We filled the uphill excavated areas with rich soil amendments and sand.
Best shot left is what I am hoping is a new low spot for water on the property. It should remain dry if we did it right. The bottom of the drain is 2 feet below the surface.
Fruit Cultivation
Fruit Cultivation
Whew - we are shovels down on this push. Happy it's over but it was a really fun and interesting project. I'm glad I got some help, some parts were more like a small construction firm than a DIY. It was maybe an 8 day sprint since breaking ground last Friday on my own. I learned a bunch about drainage and rock purchasing and transportation.
We filled the uphill excavated areas with rich soil amendments and sand.
Best shot left is what I am hoping is a new low spot for water on the property. It should remain dry if we did it right. The bottom of the drain is 2 feet below the surface.
We filled the uphill excavated areas with rich soil amendments and sand.
Best shot left is what I am hoping is a new low spot for water on the property. It should remain dry if we did it right. The bottom of the drain is 2 feet below the surface.
Fruit Cultivation
Don't know where you live, so I'll ask, does it get below freezing in the winter where you live? If so, you'll be creating an ice rink as the water may be flowing below the frost line, then freezing as you dump it out onto the street. Also, you'll end up with a ton of algae growing on the street around the outlet, which makes it super slippery in hotter weather.
We have two people that dump their drainage (downspouts off roof as well as sump) into the street in our neighborhood creating the above scenarios. Pisses many of us off. I want to fill a sock with cement then use a push rod to shove it up into his drainpipe to harden.
Fruit Cultivation
We are surrounded by the sf bay in most directions, so our temperature is moderated to not drop below 40 or so. I don’t imagine the system will actually output water to the curb but for the 4-5 times it rains hard in the winter. The system was designed to diffuse the water underground with sand and gravel.
Not that I’m saying absolutely never do a curb cut, but we can evaluate when we actually get some rain worthy to challenge the system. It ate up the water from the detention pond and had lowered the water level by an inch while we could still measure it. Not too worried about the discharge area, it’s sun & wind facing for 95% of the year.
Not that I’m saying absolutely never do a curb cut, but we can evaluate when we actually get some rain worthy to challenge the system. It ate up the water from the detention pond and had lowered the water level by an inch while we could still measure it. Not too worried about the discharge area, it’s sun & wind facing for 95% of the year.
Fruit Cultivation
The people that dump here keep the area wet 24/7, allowing the algae. So ya, if you aren't keeping it continuously wet, you shouldn't have an issue.
Fruit Cultivation
I've wanted to start a grove of bamboo on my back lot, to see if I could attract pandas to the area.
"Be bold, and mighty forces will come to your aid."
Fruit Cultivation
We got an inch an a half of rain today on top of an already pretty strong wet season.
I guess an inch and a half in 24 hours is the magic number, because the system FINALLY sucked up enough water that it needed to out-put through the pop-up / stream that I put next to the sidewalk
I was woriried it would just suck all the water up forever and not justify me building an outlet, but it worked! Pretty fucking cool. Landscaping boner.
Fruit Cultivation
Just wrapped a big house construction project, that has been hanging over me since we bought the place.
Had to replace/pour about 20 feet of foundation on the high side of the house. Demo'd and dug, lifted the house up with hydraulics, brought a concrete truck with a concrete pump (!?), the full shebang. A 3 week job with a 3 man primary crew and a bunch of tradesmen in and out.
Some was missing because of long term damage from the underground spring that flows like a river under the house, some was just a badly poured extension foundation that we had to demo and do right (footers are good!). We also had them add a channel drain to the front of the garage and a new drain with fresh concrete around the perimeter below the floor grade to fix water intrusion there. Glad it's done with! The fucked up foundation was causing a lot of problems I didn't fully realize until they fixed it.
Next up in the construction budget is a rework of the electrical - knob and tube wiring abounds. We'll get there eventually.
Had to replace/pour about 20 feet of foundation on the high side of the house. Demo'd and dug, lifted the house up with hydraulics, brought a concrete truck with a concrete pump (!?), the full shebang. A 3 week job with a 3 man primary crew and a bunch of tradesmen in and out.
Some was missing because of long term damage from the underground spring that flows like a river under the house, some was just a badly poured extension foundation that we had to demo and do right (footers are good!). We also had them add a channel drain to the front of the garage and a new drain with fresh concrete around the perimeter below the floor grade to fix water intrusion there. Glad it's done with! The fucked up foundation was causing a lot of problems I didn't fully realize until they fixed it.
Next up in the construction budget is a rework of the electrical - knob and tube wiring abounds. We'll get there eventually.
Fruit Cultivation
Damn, foundation projects are usually $$$.... and rewiring electrical is usually $$$.
"Be bold, and mighty forces will come to your aid."
Fruit Cultivation
Truth. And with both of these projects you don't really know the full scope until they start digging in. Got a permit for 12 feet, but had 10 feet extra worth of foundation change orders once we got down there.
I know less about electronics than drainage so I'm hoping it won't be as messy. Looking at about $13/square foot for re-wiring.
Fruit Cultivation
If you have knobs and tubes.............. sounds expensive. 
13 per square foot would cost me about $30k.
13 per square foot would cost me about $30k.
"Be bold, and mighty forces will come to your aid."
Fruit Cultivation
It sucks, but I'm happy to have the house and be in a position to fix it and bring it up to modern standards.
It's kind of like an old warship or something. It's a 1941 house on the coast, so things are just starting to wear out. One can only defer maintenance for so long.
Previous owners have done some stupid shit, too. Like the lady before me that poured a fuckload of concrete for a patio in 2016, WITH NO DRAINAGE THOUGHTS/REFLECTIONS/INTELLIGENCE, or just the glaring need to put that concrete into the foundation instead. The pre-1960 idiots who did the extension had the same fuck-up energy.
I'm responsible for 75% of all permits on record for this house and I've not been here two years yet. The only other permit was the new roof when it was sold to me.
It's kind of like an old warship or something. It's a 1941 house on the coast, so things are just starting to wear out. One can only defer maintenance for so long.
Previous owners have done some stupid shit, too. Like the lady before me that poured a fuckload of concrete for a patio in 2016, WITH NO DRAINAGE THOUGHTS/REFLECTIONS/INTELLIGENCE, or just the glaring need to put that concrete into the foundation instead. The pre-1960 idiots who did the extension had the same fuck-up energy.
I'm responsible for 75% of all permits on record for this house and I've not been here two years yet. The only other permit was the new roof when it was sold to me.
Fruit Cultivation
If you didn't put some Halloween bones and a skull in there somewhere, you missed an opportunity.
“Every record been destroyed or falsified, books rewritten, pictures repainted, statues, street building renamed, every date altered. The process is continuing day by day. History stops. Nothing exists except endless present in which the Party is right.”
Fruit Cultivation
When I get around to finishing the wood floor install upstairs, I want to draw a white chalk outline of a body and spill red paint by the head. Then cover it with the wood flooring. I feel like I should put a small "Just kidding" note by it though.
Fruit Cultivation
Good news: the entire house doesn't need rewiring/replacing. Just a few spots and some outlets need to grounding in the garage.
Bad news: The shorts, flickers, and eventually blown circuit was because some critters had got into one of the attics a while ago and went HAM on some important cables. The people we bought the house from fixed the frayed cables with like... duct tape... or something equally unsafe. Then the structural work we did knocked them loose and for a few weeks we have been in constant danger of an attic fire from the electricity arcing. All we noticed was the flickering and random outages. When the circuit blew I certainly smelled the burning but didn't realize.
Better news: it was only $15 in parts (175 in labor) to fix and we'd already had the attic cleaned and re-insulated so it was a breeze for him to access. $200 total. Yeeha.
Still, we will need to replace our ancient Zenith? electrical panel with something from this century for long term upgrades like solar.
Bad news: The shorts, flickers, and eventually blown circuit was because some critters had got into one of the attics a while ago and went HAM on some important cables. The people we bought the house from fixed the frayed cables with like... duct tape... or something equally unsafe. Then the structural work we did knocked them loose and for a few weeks we have been in constant danger of an attic fire from the electricity arcing. All we noticed was the flickering and random outages. When the circuit blew I certainly smelled the burning but didn't realize.
Better news: it was only $15 in parts (175 in labor) to fix and we'd already had the attic cleaned and re-insulated so it was a breeze for him to access. $200 total. Yeeha.
Still, we will need to replace our ancient Zenith? electrical panel with something from this century for long term upgrades like solar.