Garage Tear Down

Needed to remove the old garage before the new shop could go up. I was surprised how much it took to knock down the old building.

Kevin

<img src="/forums/images/graemlins/kewl.gif" alt="" />

Knockin' er down was fun!

That looks to be the same size excavator that I have. I love mine.

What type of surv. system do you have? Cause I need that.

The excavator belongs to the contractor I hired. he did the knockdown, but he did let me use it for a few hours.

Fun machine.

It is fun, but difficult at first to master. Must be able to think with your hands and feet, and have a good eye for spatial relationships. They have contests for tractor operators, especially excavator operators. Digging holes was a lifelong frustration for me (I had plans for an underground bunker at age 6), until I met the John Deere 690B trackhoe with the controls set up Cat style. Love at first hole, 3' wide and 20' deep and the bottom was flat and I could dig 100' an hour and lay sewer in it, at a laid rate of $8 a foot labor plus materials. $6400 days. <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" /> Then it rained. For 2 weeks.

I guess one of the reasons I stayed in construction was the chance to get to play on the tractors while making money at it, and I get to make the earth really move...

Mistake of the day.... I grabbed the wrong pipe solvent when I put the ABS sewer lines together. I had forgotten that I picked up a can of fresh PVC cement as well as ABS, I just grabbed the first can I saw in my shopping box o stuff.

When I went back to my stuff box I saw the can of ABS cement and realized I grabbed the wrong one... The PVC cement did bond pretty well... But since this stuff is all buried I decided to start over. $100 later, I had a new lines and new fittings.

I will use the stuff I pulled out to rout the gutter water to the dry well (another addition on this project).

I dont really care if my rainwater pipes are perfect.

Also this was my first time using a roll of 3/4" PEX. Seems like decent stuff. I ran two lines out to the shop ( hot and cold... Although I will probably use a mini water heater for the hot water. I figured that running a second line cant hurt.

I really appreciate how much work it is to did a perfectly sloped trench. It was a really long day.

I cant wait to get to the fun stuff... AKA framing.

Kevin

The pvc glue would have worked for dwv piping because of the low pressures, but pvc glue is not as "hot" as abs glue. It would have worked fine using abs glue on pvc, but not the other way around. And yes, holding a slope on a trech is not easy. I use a laser. One of the lasers in a hand level works fine if you can do math.

Excellent news! Progress of any kind is great! As you know, I'm still making "progress" on mine the fourth year into it! Pex is neat stuff - allows a layperson like me to rent a tool and make leak free runs (sink in the basement). I wouldn't have done it, had copper been the only game in town, but pex wasn't bad at all!

Its gonna be nice having a wet bar in the garage! <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/cheers.gif" alt="" /> All I have is a small fridge! <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/shiner.gif" alt="" />

Have you tried sharkbite pipe connectors? Pricey, but reusable and the fastest hookup in the known universe. And don't they let you use cpvc up there? Solvent welding is easy and very reliable if done right, and right is NOT hard. I've done tens of thousands without a leak. I just don't trust the real new stuff and crimp connecting. I remember the blue pipe fiasco too well...

You need an oven in the garage too, for annealing and baking parts and pizza.

Consider burying an air line from the compressor back to the house. I blow out stopped up pipes with compressed air, and it makes dusting a literal breeze, when she who must be obeyed is out of sight...

Seriously consider getting one of those 3phaser gizmo's that yield 3ph out of a single phase supply, and running the air compressor on 3ph, and be spendy on the compressor.

Great idea on the air compressor line. The PVC cement was for electrical. I have seen the Sharkbit stuff. Nice connectors, but their tubing is really hard to work with. I have been using Zern PEX, supposed to be good stuff.

As far as code goes, we are based on the IRC.

For air, I have a 30 year old Craftsman compressor that was actually a relabeled Devilbis. Nice 220 volt, 3 HP.. Three real HP not the locked rotor 5 hp on 120 volt stuff you on some current units. I'm to sentimental to upgrade it. Besides, it got pretty decent output ( 8.2 SCFM at 90 PSI, 9.7 SCFM at 40 PSI).