Between 705 & 1200 SQ/FT The Texas Barn in PA

[madison069]

Good news, the Texas Barn survived the microburst windstorm that Pittsburgh experienced 2 days ago. Not a single siding piece blew off. According the Pittsburgh Airport, they recorded a 71.3mph wind gust during that time.

I do believe that speed was the truth as I was on the front porch of my current home. I was watching the clouds before the wind came, and it was like a brick wall hitting us. I'm familiar with tornados and have watched several of them in my life. This situation was very close to a tornado with the high wind. It was a sight to watch as my tree in my current home's front yard bounce, all the dead/weak limbs dropped to the ground like the dead needles on the Christmas tree does when it's bounced on its stump on a concrete floor. Luckily the limbs were all small and no serious damage was done to the trees in my yard.

Today an electrician is supposed to meet me there to give me an estimate for a new 200amp electrical panel for the house and a 100amp electrical panel on the garage. I got one estimate so far and it's not a bad price just wanting to compare the prices and then I'll pick who I feel more comfortable with based on friend's words and experience with the estimators.

 

[larry4406]

Nice project!

If you are going to upgrade the service to the house and feed the new garage from it, I think now is the time to think whole house generator and install as a minimum the transfer switch while the meter is pulled for the service upgrade.

 

[Mr onetwo]

Good luck and yup...now is the time to think of all those eventualities.

 

[gearhead1960]

Cody,

Congratulations on the new garage! I'm jealous to say the least. Love the bunker idea....I'll steal that when the time comes for my garage build if needed. When the time comes for a Moio's Italian Pastry Shop run, I might have to stop in for a look.....

 

[madison069]

Nice project!

If you are going to upgrade the service to the house and feed the new garage from it, I think now is the time to think whole house generator and install as a minimum the transfer switch while the meter is pulled for the service upgrade.

Good luck and yup...now is the time to think of all those eventualities.

It did cross my mind, then I looked up the cost of the full house generators and at this time I don't believe I could afford it. Currently I own 2 generators so if the **** hits the fan again, at least I got those to get us by. For the 15 years I've been in PA, this is the first time I've been without power for a day. I did tell my wife when we get older, then it will probably be smart to invest in the system. One nice thing about this house where the Texas Barn is being built, is it's a ranch style home with a finished basement. So, everything is on one floor minus the utility room with the central air. Makes it a lot easier to run extension cords to the fridges and central unit if needed.

 

[madison069]

Cody,

Congratulations on the new garage! I'm jealous to say the least. Love the bunker idea....I'll steal that when the time comes for my garage build if needed. When the time comes for a Moio's Italian Pastry Shop run, I might have to stop in for a look.....

Let me know when you make that run and I'll join ya for a Lady Lock!

 

[madison069]

Went over to the other house and tinkered with the electrical project as that's next.

This is the old setup for the house, I had already removed the door before I took a before picture.


After removing the built in cabinet, the new panel is going to be bigger so I'll have to redo the cabinet.


The old pushomatic


Interested in how it will look here after the company installs the new 200 amp.


Started digging the trench but got called away before I got far. Hopefully I can finish the job this weekend.



None the less I still got 13 days before the crew shows up to install the new panels.

 

[madison069]

I forgot to get a picture, but the trench is dug out. Loads of fun.

 

[madison069]

Pictures or it didn’t happen, right?

Measured it out and it was around 50’ and it’s 20” deep. I didn’t dig against the garage to keep the gravel from spilling out. Figured I’d wait til it’s closer to due date to dig that last foot out.

Found one of my roof downspout,

Hopefully that curve is ok, I wasn’t sure how much of a swoop the 90 degree sweep bend would have.
Honestly I don’t even know what size conduit they will use to run the 100amp subpanel feed wire.


Soon I will start digging the bunker floor down as that’s next on my list while I let fund build up again.

 

[julesthegreat]

What gauge/thickness was that steel decking? Do you have a link to the specs for it?

 

[madison069]

What gauge/thickness was that steel decking? Do you have a link to the specs for it?

Luck would have it, I found the label on the steel decking when I was working in the bunker.


It’s 20ga metal. D-MAC was the company I bought it from and they are based out of Georgia with storage units all over US.

 

[madison069]

Got the path cleared for the electrician to install a ground wire on the house water line.

First tile removed from the ceiling and what did I find, a junction box with a splice in it.


Either way, continued with cutting the rest of the tiles out of the ceiling. In photo order from the water line area toward the electrical panel.






I marked on the inside of the attached garage to make sure the electrical knows where the trench is dug at on the other side.


Cleared a path in the attached garage for the electrician.


Finish digging the trench against the garage.


Worked on the bunker for 2 hours and called it a day.


I’m thinking of renting a dingo with a bucket to dig the rest of the bunker. I got to dig on average 18” deep for the rest of the bunker. The thickness to dig down is 12” on one side and 24” deep on the far side of the bunker. This is roughly 14ft x 20ft of an area to dig. A lot of digging to do!

 

[larry4406]

Don’t undermine your footings while digging out the bunker.

Assume the applied load on the soil from the footing flows downwards at a 45 degree angle.

I did a house with two garage slabs in steel with decking similar to yours. Both had rooms below. The electrician bonded all the steel.

 

[madison069]

Don’t undermine your footings while digging out the bunker.

Assume the applied load on the soil from the footing flows downwards at a 45 degree angle.

I did a house with two garage slabs in steel with decking similar to yours. Both had rooms below. The electrician bonded all the steel.

Luckily there’s still 20” of wall before I hit the top of the footer at the depth I want to dig down for the floor of the bunker. So, top of the footer then there will be 20” of stone going down on top of the footer and between the wall and the dirt mound in the middle. Then 4” of 2b gravel goes down all over the floor and finally a 4” concrete slab will be poured in place. So there will be 28” from the top of the footer to the top of the floor in the bunker.

 

[larry4406]

Luckily there’s still 20” of wall before I hit the top of the footer at the depth I want to dig down for the floor of the bunker. So, top of the footer then there will be 20” of stone going down on top of the footer and between the wall and the dirt mound in the middle. Then 4” of 2b gravel goes down all over the floor and finally a 4” concrete slab will be poured in place. So there will be 28” from the top of the footer to the top of the floor in the bunker.

Sounds like plenty of head room then.

If the bunker slab will be lower than sounding grade, consider installing interior drain tile and sump crock with pump.

 

[madison069]

I went back to take some measurements of the bunker to crunch some numbers. Took some photos of the trench to show what I mean when I say there’s some room between the wall and dirt mound. The trench when the dirt is removed from the center mound will be 18” wide x24” deep give or take due to there’s some gravel and broken blocks in the trench.




Went and looked at a dingo with a bucket and I’m concerned about the length of the dingo in a tight space.



With the trench around the dirt mound it’s a possible risk of the dingo falling in the trench by accident. Also the dingo is 8ft long, so being the bunker is 14.5ft deep, add my depth I’m roughly 18” thick, that leaves me with 14.5-9.5=5ft of depth to work. Now minus the 3ft for the trench and it’s only gives me 2ft of dirt mound depth to move the dingo and me around on it. So, it will still be tight.

So with all of the info I crunch some numbers.

I have roughly 403 cubic feet of dirt to remove. Taking the volume of a 5 gallon bucket, wheelbarrow, and the dingo bucket I calculated the number of each item filled 85% to not over do each load.

That comes out to be 712 buckets, 81 wheel barrows, and 135 dingo bucket of dirt.

Say I average 5 mins to load a dingo bucket, take it out, spread it, and go back it would take 11.5 hours so that’s a 2 day rental minimum.

Then I have 386 cubic ft of gravel to move in and compact, or 14.5 ton of 2B gravel.

That comes out to be 688 buckets, 129 dingo buckets, or 78 wheel barrows of gravel to move.

That would be another 11 hrs of dingo rental so another 2 days rental.

I will have to time myself next time I’m over there to see how many buckets or wheel barrows I can do in a period of time.

This is good physical exercise though, so there is the health benefits to just shoveling the dirt myself. Kinda wish my contractor at the time would have dug the dirt out as discussed before the cinder block walls were installed but that’s water under the bridge.

 

[madison069]

We have power!

Here is the house breaker panel, now a 200amp service. With plenty of room to upgrade.



Detach garage power line routed through the attached garage.




Then outside the attached garage to the detach garage.


Then inside the Texas Barn is the junction box and 100amp service panel.


All inspected and both panels has the inspection stickers.

Now it’s time to back fill the trench and finalize the electrical layout.

 

[madison069]

Took the better part of the morning, but the trench is buried.


I washed the sidewalk of the mud and so the clay area is holding the water really good. I’ll have to fill in the void some more before I replace the plastic and spread the white rocks back over that spot. I also took the time to clean the yard along the edges, gathered up trash, cut the tall grass from where the pile of dirt used to be, and disposed of the trash to the curb for trash pickup later this week.

I only moved 2 barrows of dirt from the bunker and a chunk of concrete before I decided to call it a day there. I had yard work at the other house and a new cell phone for the mother in law to setup.

 

[madison069]

So the next stage of the project is to install the recess lights in the soffit. I plan to put lights on each side but the right side (when looking at the front) will be on a switch by itself since I didn’t need to light the area where the car trailer and boat will go each time I turn the outside light.
So, with that in mind, how would y’all place the lights relative to the doors and windows on the other three sides? Let me know what y’all think.

 

[julesthegreat]

Were you planning a flood light over each garage door?

For the windows I have seen people put a light above each window but I wonder if this makes it hard to see out of the window at night?

 

[OutlawDrifter]

I would probably do 3 evenly spaced (depending on light output and fixture) moving from the center between the windows out.

 

[madison069]

Were you planning a flood light over each garage door?

For the windows I have seen people put a light above each window but I wonder if this makes it hard to see out of the window at night?

There is 2 spots for flood lights but they were more for the future pickleball and basketball court that’s going in front of the garage.

I was wondering what others thought of the lights at the windows too, did it cause issues with looking out of the windows?

 

[madison069]

I would probably do 3 evenly spaced (depending on light output and fixture) moving from the center between the windows out.

These lights can put out some lights, they are the same ones I used for the front porch of my current house. The plan is to put them on a dimmer switch too, so they can be dimmed down for just general light mood but increased if activity is going on around the building.

 

[madison069]

I would probably do 3 evenly spaced (depending on light output and fixture) moving from the center between the windows out.

I drew it out and that would place the light at the outside corner of each window. So, the left window will have the light above the left window corner and the right window would have it over the right window corner. The walls are 32' long and the windows are spaced 8' from the corners.

 

[madison069]

Did some digging today. Roughly 20 wheel barrow worth of dirt came out. Only about 1.5hrs so not too bad.

 

[drivesitfar]

Nice looking garage. I know the digging can be boring but it’s the best exercise around and I’m certain you’ll love having the new space you’re making.

I just happened upon your thread and haven’t read every word but it sounds like maybe you lived here in the past and maybe rented it when you moved to another location with your big garage?

Except for the one nosey neighbor I’m guessing you like this old neighborhood better?

Kept up the great work and I’m looking forward to seeing how you get your stuff organized now that you’re downsizing.

 

[madison069]

Nice looking garage. I know the digging can be boring but it’s the best exercise around and I’m certain you’ll love having the new space you’re making.

I just happened upon your thread and haven’t read every word but it sounds like maybe you lived here in the past and maybe rented it when you moved to another location with your big garage?

Except for the one nosey neighbor I’m guessing you like this old neighborhood better?

Kept up the great work and I’m looking forward to seeing how you get your stuff organized now that you’re downsizing.

Yep, we lived here before. My wife bought this place before I met her. In my quest to make her happy, we moved to a house roughly a mile away from this house due to she didn’t like the floor plan of the old house. Also she didn’t want to build a garage at this house at the time. When we bought the new place she claimed she loved the open space of the new house and everything. But within a year she started hinting she didn’t like the new place. Honestly it’s a sore subject, cause I feel like I’ve wasted my time, money, and energy on something she didn’t want and it was all for her on why we moved to begin with. Everyone around us questions why we are moving back, even her parents wonders if we are right in the head. But, in my quest to make her happy I’m doing what I can to make it happen. Only request I’ve ever had from the beginning is to have a garage.

So we are renting the old house out, and overall it’s been an ok experience.

As for the neighborhood, I don’t really have any complaints , just the self called major of the street and his niece, and the fact I’ve always wanted to live in the woods more then I did in a suburb. But there’s pros and cons to both locations. So, I just deal with the part of the suburb life I don’t like due to hopefully have a happy wife.

 

[madison069]

So I went and got my exercise in by hauling 13 wheel barrow of dirt out. This is what it looked like after the 13 barrows.


Then I tilled as much as I could before my 2 hours was up. Each time I tilled it, I am able to bring it down 4-6” each pass with the tiller.


Now it’s ready for me to shovel the dirt when I come back.

 

[madison069]

Drove by the garage while in the Camaro to show my wife the bunker progress.

 

[madison069]

Sorry folks, I know it’s boring. But all that was done was more digging in the bunker.

After removing the last two layers of dirt after being tilled.




And tilled for another day.



Going to start lowering the area in front of the entrance. I’ve started using a wagon to move the 5 gallon buckets to the dirt pile. So I’m not concerned with getting the wheel barrow down there now.

Oh and the dirt pile.


The pile will go when the contractor comes in the fall to grade the area in front of the garage.

 

[madison069]

More dirt.


Happy Forth of July folks!

I’m gonna enjoy the day with a ride in the Camaro, grill some chicken, and bake a peach cobbler.

 

[madison069]

Surprise!

More dirt!


I did bring a fan to hang in the bunker for air circulation.


My little wagon is starting to collapse on me. Might need to get a beefier wagon.

 

[zanyad]

My little wagon is starting to collapse on me. Might need to get a beefier wagon.

You can't ride in my little red wagon
Front seat's broken and the axle's draggin'...

 

[drivesitfar]

Nice work. I missed where you might have mentioned why you didn’t have the guys prepping dirt for block didn’t remove thus extra dirt. I think I know why maybe cause if some technical bs with the neighbor? In any case I’ve always said landscaping type workouts are better than any gym.

Since i own maybe 6 wheelbarrows if i do happen to buy a new one I’m guessing one with two tires and maybe a plastic non rusting holder will be my choice.

 

[madison069]

Nice work. I missed where you might have mentioned why you didn’t have the guys prepping dirt for block didn’t remove thus extra dirt. I think I know why maybe cause if some technical bs with the neighbor? In any case I’ve always said landscaping type workouts are better than any gym.

Since i own maybe 6 wheelbarrows if i do happen to buy a new one I’m guessing one with two tires and maybe a plastic non rusting holder will be my choice.

I’ll chalk it up to miscommunication or assumptions was done between us and the crew. I can’t complain as the bunker was a shoot from the hip idea and seems everyone thought the doorway was going to be 5’ wide by 6’ tall. But when I got done talk to the design engineer, we determined that the opening could only be 4’ wide, and then the height was lower then what they estimated it needed to be to be able to line up with the street. Kinda wish it was another course of blocks higher, but then the elevation between garage floor and street would be even bigger in difference.

So, what they thought would be an easy job with a skid steer, turned into a yea, it’s not going to be smart to put a min skid steer inside it. Specially after the math I did comparing the length and height of that mini skid steer.

So, I just dig 5 gallon buckets at a time.

As for the wagon, I decided a new yard cart was the best choice. I picked up this 1,200lbs

capacity gorilla cart and it’s ready to go over for the job.


One nice feature is I can slide the d handle down and it can be hitched to a riding mower. So will be handy for future yard work I think.

 

[kj_mustang]

I have one of their poly dump carts. Thing is a beast. I can load it up to the point that I almost can't lift it to dump.

 

[madison069]

More dirt, 🪏

The cart had been useful.

Carries the 4 buckets at a time easily. It is top heavy when loaded so just have to be careful when going on a hill sideway.

Inside is slowly coming down. This is after I tilled the dirt mound. Slowly working on the little wall at the back to bring it down.

Once this layer of tilled dirt is removed, I should have 6-8inches to go down on this side.


I’m thinking of tilling another 4 inches overall as it’s been nice to just walk under the beam instead of ducking at each one.
Either way it’s slowly getting to the finish line, then I can clean the trench and fill them up with 2b gravel.

 

[madison069]

I have one of their poly dump carts. Thing is a beast. I can load it up to the point that I almost can't lift it to dump.

I almost went with a poly tub, they do look tough!

 

[Bob Heine]

Cody, I have two poly dump carts and a flatbed cart. I keep my little HF sandblast cabinet on the flatbed so I can sit in the shade while using it. The left glove was not needed so I made a steel panel to cover that hole. I may upgrade to an internal LED light someday.

Our first poly dump cart is a Rubbermaid and it served us well. When one of the rear braces rusted out I made a new one out of conduit.

That repair lasted a long time but the other side rusted out and I parked the cart. I recently made a new conduit brace so it's back in service. The second dump cart is a Gorilla and it has served us well with the exception of the front steering bracket. Had to bend up and rivet two pieces o steel strap to get it back to working condition.

We also have two two-wheel garden carts for the light jobs. I was a little aggressive with a spade one day and had to patch the cracks in the bottom. Love them pop rivets and 1/8 aluminum.

I was gifted a wheelbarrow when we lived in New York and it worked great when I wore my ditch digger artificial arm. Not that great in the Florida heat so all my carts are two or four wheelers.

 

[Vette60]

Hey Cody.

Enjoyed reading through your garage build thread! Really like the look of the garage and the bunker is coming along well. Pittsburgh native here of the South Hills area. Have been in Richmond now for 20 plus years. Good luck and thanks for sharing.