My work shop build in progress

[Frank Surber]

The floor yeah, Well my thoughts about it are we rushed through the process and most likely did not achieve the best results.
My way of thinking has always been fast is slow, slow is fast.
Ed and I had discussed doing a small test area not inside of the shop to determine our best plan of attack. I had an opportunity to buy a 1958 Seaman Pulvi-mixer for around 1500. But it would have left me tapped out to be able to rent a roller for a while. so that was one of the reasons for hiring the job out by doing that it left enough funds for the roller but everything had to happen in 1 day. not listening to my inner voice and going along with my partner was mistake #1 not being able to pick and choose a time when there would be more favorable weather by having to hire the pulverizing of the clay meant that ultimately the end result might be less than optimal.
by hiring out the grinding the strata was not done as deep as I had disturbed the clay with my back hoe and probably has left some voids.
We have had minimal traffic on the floor since the application was applied and some of the silt fines have begun to sluff off of the surface but the floor is quite hard and moderately impact resistant much better than before the application just walking across it with hard soled shoes causes an echo inside the shop I think it will be fine the way it is but we still have enough product to do another application later on if we feel the need to do so.

 

[Frank Surber]

Let there be lights and plenty of them

I figured out the perfect way to dispose of a bunch of old truck tires that have been accumulating over the years by burying them to make a retaining wall on the South end of the shop

Before I got too far along though I wanted to also bury the electric cable to my well
so I dug a deep trench the 250 feet then laid in a 1 1/4" orange drop line donated by the fiber optics company I got the steel hose reels from

 

[bindian]

Frank,
Good progress. How was the freeze, ice, and snow there?
hugs, Brandi

 

[Frank Surber]

I guess one could either downplay the freeze or over sensationalize it for months or even years.
So I will take the opportunity to write my book about it.
The weatherman in Abilene said the weather event broke so many long established records it was hard to state all of them some days had the lowest low for the day the lowest high for the day the longest time below 32°the most days in a row that the low dropped below zero, on and on and on.
But we are located about 70 some odd miles Northwest and about 300 feet higher elevation.
where they had 240consective hours below 32° we had 300 hours including the few hours before it really set in, so 12 1/2days vs 10 days.
enough about comparisons at the start when the cold snap came in it dropped into the lower 30s and dropped maybe 3 inches of snow then by the afternoon it was in the middle 30s that night it dropped to the upper teens and stayed there the next morning it actually dropped a little below zero and snowed some more barely reached 15° during the day with wind chills below zero. From there on it only got colder with some more light snow falls every couple of days. one morning it reached -10° briefly with 30 MPH wind gusts, also that day the high was only 11° .
the town of Aspermont about 14 miles South East of us had their water supply go down due to a 12" main freezing and bursting. The city water supply pretty much serves the whole county plus a town in an adjacent county we are not on it but the pipeline is less than a mile away so could connect, however since our well is gypped with gypsum and badly silted in, it just needs a good cleaning out, so we don't rely on it and do not use it for our house water at all instead I have a tower with pumps and filter system that holds 600 gallons and keep a 300 gallon tank full in the back of my pickup our water in the system inside the tower froze one morning even with the 2 electric heaters going so I used a big buddy propane heater to thaw it the 5 gallon tank ran out and it froze again one night so took it to town to be exchanged or filled 6" of snow on the ground but the roads had been plowed and were clear that morning. as luck would have it all 4 exchange locations were out of propane and the local propane gas guy was out on call for the morning. I dropped the tank off went home and waited for their call. Around 2:30 we headed back to town figuring he should be back by then, on the way to town it started snowing the visibility got down to just a few feet 50 to 100 at best almost 45 minutes to travel the 14 miles, and still had to wait a few minutes for the guy to show up. There was 6 inches on the road by the time we got home. It took about 3 hours to get our system thawed and it remained thawed throughout the remainder of the cold snap. The city water was finally back up for those folks as of yesterday, but the bulk drop was still down so filled our truck tank at a city workers house.
All in all we faired really well our power was only off for 3 hours total during the time and our wood stove kept our 1850sf house a nice toasty tropical temperature. For the most part we just hibernated only venturing out to make sure the animals had food and water or to bring more fire wood in.

 

[bindian]

Frank,
LOL, what is the title of your "book"?
hugs, Brandi

 

[Frank Surber]

Frank,
LOL, what is the title of your "book"?
hugs, Brandi

"It never gets cold in Texas until it does"

 

[dragoneggs]

I like the idea of the tire retaining wall. Another repurposing that could make good sense for some applications/locations. I would guess though, that at least around these parts, doing that would not be allowed if the authorities were aware.

 

[Frank Surber]

I like the idea of the tire retaining wall. Another repurposing that could make good sense for some applications/locations. I would guess though, that at least around these parts, doing that would not be allowed if the authorities were aware.

Just ask them which is better to make a long lasting retaining wall creosote rail road ties that eventually rot away and leach creosote into the ground or old tires that will almost never rot away or leach anything into the soil and what does eventually leach into the soils is consumed by microbial action + is an eco friendly way of upcycling something that by in large is not economically recyclable or disposable.
Back in the early 80's I had a company that did marine construction on many local Texas lakes. While working at a marina to repair a lot of damage after a then recent storm I told the harbor master they needed a sea wall to protect their marina.
His comeback to that was the association had been at odds with the city county and state for years to extend the natural land mass barrier several dozen yards by constructing a steel and timber sea wall, and to dump concrete or rock rip rap to the existing earthen barrier to prevent further erosion. He said every time the subject came up at a council meeting anything other than possibly the rip rap was immediately shot down. because they were concerned with stagnation of the water in the harbor area
So I drew up some plans to construct a series of nets made out of tires cabled together How I would suggest their placement for maximum wave action control while still allowing water to freely flow in and out of the marina to prevent the possibility of stagnation and that if installed as per my recommendations the break water could be moved if deemed necessary since the nets would be suspended from large buoy's with mechanical winches anchored to the bottom.
I further explained the nets would eventually provide habitats for fish.
in the mean time before their next council meeting I contacted fish & game and received their blessings in the form of a written letter. Knowing how bureaucrats minds function or the lack of, I learned that the State was on the city and county to do something with the tires in their land fills. All you have to do is convince them to pay you to remove and dispose of several hundred thousand tires then pay you again to essentially dump them in their lake while doing so will save them lots of money.
It worked and for a few years from the early to the mid 80's my company laced lots of tires together and dumped them in more than a few lakes. Mostly on a small scale as several much larger marine repair companies that mine did the same thing

 

[bindian]

I figured out the perfect way to dispose of a bunch of old truck tires that have been accumulating over the years by burying them to make a retaining wall on the South end of the shop
View attachment 688070

I see the shop inspectors are there to check out the tire wall.
hugs, Brandi

 

[Frank Surber]

I see the shop inspectors are there to check out the tire wall.
hugs, Brandi

Oh yes nothing get past their ever vigilant watchful eyes. I spied one of them hiking his leg to a tire I had just filled. I guess he didn't like something about it so I hurried up and added 1 on top of it and filled it he sniffed at the latest tire looked at me and walked a few feet then laid down and watched me for an hour while I filled more tires. He finally got bored or distracted by a bunny or bird and left. After a while he returned and once again re-marked the very tire he had marked the first time. I would pay real money to know what they are always thinking about