Recent content by fourmotioneer

A distraction First something for the automotive industry followers. We drive by Bob Lutz’s property pretty frequently and saw him out in his XLR with someone in his ZR1X last week. Cool spotting. Note the vanity plate I recently became motivated to sort out the 2L 3A bubble block bottom...

Yard work looks awesome. Care to share any more on how you approached the rock border? Was it simply “I stacked some rocks”? Plenty of single child behavior here and I applaud it. I watched my 2y/o fall 4 ft from the playset this week. As you are likely aware, that fence prevents accidental...

Impressive execution. You’ve put in a lot of time and planning and effort to get this far and it looks great

Some new rocks, some planning: Rocks are in. Next up is to bury some PVC pipes to get the gutter discharge across the driveway to the yard Engineer should have drawings for us by end of the week. Then we mark up the changes and have him run calcs Spoke about column wraps for the porch...

I think you can do the water pump at home if you have a day to burn. The DIY doesn’t look that bad. Also doesn’t look that fun. And burning a day on your daily is risky

Appreciate you weighing in, and glad to know that I may be saving myself some critter trouble down the line. As far as weeds go, I have quite some thistle out in the beds that I battle each year but rarely see it under the deck. I do have some nice milkweed out on the edge of my lawn though...

Grading and engineer visit: Structural engineer came out and inspected and discussed for a while. Some notes: Being a covered porch, treated lumber isn’t necessary. If we wanted straighter lumber we could try untreated In general, before actual load calcs prove it, his assessment is that the...

Rock got delivered for underneath the front porch. Fill dirt will arrive next week and will precede the rock application. Material is piling up currently but should start to deplete once engineer does his part next week. Was advised that drawings shouldn’t be too expensive and that it’s a 2-3...

Missed your comment yesterday but appreciated. Definitely want my builder to be OCD. We had a good discussion this morning at my house and we are moving forward with full dirt and rocks. Yeah, we will be here another 20 years at least. Looking at it exactly as you stated - looking to reap...

Photos below show that the garden (uncovered) is above the level of the footings and the drains onto foundation area. I’m thinking grading here will definitely be worthwhile. As for the rock, I’m less convinced but it’s likely better for erosion?

My thought is that it would be graded away from the house and most would be above the plastic due to the porch roof Definitely do see your point on saturated soil. The house is on soil that percs but based on the water in the pic perhaps that isn’t true everywhere

Appreciate the feedback. In this case, the application is beneath a covered deck that has gutters and downspouts. Would that change your opinion on the plastic and rocks? This is for the portion on the left under the porch

I’m sold on the pooling fixes for the specific area it’s pooling. And leaning toward the best practice improvements as well, even if the benefits are less tangible. It’s the best time to do it for sure. I also like tying the performance of the deck moving forward to the work done by this crew...

Grading and fill: The area under the front porch collects water from the driveway due to the dirt under the porch being lower than the driveway. The GC suggests that we do the following: 1) fill the low spots with dirt and grade away from foundation 2) add 6mil black plastic to keep moisture...

Yeah, I told him that I thought about it and based on the interaction, he doesn’t have the character we seek in someone we work with. That upset him and got me a bunch of “I rounded everything down for you, I pulled you ahead, I did more than $1000 of work for you” I also come from engineering...