I feel like Spencer junior!

[Anonymous Poster]

Hi,

The tractor has been crying for a place of its own. I guess it is getting tired of occupying the space under the roof on the back of the house, normally used by people. There were no complaints during winter when the space would otherwise be unused by the two-leggers here...

So, I decided to add a roof to my little 12x12 shed, to park the tractor under. The project evolved into growing the shed from 12x12 to 26x24 in size. Instead of maintaining the existing shed roof line and tacking the new roof on the side of the building, I have got to the point of removing half the original roof and hopefully when all is done, the building will look like one continuous structure, rather than new patched to old.

I have been taking pictures of my progress and thought what I am doing might be of interest. Not on the scale of Spencer's project...of course...but I am using some different techniques. Like a pressure-treated-wood-foundation style retaining wall.

I did a little excavation with my B2910...might give newbies like I was last year an idea of the capabilities of a small tractor.

So....guess I'll start by posting a few pictures. At this point I have the posts up and the "retaining wall" in place and have started on the beams...

I will try to catch the photos up over the next few days...starting with some "before" shots...

This first shot is the shed just after I scooped out a bucket or two of soil. The shed is 12x12 sitting on top of a 8x12 spring house foundation.

 

[Anonymous Poster]

There is a gap in the photo sequence.

Here the outline of the excavation has been dug with my backhoe and some of the earth inside has been removed with my front bucket. Toothbar in place at that time...

Notice the block wall of the foundation is still all there...hint of things to come?

 

[Anonymous Poster]

Earth coming out is dumped on the low side to give a flatter area for dropping implements and so on.

Will that little cherry tree survive the ordeal? [so far so good...]

 

[Anonymous Poster]

An accurate wate level helps when roughing out the floor level.

Yes, bamboo can grow in Pittsburgh, PA!

Some years ago I had a backhoe guy dig a trench and diverted most of the spring over to my pond, but there is still some water that comes out in the area by the old spring house. That water is what filled the trench. I put drainage in to catch that water and dump it into a little catch basin and send it to my pond as well...

 

[Anonymous Poster]

A view from down at the pond...hummm...that block wall looks a little different now! /forums/images/graemlins/blush.gif

 

[Anonymous Poster]

Another gap in the photo sequence. The bottom of the backhoe trench has a drainage pipe in it and I have backfilled with some crushed stone.

Posts will be planted and a "floating" wood wall will hold back the earth and crushed stone for drainage...

It was a major pain laying out the new to align with the old shed, by the way. Especially when I found what I consider an error in one of my tape measures that put my measurements off by a foot! So I had to do it twice!

By the way, I did not discover that until after I dug the ditch this photo is looking down...so I had an extra foot of width to walk in on this side...

 

[Anonymous Poster]

Let me introduce you to one of my new friends and helpers.

Can't imagine how I ever lived without one of these! Manually removing dirt from the bottom of holes is such a pleasure. Man, I'm grinning ear to ear as I use that manual post hole digger for final clean out of the holes!

 

[Anonymous Poster]

The main posts went up in one day of me working by myself.

I believe that if there were two of us it would have taken only three hours. But there wa only me...

First post I used the loader to help raise. 16' 6x6. Then I realized that on that side I just needed 12' poles. Went and got two of them and raised them by hand. Then decided that I probably could raise the 16' ones by hand too...they were heavy but doable.

Finally got to the camera at the end of the day. I set the posts on a 12 inch stepping stone at the bottom of a 14 inch hole. Then used two 80 lb bags of high early strength concrete per post, followed by earth well tamped...

 

[Anonymous Poster]

Between the 6x6 post I put 4x4 posts 4' on center. Wall panels made from pressure treated plywood will sit outside these posts, resting on the crushed stone, but really floating as they will be attached to the posts and not carry any vetical load except for their own weight.

I forgot to mention about that block wall. When digging out the dirt I was being pretty careful, and moving the tractor ever so slowly and carefull. One tooth of my toothbar just so slightly touched that foundation wall...pop...off goes the corner!

 

[Anonymous Poster]

Another view at the same point in time I think.

After using my loader to rough things in, I used my box blade to level and smooth it a bit.

Of course being that that is clay and we have been having a lot of rain...smooth is a relative term...

Guess this will be the last picture for now...got to resize the rest...thought I did...but got it wrong somehow...

More to come /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif