At Home In The Woods

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Some Driveway Grading
Our 900 foot road/driveway needs some grading work. The concrete trucks noticably packed down the gravel. In addition, when the basement was excavated and we added height to the road using the dirt from the basement dig, the sides of the driveway at some spots were left higher than the driveway. So today I started doing some grading to make sure the winter rains will run off the road instead of down the road.

I started off by removing the mound along the side of the driveway using the FEL.

 

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Rocks like this one make the FEL scraping more difficult. I've found that by rotating the bucket up and down in small rapidly changing directions while pushing forward with the tractor, the bucket will dislodge offending rocks in the ground.

 

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I set the top-link so the boxblade would aggressively dig when going forward. Moving forward allowed me to scrape off the humps. With the BB in the same position, I could subsequently push the dirt backwards and evenly spread it out. If the blade is set to aggressively cut in the forward direction, it will not dig when moving backwards but will slide over the ground and leave the loose dirt in the low spots.

The rocks played havoc with the grading. As the BB gathered rocks, I got off the tractor and placed the rocks in the FEL bucket. When I would happen to be close to the culvert, I would deposit the rocks as rip-rap in the culvert area.

 

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Here's the final result. The dirt on the side of the road will no longer impede the ability for water to run off the road.

 

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Culvert Rip-Rap
While grading the road, I observed that the downhill end of the culvert was experiencing some washing on one side of the culvert. So I piled some rocks around that side of the culvert.

I then tried to pile some rocks on the other side of the culvert. This side unfortunately did not have a level area upon which I could set the rocks. While I really wanted to just set some rocks on top of the gravel, I knew that those rocks would eventually fall off the steep dirt and require me to redo the rip-rap later. I finally gave in and went and got the maddock and shovel to dig out a spot for the rocks to sit. The job just went from play to work when the shovel and maddock came on the scene.

 

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So I dug out the gravel beside the culvert to make room for the rip-rap. Unfortunately, as I would fill a shovel full of gravel, more loose gravel would just slide back into the spot I just . I eventually got the area cleared of gravel.

 

[EddieWalker]

The road looks real nice. Almost has a naturaly look to it, kind of like it's always been there and you just added some gravel on top of the natural lay of the land. Nicely done.

I don't know anything about basements and have never looked up anything in the code book on them. I have and use the same code book.

On garage door openings, I always use two jack studs. It's just a good idea that costs very little. I'm also pleased that you will be adding headers to those exterior walls. again, it's a cheap thing to do that eliminates the possibilities of problems down the road.

What I dont understand is why they wold skimp on lumber when it's not their money and it's really not that much more time consuming to put the headers in there.

Your exterior corners are fine as far as strength goes, but they are going to be impossible to insulate. New code in some areas requires what's called a California Corner. Google it if you have never heard of them. The goal is to be able to put insulation everywhere, including the corners.

Out of curiosity and a sense of concern for cutting corners, what did your framers use between the boards in building the headers? Did they use half in plywood? OSB? or air? Plywood is best. It gives the boards a tremendous amount of strength and is required in most areas. I've seen guys pull all sorts of stunts to avoid and hide not using plywood. I've seen scraps of OSB used as spacers, and I've seen boards naild to the bottom to create a U shape with nothing in the middle. Sometimes I think they go to more work to cut a corner then it would take to do it right!!! hahaha

Eddie

 

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With the gravel dug out beside the culvert, it was time to start a rock collection.

 

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So I stacked up the rip-rap and smoothed out the gravel.

 

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After all the headaches involved with the house construction, it was extremely nice to spend some time doing tractor work, very therapeutic. It was just me and the tractor for awhile. No worries.