20x21 Garage build 2011, follow along start to finish while my wallet bleeds!

Steves32 · Apr 19, 2011

Well- here we go! Too late to cancel the job now. I can already see this is going to go over budget.

I already posted my plans but here's a few shots.
Plans are approved & stamped- inc engineering. Permit is pulled, I'm only using licensed contractors & all are referrals or people I know.

Steves32 · Apr 19, 2011

The new 20x21 garage will be next to my existing 20x30 3 car for a total of 51x20- as big as the City will allow on my lot.

Oops- had gas Co out to locate the high pressure main & guess what? It doesn't go out the front- it goes to the north to the neighbor's yard! Why is this a big deal? It parallals my front garage footing! ****!!!!
The mark in the front is the new proposed gas line routing- the faint line in background is the existing line which is 18" deep. Same depth as my new footing.

Here you can see existing meter. Gas Co. stub is right in my new footing. I wanted to move it to the left a few feet but noooooooooooo, has to be minimum of 3 feet away from electric panel.

Here's the location of the Gas Co tie-in. This is all extra cost that wasn't budgeted for.

Temporary fence I installed to keep my 2 dogs from killing the workers.

The plastic fence lasted 10 minutes, I had to reinforce w/ welded wire.

This is the wall that will share the new garage.

Took down the metal fence & marked where I want lawn removed. This will be edge of new driveway extension.

Last chance to see the lawn.

JC23 · Apr 19, 2011

Wallet bleeds translates into No Pain, No gain!

Great story and pics. Keep 'em coming!

And do you have a 32? Pics pleeze!

Steves32 · Apr 19, 2011

Bobcat made short work out of my lawn. I wonder if my gardener will give me a discount now?

Most of 35 year old hedge is now gone as well as the concrete walkway.

More **** out & beginning the grading & leveling process

Saved all my plants but one (the POS hedge didn't count- I hate hedges). I will transplant it to another area of yard.

Back garage wall will be about 4" to left of window.

Start trenching for new high pressure gas service to meter. Must be 30" deep & then backfilled w/ sand so pipe lays on sand base at 24" deep.

Found the Gas Company's pipe. Right where they said it was.

Note rocks (boulders is more like it)- digging here *****! We are at base of mountains. There are more rocks than dirt. I was going to dig this myself but concrete guy said if I gave him the job, he would dig & backfill for gas for no extra fee. Sucker!

Here's where the meter is going. Right in front of my house! I will turn meter sideways to be read from neighbor's yard as before & build a short block wall w/ stucco to hide it. What a PITA. Orange pipe is Cable. Now lets see if they come out for free. Only part of cable in conduit is last 4 feet. It will be in conduit one way or another under my new driveway! You can see I stubbed out the new 1 1/4 gas pipe.

Another view.

Steves32 · Apr 19, 2011

JC23 said:
Wallet bleeds translates into No Pain, No gain!

Great story and pics. Keep 'em coming!

And do you have a 32? Pics pleeze!

Why, yes I do. All steel roadster.

Steves32 · Apr 19, 2011

Spent 1 1/2 days re-routing all my sprinkler lines, valves, supply pipe, timer & wiring- all temporary of course.

Pretty much final grade here. Footers next.

This is where wall will be.

Here's where the front garage wall will be.

Gas Co showed up at 8am to move the line.

Typical Gas Co job. One guy working, one guy watching.

Gas Co yellow plastic line w/ tracer.

Gas Co. hard at it. They were in & out in 1 hour.

New meter location. Looks like ****!!!! Can't wait to hide it.

Gas line covered w/ 12" of sand, then sifted dirt removed from trench. That's his job built sifter in background.

Val starts digging footings.

Val moving sand. Hard workers.

Val posing. He's from Tonga & a licensed contractor. Good guy. Him & his brother. They get alot done!

New ugly repainted old meter. Cheap bastards.

Steves32 · Apr 19, 2011

Footings

Suppose to be 12" wide, 18" deep. With all the rocks- it's now 18x18 +.

Val says there's a problem w/ the existing footer. It's only 7" deep in many areas!

The plan now is to dig a parallel footer to existing garage & tunnel under existing footing on each end of new footer & several piers along the way to add suport since this wall will be a shear wall supporting the ridge of the new garage.

Chipped off the overpour slag. Check that existing footing! I'm surprised I have no stucco cracks anywhere.

A whopping 7" deep footing here. WTF? I have the existing plans when house was built. Calls out 12". Damn tract homes.

Trenching parallel to garage until they got to this. 24" boulder. I smell a change order for this work.

That's all for today.
Tomorrow they finish the last 5 feet, haul off all the extra dirt & rocks & start setting forms.

35mm · Apr 19, 2011

Steves32 said:
Why, yes I do. All steel roadster.

I am not really into the old hot rods, more of a modern German car guy. But wow that is a great looking car! :drool:

thomask · Apr 19, 2011

Steve,

Super project there.

Please post pic of the overall front so we can get a "before" perspective of new addition.

Like they say, you got the hard part done, the permit. LOL

What a great space to park that nice 32 you have there.

Steves32 · Apr 20, 2011

It was raining this morning so the workers didn't show up till noon. By then, it had slowed down to a gentle mist. No forms today.

Here's the pile of dirt to haul away. Filled the dump truck to the top!

Val the concrete guy is the best! Without asking- he shows up w/ used carpet to lay on the existing driveway. He then keeps the driveway wet. When it was all completed, no tire marks on the driveway!

Oops! caught the cable line for my internet w/ the bucket teeth!
They are coming out tomorrow to run new conduit & cable at no charge because they botched the install 6 months ago.

That looks better!

I ran the yard line line this afternoon in 4" ABS. Need foam wrap for pipe where passes through the footers. Extending the existing line further back- was in front of garage.

Steves32 · Apr 20, 2011

Tunneled under existing footing for added support.

That's just electrical trash.

Here's the cable they caught. Note the orange conduit. They were suppose to run it from the parkway to house but cheated & fished it inside a plastic conduit for low voltage lighting most of the way. Needless to say I was pissed.

Orange pipe on left is cable conduit- black pipe was used for lighting. They wanted me to save the pipe so a supervisor could look at it.

Rebar dropped.

That's it for today.

Doug B · Apr 21, 2011

Excelent photo journal! Looks like you found a good contractor also...I'll be following this build.

Steves32 · Apr 21, 2011

Someone asked for a before pic of the front elevation.

Before

This should be the after.

thrifty bill · Apr 23, 2011

That's a real kick *** addition plan. I didn't really get a feel for it until the above posting. Well done!!

Subscribed.

mmb617 · Apr 23, 2011

Lots of pics make it an interesting thread. Keep up the good work!

volvo · Apr 23, 2011

..
What a nice project. Thanks for the great write-up. Great looking rod. Keep it all coming.

evintho · Apr 23, 2011

Excellent thread! Keep the multitude of pics coming! Photos of each little detail is awesome! The problem with alot of build threads is not enough detail and large areas get skipped. Many times there's not enough overall shots and it's hard to figure out exactly what's going on. Keep your camera batteries charged! Good job!!

gsport · Apr 23, 2011

yep.... as others have said, good job on the progress reports..
reminds me of the mess i had when we had our pool put in years ago

Steves32 · Apr 24, 2011

It's still misty here- for a week now. Work slowed down a bit but progress still being made.

I had Bill come out & re-core the curb. Had 3" line, increasing to 4" now. That's what I have on other side of lot. The old pipe was very thin wall & was oval instead of round. A few spots were nearly collapsed, which explains the poor drainage.

Cable guys showed up. I told them I wanted it 12" deep so they drug out the trencher. Lots of rocks meant they spent more time unhjamming the chain than digging. They broke 3 teeth on the trencher.

I decided after a Saturday afternoon cocktail that I needed to modify this decorative column for better garage access. I'm now debating doing the other 3 on the house to match.............or not.

I'll chip down the footer next week.

Another view. I also moved the existing water line to outside the garage. This little alcove will be perfect place for the hose later. The tee w/ ball valve is for the 3/4 roll of copper I'll loop under the garage slab for the sprinkler valves. I removed the ground rod that's only 3 ft long & installed a clamp on the water line in garage. I have a new 8 ft ground rod seen in the pic but driving an 8 ft rod in this ground w/ all the rocks will not be EZ. I'll wait & see what the inspector says- or maybe I'll install a UFER in the footings. Or nothing.
Electrician friend says I'm good to go now w/ the clamp on water line. House is all copper- including a copper 80 ft service.

Started setting forms.

That's all for now.

Steves32 · Apr 30, 2011

We had a few days delay but back on track now.

Rebar epoxy'd to existing foundation
Water line looped across the garage.

Down goes the visqueen & sand base. That's a temporary tarp- they ran out of visqueen.

Rebar goes in now. 1/2" 18" on center

He's coming back tomorrow to raise the rebar grid since slab is nearly 8" thick now. Also needs to block out footer for man door he forgot. Framer will be here tomorrow early to set all the foundation bolts & the 2 templates for the strong walls.

Inspection Monday morning, pour Tuesday if we get lucky.

dlenkewich · Apr 30, 2011

Looking good.

Seems to be a lot going on there!

Steves32 · May 3, 2011

White Cap delivered all the hardware & the custom pre-fab strong walls.

Strong wall templates w/ foundation bolts installed.

Other strong wall template on opposite side of garage door.

Foundation bolts set.

Had to demo more existing footer to get that bolt in there.

Blocked out for man door

Bottom of some of the foundation bolts

Inspector signed off & ready to pour.
We pour Tomorrow!

GTAHVIT · May 3, 2011

Nice! Subscribed

Steves32 · May 4, 2011

Today is concrete day. Of course it's the hottest day of the last 2 weeks. It was in the mid 90's by 11am. Felt like 110. My guestimate was 15 yards-turned out on the money.

7am- truck shows up w/ the 1st 10 yard load. Pumper was here at 6:45am.

This is a monolithic pour- meaning footings & slab to be poured at same time.
Start by filling all the footings.

Val working the stem walls.

Steves32 · May 4, 2011

Pump guy filling the footer where we tunneled under the existing footing.

Slab looks thicker than 6"- more like 8"

eric w · May 4, 2011

Great stuff!!! Makes me imagine my own build down the road

Steves32 · May 5, 2011

Back to the stem walls

That's it- 10 yards down. Next truck is 45 minutes away. A little concerned but it will all work out.

I'm the only one around my neighborhood flying the flag. WTF?

2nd truck w/ short 5 yard load arrives. 1st load is already setting up. You can already see where Val laid out expansion joints. It's set up in 7' squares so no seam falls under a leg of the 4 post. I hate saw cut joints so I had Val tool them in. Val had to rake the edge of 1st pour. He had specific instructions from me to add little to no extra water! A few minutes later all was good.

Time to work the slab. Started stripping inside form. I want inside of stem wall finished where it will show- I asked for a 1/4 rd on the inside edge.

That stem wall is beautiful!

Val sweating up a storm

Keeping it wet

That's it.

They will be back tomorrow to finish stripping outside forms & begin forming sidewalks & driveway approach. Pour Friday I hope! Roofer will be here Friday too to strip back the tile roof. Frame next week.

IONH · May 5, 2011

Thanks for all the pictures!

dipper · May 5, 2011

looking good!

Steves32 · May 6, 2011

2 days have passed. Time to pour another 10 yards of concrete.
This time, it's sidewalks & driveway apron.

We installed a footer & rebar & set some block last night to conceal meter from front of house.

Forms are set- it's 6:25 am.

We've changed this corner 4 times. At 1st, we were going to leave a triangle of grass. Now we are just pouring to the wall.

Here's where the drain box wound up.
It's the lowest spot.

Dug footer for my new gate post

Steves32 · May 6, 2011

Pumper is here. Waiting on concrete.

More rebar

No forms here. short planter wall will glue to top edge of slab.

Ready to go!

Mud down.

Post is set- needs to be elvelled when it sets up more.

Steves32 · May 6, 2011

Matching joints in garage to new joints in outside slab,

Done!

Steves32 · May 6, 2011

Roofer showed up at 5pm to start on roof removal. He'll be back in next few days to take tile down from roof.

That's all for today.

Trojan · May 6, 2011

Great progress!

evintho · May 7, 2011

Great pics, keep 'em comin'!

ct71rr · May 8, 2011

Wow, very nice. Lots of progress there in what seems like a short amount of time. I love those tile roofs!

wolfmoon · May 8, 2011

evintho said:
Great pics, keep 'em comin'!

Ditto!

chris fresh · May 8, 2011

very nice work so far,maybe i can send my concrete guy out and he can pick up some tips on how finish work should be done.seems like you have a great guy there.

SUBSCRIBED!

Spencer Was Here · May 8, 2011

I am enjoying watching the progress on your project. Keep the pics coming.

TejasBimmer · May 8, 2011

Great makeover! Thanks for sharing.

20x21 Garage build 2011, follow along start to finish while my wallet bleeds!

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