots somehow and were holding onto the earth as though saying 'I don't want to go', before not regenerating and being heaved onto a pile.

I'm a lumberjack and that's ok.

There actually is a log in there, I'm not just chopping dirt.

Once the majority of the ties were up I dug a nice trench where the new wall is going to go. The lawn slopes slightly to the side, so I will need to make up for that by, well I have no idea but I'll figure it out. Dirt will play a major role I'm sure. I also tied a string to make it look like I was planning, but it didn't help.

We are (mostly) ready to begin the wall transplant Doctor.

Overall it was a good start to a project. I have 4 pallets of stones being delivered sometime this week, so the building will begin soon. Until then the wee one is passing the time by digging up the piles of dirt and putting them back in the hole that I am trying to dig out and the poor dog can't make it across the canyon. Also it is supposed to rain soon, so I'm sure the whole yard is going to wash away by the time I'm ready to start building. #OhGood 

However we had Chinese food that night and my fortune cookie sums it up the best:

No it didn't, Mr. Fortune Cookie Translator. No it didn't.

- The Porter -




P.S.

The little Porter helping out, when not refilling the hole I was digging.

Plumbing 101

It is a strange fate we should suffer so much fear and doubt… over so small a thing. Such a little thing.

Vacations come in all shapes and sizes. Vacations from work, from responsibility, from work, from certain foods, etc. I had decided to take a vacation from projects for a while to deal with the new Wee One. Yes, that is right. There are 2 now. I told the house that we just needed some time to get adjusted to having the new baby before I could pay more attention to it. But just like most older children when the new one comes home, they pee all over the floor in protest.

4 days after coming home from the hospital with our new bundle of joy, I went to the basement to check on some mouse traps that I set to see if we have any freeloaders living with us. Nothing so far, which is a good sign. However the bad sign was the drip drip dripping that I heard coming from the waste pipe near the sewer line. Upon further investigation I found the source. Not a standard crack from age but a crack because whomever installed this thing decided to use a piece of pipe that they had already started to cut. Yes. Because they started a cut in the wrong spot and decided to still use that segment of pipe, we had a leak. Instead of having plenty of pipe wall to deal with standard corrosion, there was a thin wall of copper keeping the water in. Laziness and ineptitude caused this.

Now yes, the hole is tiny and I could have just sealed it up. But....

Now the old and the new shall become one

As mentioned in other posts, the previous owners loved duct tape. I can see getting confused and using it on ducts... but plumbing? Since this was already a mess and that huge old drum trap was always getting clogged, I decided to just replace the entire line. Also the plumbing isn't vented so I could add some air intake valves while I'm at it. Always best to do it the right way even it it requires more effort that patching. That means ripping out everything from the kitchen and bathroom sinks on down.

Now I haven't done plumbing before. The closest I have come to plumbing is buying a new garden hose. This is a waste pipe though, hopefully no pressurized contents, so I figured it was a great place to start. It really shouldn't be that hard. Now of course I did practice, tested some (1) pipe connections, ran through a simulator a few times to get myself prepped. I've got this.

Once I got the high score I knew I was ready

So I started. This is one of those projects that, like most, I was unsure of at the start and well into the middle. And near the end. Once started though, it needed to be finished. The wife was not prepared to lose access to the kitchen and bathroom sinks indefinitely. Something about needing clean dishes and whatnot.

The demo is the easiest though. All I needed to do was remove some pipes. So remove pipes I did, starting with the duct taped one and then moving onto the fun of cutting through the old metal pipes. What I was not prepared for was the smell. The duct tape joint had a nice collection of filth which had matured well with age.

Who needs proper couplings when you have duct tape?

The smell was tremendous. Only to be topped by the fresh sewer line smell once I cut through that monstrous drum trap. At this point I knew I had to work quickly because I now had an open line at the main sewer pipe and two sinks out of order. I also didn't want that open sewer line to stay open. I've seen Ninja Turtles (not the new one, that one sucks), I know what comes out of sewers. 

Something tells me not all sewers are so well maintained and have inns

With all the pipes removed it really was just putting the new PVC together. I had purchased enough straight pieces and differently angled joints that we just needed to figure out which ones went where. Much like an artist saying that just need to remove the parts of the stone that aren't part of the sculpture, I needed to know which pieces of PVC 'belonged'.

My entire rationalization of doing this project was that I can put together a puzzle and this is pretty much the same. Yes you have to prime and glue the pieces together so you need to do it perfectly, but Perfect is my middle name. 

Lies. Its Ronald.

So I set out all the pieces and dry fit them to make sure it would all work. In the pic above you can see an air intake valve. Neither sink was vented properly which meant lots of noise coming from the drain when water goes down. Also the sewer stink that I was mentioning before, that has a tendency to make an appearance in non-vented sinks. Repairs and improvements all in one! The rest of the afternoon was spent doing a giant white jig saw puzzle.

Doesn't get much easier than this

This project was a lot more measuring and cutting than normal. We really needed this to work correctly so I changed my method of eyeballing and praying. In the end, it actually worked out. I was shocked. The pieces mostly lined up. It only took a little muscle at the end to get the final pipes connected. With that I ran upstairs, turned on all the water and then sat. I waited and waited but no water came out of the pipes. I even checked the next two days and the water is still draining properly. We have even been able to use the garbage disposal since that drum trap isn't there. Now I just need to replace the leaky sink and the downstairs plumbing is all set, until I find the next problem....

Leveled up to master plumber. Koopa, look out.

- The Porter -