August 17 Backfill

You can see the concrete stub walls for the garage. Now all we have to do is fill in the space around the cribbing and wait for the framer to start doing his thing.

 The Bobcat in action.

A couple of very interested bystanders.
 

Backfill is complete. The joists and lumber were delivered today and framing should begin after the weekend is over.

August 7 Foundations

Since this is not a normal garage which would only require a cement pad, we have to have a concrete foundation and a 4 ft wall. What were we thinking?

 That apparatus in the middle is the hose for the pumper truck. 

In  a short while we'll have concrete footings.

The frames for the footings in place waiting for concrete.

A view from upstairs of the garage foundation and cribbing completed. The wood will come off tomorrow and then we have to wait 7 days for the concrete to cure before we can start backfilling.

August 4 Ready for foundations

You can see the water line and sewer pipe above ground. All of the excavating has been completed. I think our excavator has added a few grey hairs. Our garage structure is a fairly new phenomenon in Calgary so everyone is learning new things as they go. We have areas with garage suites but they are mostly ones that were constructed the same time as the main house so there were no retro fitting issues.

 Water lines to the left.

Another view.

Excavating

The excavation process began on July 28. We were able to pile up quite a bit of dirt on the property but they still took 11 or 12 truck loads of dirt away.

 The digging begins. Payton was pretty excited to see he big machine at work.

 More digging. Our yard will never look the same.

 Loading one of the trucks.

 We had to block off the alley for a good part of the day. I hope our neighbors forgive us.

 We got quite a lot of rain on the second day. I had to rent a sump pump to get rid of the water.

 The trenching is mostly done. Next stage will be to get the footings in place.

We had to locate the water supply which ran right under the garage. The worker is in the hole trying to find it.

And So It Begins...

Nancy and I have been talking about building  a garage for several years and January 2011 we got the ball rolling. With school and other delays we are now ready to go. We're just waiting on the City to approve our building permit any day now and we'll begin.

Prior to that though, we had to move our gas line since it runs right underneath the garage. As you can see from the photos below, we called in the big guns to dig a trench along the fence line and put in a new gas line. They did their deed last Thursday June 28.

I'll update this blog as we progress.

 

Grandpa went on a date

"Oh grandpa you're so funny, and smart and handsome, and..."

I'm a little late reporting this but on August 17 I went on my first boy girl date in over 30 years. This was actually more fun than any date I went on as a single guy. I didn't have to impress my date. My bald spots weren't a big concern, and everything I said, she thought was funny. Very few of my earlier dates had such impeccable taste.

We started with lunch at Wendy's and her lunch only cost me five bucks. Five bucks! Even back in the seventies I couldn't get away with a five dollar meal. Gotta love those chicken nuggets...

We went to see Toy Story 3. We had a great time. I even got a kiss and a hug. On our first date. Woohoo!

We have a second date set for November when we get to go see Tangled.
http://trailers.apple.com/trailers/disney/tangled/

Thanks for showing grandpa such a good time McKenna...

On Guard

I was doing some scanning of some old slides today and came across this. With these guys on guard we were always confident of our safety. I might add that this is a step up from their earlier days when they wore their underwear on their heads.

Oh yeah, that's what I'm talking about...