Tag: back yard

Back Yard Concrete Demo

July 2, 2024 / / 0 Comments

I’m going to skip over all the things that I haven’t kept the blog updated about and go straight into covering various projects. So, I apologize that they won’t be posted in chronological order, since we’ve done a ton of projects since I fell off the posting timeline and the effort involved in getting caught up on everything is a big reason I haven’t bothered.

So, concrete demo. Let’s back up a step. When we bought the house, there was a two car garage in the back (we have an alley). It was probably a 1.5 car garage when it was built but they poured a three foot concrete pad next to the garage and literally moved the wall over, increasing the door size in the process and adding a single car door to the yard (maybe the original door? I don’t know) and extending the roof to reach the wall in its new location. So the garage was in bad shape, none of it was done well, and we tore it down years ago. In addition, the back yard had a concrete patio covering most of the area in back.

In addition to wanting a new garage, we wanted to get rid of the concrete patio. We plan to eventually put in a smaller paver patio. When we started getting quotes on the garage, we asked for removal of the patio concrete at the same time. When we took out the loan to finish the house, we wound up removing the garage because the overall price tag was just too much.

In hindsight, it may have been better to just do it, since the prices have not come down in the subsequent years. The garage quotes were really high and we started looking for any way to bring the price down. One of the ways to do that was demo the concrete ourselves.

So, we got a hand-me-down barely-used electric jackhammer from Sarah’s dad and set to work. As with most of these projects, it was harder and took longer than expected, but three heavy-debris dumpsters later, we’d completely cleared the back yard of concrete. The hardest bits were reinforced with steel mesh, and 4-8 inches thick throughout, with most of the patio being 6 inches thick.

The kids helped too, using the jackhammer (with supervision), hauling concrete chunks, and raking and shoveling the tinier bits. The neighbors did not really appreciate us using the loud jackhammer on and off for a couple months. We tried to limit how long we went and which days to be less annoying, but I’m sure we tried their patience. When we got to the back of the yard, we needed to remove and re-build the fence which was a project in and of itself.

In the end, all this was probably not worth it. If I’d known the patio was six inches thick with re-mesh, I may have just paid to have it done since while it absolutely saved us a couple-few thousands of dollars, it wasn’t so much that it felt truly worth the time and effort.

With the concrete removed, we still have a few steps before we’re ready to build a garage, but I’ll cover that in the next post.

Garage Demo

April 6, 2015 / / 0 Comments

The garage

The garage (doors removed)

Our whirlwind of demo continues with the destruction of our terrible, terrible garage. The garage is a tragic story, really. A perfectly good, new, professionally built garage was put up a few years before we bought the house. Apparently it wasn’t big enough, though, so the previous owners poured a two foot concrete pad extension on one side, cut one wall off, and moved it over. Then they just added boards to bridge the gap and shingled over it. The main door was replaced with a larger one and at the back (yard side) they put a smaller door, which may or may not have been the original front garage door. In any case, the structure was badly compromised, and by the time we bought it, water, rats, roaches, and plants were getting inside. We’ve used it as-is for the last few years, with big plans for a flat-roofed masonry garage and a yard-side fireplace waiting in the wings.

Roof removal

Roof removal

With our basement dig out pending and a giant pile of debris from the porch in the back yard, we needed to tear down the garage to make way for dumpsters. Sarah’s parents came down to lend a hand on Saturday. There was some doubt as to how long the process was going to take, but we had the whole thing down by mid afternoon.

Going…
Going…
Gone!

We wanted to get the yard closed off before calling it a day. We started work on the gate, but we only got one side up before it started getting late. By then dinner had arrived, so we propped up the other fence panels and called it a day. Sunday I broke down the garage pieces, we got the pad swept up, and I put together the rest of the fence and gate across the back.

Fence installation

Fence installation (also Derek)

The gate doesn’t work all that well at the moment. Because the new fence on the right doesn’t have very good footings and because I put in the posts with spikes instead of footings, the gate needs some center support to stay rigid. That in turn make it difficult to open and close. I may put a wheel on at least the left panel to make it easier to get the car in and out. When you open the right side gate, the fence leans enough that the neighbors side gate opens by itself. In any case, the garage is down and the first dumpster is on order for Friday, so now we need to get a path cleared in the yard!

Back Yard Cleanup

May 1, 2014 / / 0 Comments

Our back yard has been collecting material from the house. First we excavated the new footings in the basement, which resulted in a large mound of clay. Then, between the chimney removal and removing the brick fire blocking during subfloor install we added a giant pile of bricks and mortar. We removed the mortar from all of the good bricks and stacked them in a neat cube, but the broken and crumbling bits we just piled next to it.

Clay, bricks, mortar (and Derek)

Clay, bricks, mortar (and Derek)

In addition, we had an old raised garden along one side of the yard. It wasn’t the lovely cinder blocks that made us want to get rid of it now so much as the dirt itself: full of shredded plastic bags from rats nests, broken glass, bottle caps, an oil filter, bullet slugs, you-name-it. Sarah wouldn’t plant vegetables in it, so we used separate planters. She was planning to put a shovel-full of dirt into our garbage toters every week, but that was going to take forever. Instead we decided to get another dumpster (#4 if you’re counting).

Our beautiful garden

Our beautiful garden (and Derek)

An added incentive to take out the garden sooner rather than later was that the wooden fence was bent into the neighbors yard because the dirt was piled directly against it. The small suspended fence you see above was screwed to the posts of the larger fence behind it.

Piles cleanup up

Piles cleanup up

In addition to cleaning out all the clay, mortar, and broken bricks I shrink-wrapped the stack of bricks to make it a bit safer for Derek to be around. I don’t want anything to fall on him if he tries to climb on it. We were supposed to get a 10 yard dumpster for heavy debris, which is fairly short. I was hoping to make a simple ramp so that I could dump wheelbarrow-fulls into it. Instead they brought a 15 yard dumpster and said not to fill it up all the way. That meant it was too tall for a ramp and I had to instead carry three or four buckets in the wheelbarrow and then empty them over the side one by one.

Garden removed and fence fixed

Garden removed and fence fixed

The dumpster was delivered midday Thursday. By midday Friday I was exhausted, so Sarah came down and filled the buckets while I carried them out. The work went faster and it was a lot easier than doing all of it (not counting Derek’s assistance). We finished up Saturday morning, though the dumpster was blocked by a car and they wound up not picking it up until Monday. I’m interested to find out how many tons it wound up being.

Dumpster nearing the "two-thirds full" line

Dumpster approaching the “two-thirds” limit

We’re excited to have our back yard opened up a bit. With all the crap we’re doing to the house, the back yard —ugly as it is— is one of our favorite places. We didn’t have much of an outdoor space of our own at our condo. Having room for a table and chairs, a fire pit, a sandbox, and room for some small garden beds and compost bins still feels like a treat. Our other impending cleanup activity is the scrap metal pile in the basement. That won’t entail a dumpster, but like this will be a lot of work. Our house has more tons of material to disgorge before everything’s said and done.