Dobies and Mesh

Another day of working on the shed foundation. Today we got the reinforcement in place.

We started this morning by knocking out the extra dirt, then raking the surface smoothish. Smoothish because, you know, it's the bottom of a floor slab.

We then made the footings the right width, and used the laser level (thanks, Noel's parents) to make sure there were no areas on the slab less than four inches thick, but it had enough of a rise to slope into the dry well in the center. That's counter to the way shed floors are usually designed, but it doesn't matter if this shed is damp, and when it's a greenhouse it must be damp, so there you have it.

We spread a layer of gravel over the whole thing, then rolled it in, compacting the entire surface even more.

At this point we borrowed John's truck and went to Home Depot to begin what we thought would be an afternoon of hauling sacks of concrete into the back yard. But after loading twelve (of the 75 required) 80-lb sacks of concrete onto a trolley, we walked over to the desk and asked how much delivery would cost. $80, plus a $30 deposit on the pallets. And now the concrete will be delivered next Saturday.

We bought a bunch of mesh, and all the tools we needed for finishing the concrete, then came home and put in the reinforcement. We need to get more dobies, which are those small concrete blocks you see there trying to hold the mesh in place, but those are cheap and easy to transport.

Then, because it was threatening rain (it would have been just our luck to haul three tons of concrete into the back yard then have it all be rained on), we tarped over the whole thing and called it a weekend.

And now, the most interesting things we dug out of the shed foundation: two bullets; one rubber and one regular. I have no idea how they got there, but given the history of this neighborhood (which has been kind of dodgy for a while), they're not totally inexplicable.

Technorati Tags: construction, digging, foundation, shed

posted by ayse on 11/25/06