warpus
Sommerswerd asked me to change this
I like the look of that! Why is the raised chickenwire-like fence only on the side facing the fence, though? Something to do with animals jumping over from the fence?
Ask a Building Trades Professional
- Thread starter ReindeerThistle
- Start date
Yeah, that's not for keeping animals out. That's to support plants that do better if they grow higher, but can't without something to hold on to.
In nearly all cases, backyard type fruits and vegetables need a lot of direct sunlight. This is why my garden doesn't do well, as I have so many trees that no spot in my yard gets a full day of unshaded sunlight. Many plants do better if they can go vertical up to a point, so that they get better sunlight.
In nearly all cases, backyard type fruits and vegetables need a lot of direct sunlight. This is why my garden doesn't do well, as I have so many trees that no spot in my yard gets a full day of unshaded sunlight. Many plants do better if they can go vertical up to a point, so that they get better sunlight.
warpus
Sommerswerd asked me to change this
Gotcha. My friend's urban garden (in Toronto) has metal rods right in the middle of his plot. The kale and other veggies attach to that and grow on it.
The place where I want to put my garden wouldn't get much sunlight either.. but.. I don't really have a choice, there really isn't a better place to put it.. I guess I should research which vegetables would best work with a somewhat limited amount of sun each day.
The place where I want to put my garden wouldn't get much sunlight either.. but.. I don't really have a choice, there really isn't a better place to put it.. I guess I should research which vegetables would best work with a somewhat limited amount of sun each day.
warpus
Sommerswerd asked me to change this
Should I figure out how many hours of sunlight a day this garden would get, if I put it where I want to put it? It's by a fence, so as the sun moves from the east to the west the fence eventually gets in the way. It's not super bad, from what I can tell, my neighbour to the east also has a garden in the exact same location - actually a bit closer to the fence even.. So I think I should be good, but maybe not?
Borachio
Way past lunacy
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Don't know. I can't my head round that east fence business. I'm not sure what you mean.
About the only thing you can't do a vegetable garden with is a north-facing one. And even then you might manage.
The killer for a vegetable garden is large trees blocking out most of the sun, most of the day.
About the only thing you can't do a vegetable garden with is a north-facing one. And even then you might manage.
The killer for a vegetable garden is large trees blocking out most of the sun, most of the day.
warpus
Sommerswerd asked me to change this
True, this is going to be a learning experience for me more than anything. I'll keep you guys updated with my progress, but it could still technically snow, I probably won't get started for a couple weeks at least.
Silurian
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You should research want you can grow before spending lots of money on raised beds etc.
This website is quite good.
http://aa.usno.navy.mil/data/docs/AltAz.php
You can use your house etc as a sundial to find the azimuth (orientation). Then you can find the azimuth of the sun for 1st of each month and find the hours of sunlight that are not interrupted by the house etc.
Regarding digging a pit in clay and filling it with better soil this may not be a good idea. The clay could prevent water escaping so you end up with a swamp if it is wet for awhile. You could dig a small hole, say 300x300x300, and fill it with water to see how the soil prevents the movement of water.
It may be better to improve the soil by digging in organic matter. This could be done with a rotavator.
This website is quite good.
http://aa.usno.navy.mil/data/docs/AltAz.php
You can use your house etc as a sundial to find the azimuth (orientation). Then you can find the azimuth of the sun for 1st of each month and find the hours of sunlight that are not interrupted by the house etc.
Regarding digging a pit in clay and filling it with better soil this may not be a good idea. The clay could prevent water escaping so you end up with a swamp if it is wet for awhile. You could dig a small hole, say 300x300x300, and fill it with water to see how the soil prevents the movement of water.
It may be better to improve the soil by digging in organic matter. This could be done with a rotavator.
Silurian
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Screw piles have pros and cons. A few off the top of my head.
They are likely to be less noisy to install than a driven tube, you are not banging it into the ground.
This will also reduce vibration on nearby structures.
They can also be good at resisting uplift, which would be good if you have frost heave as in Russia or a light structure with high wind load or moving water. I think I have seen a system for fence posts.
No spoil to cart away.
Can only be used for lower loads.
Less scope for changing the length of the piles after they have been ordered. When the ground conditions are different to what was assumed.
Not so good if there are obstructions.
http://www.screwfast.com/foundation-solutions/history-of-helical-screw-piling/
They are likely to be less noisy to install than a driven tube, you are not banging it into the ground.
This will also reduce vibration on nearby structures.
Spoiler :
They can also be good at resisting uplift, which would be good if you have frost heave as in Russia or a light structure with high wind load or moving water. I think I have seen a system for fence posts.
No spoil to cart away.
Can only be used for lower loads.
Less scope for changing the length of the piles after they have been ordered. When the ground conditions are different to what was assumed.
Not so good if there are obstructions.
http://www.screwfast.com/foundation-solutions/history-of-helical-screw-piling/
Thanks, Silurian.
There are no structures within about 150 meters/yards around the spot I have in mind, and I guess driven tubes are similar with regard to obstructions, right?
As for the load thing, I assume a wooden frame country house would be light enough. It's not like a Westminster Abby or a royal castle, right?
Regarding the length choice and ground conditions, I think I'll have to hire the constructors anyway to drive the piles in, and I'll have to pick the guys who specialize on such stuff and promise they know what they are doing (like drilling first to find out what's inside or.. what would you do?).
It's good to know the ting is used for so long. Speaking of which, how long can I expect the piles to survive in the ground? I realize that depends on many factors combined like quality and type of steel, acidity of the ground, presence of water, etc. But since I have no idea other than groundless 'from hardly 15 years with crappy steel in a peaty bog to probably around forever with titanium in perfect conditions', any estimations (in my case the place is a flat field filled with clovers, something like 5m elevated over the small river half a mile away) to be more precise will come handy.
There are no structures within about 150 meters/yards around the spot I have in mind, and I guess driven tubes are similar with regard to obstructions, right?
As for the load thing, I assume a wooden frame country house would be light enough. It's not like a Westminster Abby or a royal castle, right?
Regarding the length choice and ground conditions, I think I'll have to hire the constructors anyway to drive the piles in, and I'll have to pick the guys who specialize on such stuff and promise they know what they are doing (like drilling first to find out what's inside or.. what would you do?).
It's good to know the ting is used for so long. Speaking of which, how long can I expect the piles to survive in the ground? I realize that depends on many factors combined like quality and type of steel, acidity of the ground, presence of water, etc. But since I have no idea other than groundless 'from hardly 15 years with crappy steel in a peaty bog to probably around forever with titanium in perfect conditions', any estimations (in my case the place is a flat field filled with clovers, something like 5m elevated over the small river half a mile away) to be more precise will come handy.
Silurian
Deity
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A driven tube may break an obstruction if it is not too big or if it goes slightly off line or bends it can still be driven. A bent screw pile would be difficult to drive further I would imagine.
You can also drill out the soil inside a top driven tube, if it is not too small, and drop a weight down to smash the obstruction. If that does not work, you can put a large coring bit down the tube, to cut up the obstruction. It can be very expensive. If possible it would be better to pull it back out drive it nearby and redesign the pile cap.
With your screw or any piles it is not practical to drill first at all locations to find if there is an obstruction or if the pile is suitable. If you drill at every location you may as well use cast insitu concrete piles. For one house it may be expensive to bring a rig to drill a test borehole. On a motorway bridge you may only have five or so test boreholes for a smallish bridge. Sometimes pits are dug with an excavator but they can only go a few meters deep before they become expensive. You never know what is below the ground, the small river could have been there 10000 years ago and left a buried cliff below your house.
You should give your piling contractor the loads per meter run of wall, weight of heavy points like chimneys etc and ask them to design, supply and install the piles with a required service life. You should get a contractor who is experienced at installing the screw pile they are intending to use, hopefully on the manufactures approved list and they have used them “nearby”. Ask what would happen if there was an obstruction and if the piles went in too easily suggesting weaker soil. They may be able to put the pile in a different place after a design check of the building. Your bottom photo looks like it has a timber beam between the piles. If two piles were further apart you could use a deeper section of timber between them.
How long they will last is highly variable. Maybe from 1mm to 6mm loss of section in 50 years. The piles should be designed to take this into account.
Screw piles would be a good solution for a timber frame house as the loads are low and you do have more flexibility if a couple of piles are out of position.
Cutlass@ having the floor off the ground is an advantage if the ground freezes under the house. There could also be problems if the house melts the ground under the house and it starts to run out. The house would have a skirt to keep out the wind.
You can also drill out the soil inside a top driven tube, if it is not too small, and drop a weight down to smash the obstruction. If that does not work, you can put a large coring bit down the tube, to cut up the obstruction. It can be very expensive. If possible it would be better to pull it back out drive it nearby and redesign the pile cap.
With your screw or any piles it is not practical to drill first at all locations to find if there is an obstruction or if the pile is suitable. If you drill at every location you may as well use cast insitu concrete piles. For one house it may be expensive to bring a rig to drill a test borehole. On a motorway bridge you may only have five or so test boreholes for a smallish bridge. Sometimes pits are dug with an excavator but they can only go a few meters deep before they become expensive. You never know what is below the ground, the small river could have been there 10000 years ago and left a buried cliff below your house.
You should give your piling contractor the loads per meter run of wall, weight of heavy points like chimneys etc and ask them to design, supply and install the piles with a required service life. You should get a contractor who is experienced at installing the screw pile they are intending to use, hopefully on the manufactures approved list and they have used them “nearby”. Ask what would happen if there was an obstruction and if the piles went in too easily suggesting weaker soil. They may be able to put the pile in a different place after a design check of the building. Your bottom photo looks like it has a timber beam between the piles. If two piles were further apart you could use a deeper section of timber between them.
How long they will last is highly variable. Maybe from 1mm to 6mm loss of section in 50 years. The piles should be designed to take this into account.
Screw piles would be a good solution for a timber frame house as the loads are low and you do have more flexibility if a couple of piles are out of position.
Cutlass@ having the floor off the ground is an advantage if the ground freezes under the house. There could also be problems if the house melts the ground under the house and it starts to run out. The house would have a skirt to keep out the wind.
@Silurian: Thanks for the heads up.
@Cutlass: I'll keep that in mind if I ever am selling the thing so that I don't bother you with an offer
On a serious note, thedungeon concrete cast nuclear bomb shelter bunker basement is hard to find here because it is (i) expensive, (ii) excessive for most light constructions unless the terrain is hilly and half of the house is dug into the slope, and (iii) ground water is too near to the surface in many areas, so if the waterproofing is faulty you're likely to end up with gigantic under-house swimming pool (though too shallow to be useful).
The most common type of foundation is a concrete or brick belt, with or without concrete piles going down from it.
@Cutlass: I'll keep that in mind if I ever am selling the thing so that I don't bother you with an offer
On a serious note, the
The most common type of foundation is a concrete or brick belt, with or without concrete piles going down from it.
MagisterCultuum
Great Sage
Do you have any advice on installing hardwood floors?
A couple weeks ago when we were finishing up a Habitat for Humanity rehab project I was allowed to take home some extra hardwood flooring (a little more than 200 sq ft of this) which I am planning to install in my family room. I told my mom this was my mother's day present.
I've looked at various how-to videos and think I could handle the installation myself without a problem in any of their setups, but in my case there is a complication I'm not sure how to address.
There seems to be a settling crack in the concrete slab subfloor of this room. I had guessed it was about 1/8th of an inch based on how it felt through the carpet, but when I pulled back the carpet to get a measurement I found it was closer to 1/4 inch, maybe even 3/8 of an inch at the edge where it meets the wall. The unevenness seems to extend a little less than 3 feet. (I'd have to remove some heavy furniture before I could pull the carpet back far enough to find where the crack ends, but through the carpet the floor feels perfectly level for the next 11 feet.)
There is tar paper covering the slab for the 5 ft or so between the door and the wall facing the back yard, whereas for the rest of the room there seems to be nothing between the slab and the carpet pad. The tar paper is broken right along the crack in the slab.
So far I have not found any signs of moisture.
The house originally had a back porch here, but the former owners built a new porch and converted this to an interior den. I believe in the process they poured new concrete to extend the slab about 4 feet further out. I don't think that new concrete settled as much as the original foundation.
The former home owners preferred to do such work themselves rather than hire professionals, and did not always do things correctly. The power box for the ceiling fan was installed upside down. The baseboard is upside down too. I'd be surprised if they insulated the walls correctly.
A couple weeks ago when we were finishing up a Habitat for Humanity rehab project I was allowed to take home some extra hardwood flooring (a little more than 200 sq ft of this) which I am planning to install in my family room. I told my mom this was my mother's day present.
I've looked at various how-to videos and think I could handle the installation myself without a problem in any of their setups, but in my case there is a complication I'm not sure how to address.
There seems to be a settling crack in the concrete slab subfloor of this room. I had guessed it was about 1/8th of an inch based on how it felt through the carpet, but when I pulled back the carpet to get a measurement I found it was closer to 1/4 inch, maybe even 3/8 of an inch at the edge where it meets the wall. The unevenness seems to extend a little less than 3 feet. (I'd have to remove some heavy furniture before I could pull the carpet back far enough to find where the crack ends, but through the carpet the floor feels perfectly level for the next 11 feet.)
There is tar paper covering the slab for the 5 ft or so between the door and the wall facing the back yard, whereas for the rest of the room there seems to be nothing between the slab and the carpet pad. The tar paper is broken right along the crack in the slab.
So far I have not found any signs of moisture.
The house originally had a back porch here, but the former owners built a new porch and converted this to an interior den. I believe in the process they poured new concrete to extend the slab about 4 feet further out. I don't think that new concrete settled as much as the original foundation.
The former home owners preferred to do such work themselves rather than hire professionals, and did not always do things correctly. The power box for the ceiling fan was installed upside down. The baseboard is upside down too. I'd be surprised if they insulated the walls correctly.
I was hoping RT would weigh in, but he hasn't been around a lot recently. For the unevenness of a concrete floor that you're going to put flooring on top of, there is a product called floor leveler. This is a cement/mortar like product which you mix up like cement, and then spread on the uneven floor to make it even. Thing is, it's a skill to do that well. And it takes a bit to learn it. I can't do it. My brother, and some people he knows in the flooring business, can. I don't know if you can or not.
MagisterCultuum
Great Sage
I was planning to glue it down, as that is the only way I have witnessed it being installed in person (although I saw some alternatives online) and it is how a contractor I know in person recommended.
I've never used floor leveler before so I don't know how well I can do it yet either. I have mixed, poured, and finished concrete a few times before without trouble, though never without supervision.
We might want to see if the handyman who lives next door to us has any skill with it. He has always charged us less than expected when we hired him before.
I stopped by Home Depot this afternoon and asked some employees about the issue.
The guy in the concrete/masonry department recommended just using some ($7) Quickcrete patch to fill the crack and level the surface, but then got really irritated when I started asking questions about how that would effect the flooring installation over it.
Once I finally found someone who works in the Flooring department to help me, he said that is not the right thing to use and that the only product he would ever recommend for the job is LevelQuick self leveling underlayment. They only sell it in that 50 lb bags, which is much more than I would need.
He described two ways to use it, either mixing it to the consistency of peanut butter to apply and smooth out manually with a trowel or making it thinner than that and pouring it so that it self-levels.
He said he would strongly recommend a floating installation over a moisture barrier (which would cost between $60 and $120, depending on whether I want the basic kind or a premium one that would also insulate and dampen noise) if I were using the sort of click-locking engineering hardwood flooring that they sell, but admitted that he is not very familiar with Shaw's product line and suggested that I call or visit an authorized Shaw distributor for advice before proceeding.
He showed me the right sort of adhesive to use if I do go with a glue down installation (the kind for engineered hardwood costs $94 for 4 gallons, which is not as bad at $168 for the kind used for solid hardwood), and the kind for if I'm told to glue the tongue and grooves together ($9 for 400 lineal feet).
He said that I would definitely need to purchase a transition piece (especially if I do use the floating installation method), but without seeing the site could not say if I'd need a flat transition or a reducer. (I assume the latter.) He described how to install either one. It would be $20 to $38 dollars for a 6ft section, and I'd need to get two of them and cut one to handle the 8ft wide threshold between the den and the linoleum of the adjacent kitchen. They could not get me an exact match, but I took home several free samples of flooring to see which kind seems the closest. (It would probably make more sense to order an 8ft transition in the exact material from Shaw.)
He showed me the hardwood finish quarter rounds too, but I decided to just go ahead and buy the cheaper plain white primed kind.
I also picked up a gallon of white semi-gloss trim paint and a sample size container of satin paint tinted to match what I used to paint the walls of that room 4 years ago. That should be enough for touchups and for a small section of wall I plan to patch after removing an old in-wall electric heater that I think is a fire hazard. (We have not intentionally used that heater in over 20 years, and the last time it was accidentally turned on we smelled smoke. We used to have pet birds whose cages were kept on the window seat above this, so a lot of bird seed fell into the heater.) I was able to salvage some old wood paneling from another Habitat house, which almost matches what is in this room and should be more than enough to fill the 2ftx16in gap that would be left by removing the boards that were cut around the heater.
I've never used floor leveler before so I don't know how well I can do it yet either. I have mixed, poured, and finished concrete a few times before without trouble, though never without supervision.
We might want to see if the handyman who lives next door to us has any skill with it. He has always charged us less than expected when we hired him before.
I stopped by Home Depot this afternoon and asked some employees about the issue.
The guy in the concrete/masonry department recommended just using some ($7) Quickcrete patch to fill the crack and level the surface, but then got really irritated when I started asking questions about how that would effect the flooring installation over it.
Once I finally found someone who works in the Flooring department to help me, he said that is not the right thing to use and that the only product he would ever recommend for the job is LevelQuick self leveling underlayment. They only sell it in that 50 lb bags, which is much more than I would need.
He described two ways to use it, either mixing it to the consistency of peanut butter to apply and smooth out manually with a trowel or making it thinner than that and pouring it so that it self-levels.
He said he would strongly recommend a floating installation over a moisture barrier (which would cost between $60 and $120, depending on whether I want the basic kind or a premium one that would also insulate and dampen noise) if I were using the sort of click-locking engineering hardwood flooring that they sell, but admitted that he is not very familiar with Shaw's product line and suggested that I call or visit an authorized Shaw distributor for advice before proceeding.
He showed me the right sort of adhesive to use if I do go with a glue down installation (the kind for engineered hardwood costs $94 for 4 gallons, which is not as bad at $168 for the kind used for solid hardwood), and the kind for if I'm told to glue the tongue and grooves together ($9 for 400 lineal feet).
He said that I would definitely need to purchase a transition piece (especially if I do use the floating installation method), but without seeing the site could not say if I'd need a flat transition or a reducer. (I assume the latter.) He described how to install either one. It would be $20 to $38 dollars for a 6ft section, and I'd need to get two of them and cut one to handle the 8ft wide threshold between the den and the linoleum of the adjacent kitchen. They could not get me an exact match, but I took home several free samples of flooring to see which kind seems the closest. (It would probably make more sense to order an 8ft transition in the exact material from Shaw.)
He showed me the hardwood finish quarter rounds too, but I decided to just go ahead and buy the cheaper plain white primed kind.
I also picked up a gallon of white semi-gloss trim paint and a sample size container of satin paint tinted to match what I used to paint the walls of that room 4 years ago. That should be enough for touchups and for a small section of wall I plan to patch after removing an old in-wall electric heater that I think is a fire hazard. (We have not intentionally used that heater in over 20 years, and the last time it was accidentally turned on we smelled smoke. We used to have pet birds whose cages were kept on the window seat above this, so a lot of bird seed fell into the heater.) I was able to salvage some old wood paneling from another Habitat house, which almost matches what is in this room and should be more than enough to fill the 2ftx16in gap that would be left by removing the boards that were cut around the heater.
