Saturday, June 6, 2009

Sprinklers...Day 8

Holy crap I am tired. I have been working on sprinklers all day long with only a little to show for it. I finally got the second sprinkler manifold all connected and attached to the mainline. However, when I went to check to make sure everything was tight and I didn't have any leaks, my fairly successful day went down the tubes. One of the automatic valves did not turn off. Almost instantly, this turned the hole, where the manifold was located, into a major mud-infested swimming-pit. The majority of all the surrounding dirt walls crumbled into the water making the hole even bigger and muddier then I could have ever wanted. By time I turned off the water, which is all the way on the other side of the property, I had successfully filled all the trenches in the area with about 4 inches of water. This didn't include the foot of water in the hole where the manifold was.
In trying to unbury the valves, more dirt fell into the hole, making the water the consistency of cold oatmeal. And if any of you have tried digging in oatmeal, you know it isn't very easy. Because mudslide buried the valves, I was unable to hook up any of the sprinkler zones directly to the manifold.
After a good hour or so, I was able to get the manifold out of the mud and propped it up above the ground so the mud could have a chance to dry.
Since I couldn't attach any additional zones to the manifold, I decided to try and run the pipe backwards. So instead of running from the manifold out, I ran the pipe from the final destination back to the manifold. This doesn't sound so difficult, but right before I got to this point, my help had to go take care of the screaming baby. We had the baby out with us while we were working on the pipes, but she soon got bored and needed more attention. This changed the relatively simple task of rolling out the pipe into a major job. Usually you have one person roll the pipe, while the other person makes sure the pipe is going into the hole. All the time trying no to knock the dirt that is on the side of the trenches back into the trench. However, trying to hold the awkward role of 400ft of black poly pipe that has to weigh close to 50lbs makes for a big challenge.
Anyway, after all the fun I had today, I only completed 2 of the 5 zones. I guess this is a little bit of progress, but I still have 3 zones to go. Once that is completed, I still need to run the sprinkler control wire and finish burying the pipe in the ground. I was hoping to be done with all the zones today, that obviously didn't happen. So I will be slowly working at it again every night when I get home from work. FUN FUN FUN...

Sprinklers...Day 7

Today(Friday) wasn't as productive as I would have liked. I did get the big hole dug where I have to put the sprinkler box and manifold. That was a fun task. It rained on and off during the day, so each time it did, I happened to find an excuse to go inside. Another item that was limiting my productivity was my back and arms were sore. This made it an extra chore to do any digging in the ground. I had the parents come over to tend the baby while I was messing with the sprinklers but decided to let them head home, since I wasn't planing on doing much more after the first few hours. On Saturday, I plan on getting the majority of the sprinklers done if not all of it. The neighbor to the North of me is doing a bunch of leveling of their yard, so I need to get the side closest to him done before he takes the dirt that goes in my trenches and moves it someplace else. So all of you can look forward to the progress made tomorrow.

Thursday, June 4, 2009

Sprinklers...Day 7

Today was a decent day for a little yard work. It wasn't as hot as it has been and it also didn't rain like it has for the few nights. Before I let you know what happened with the sprinklers today, it is time for a concrete update. Last time I posted I was saying how late the concrete guys were staying. Well the reason they were so late is because they miscalculated how much concrete they needed for the job so they had to get a second truck out to make up the difference. All-in-all they used 20 yards of concrete and finished it in one day. I haven't been around the construction business for a long time, however I was still impressed that they were able to finish it all in one day. If any of you need concrete work done, let me know and I will get you this guys number.
Here are some of the pictures of the final results.





Now onto the sprinklers. Today I spent most of the day installing sprinkler heads in the back yard. It wasn't to hard of a task, but it sure was time consuming. I installed 30 sprinkler heads and was able to complete 5 of the 10 zones completed.
Here is a before and after of the sprinkler heads.




Here is the yard almost looking "normal" again


I still need to setup the second bank of auto valves for the front yard area. Hopefully I will have the time to complete a good portion of the front yard as well. Once that is completed, I will be able to finish filling in the trenches and starting the next project of getting the ground ready to lay sod.

Speaking of getting the ground, I received the new tiller blades in the mail today, so I will be able to till the entire yard as soon as everything is buried. I have a big day tomorrow, so I will leave you with a final thought. If tree's and butter are natural and good, why can both of them kill you in the end?

Wednesday, June 3, 2009

Sprinklers...Day 6...Postponed

Postponed the sprinklers install for today to hang out with the baby. Well actually that was just an extra benefit of today. Really what happened today was the concrete guy showed up to frame everything and decided that he was going to poor today instead of tomorrow. So I just made sure I was here with the checkbook to pay for the gravel truck and the cement guys. I am having a lot of concrete poured today. It is just after 9pm and they are still working. Here are a few pictures from earlier today.




Tuesday, June 2, 2009

Sprinklers...Day 5

Arrg, yet another long day. Today started with a full day at work. Since it had been raining on and off most of the day, I let my help know that I wouldn't be doing sprinklers today. However when I got home, I figured I better get as much done as possible since the cement guy was coming bright and early in the morning. It was to late to cancel him. So I came home, changed clothes, ate a few Ritz crackers, and started working. It sprinkled on and off for the first 30 or so minutes, but I was making decent progress. The only major problem I had was I kept forgetting to cut the little hole in the poly tube before attaching the fittings. After I was out working for a little while, scratz came out to assist. With her filling in the trenches, I finished putting the fittings on the pipe. Once that was done I helped with the trenches. In the last 10-20 minutes before were "finished", it started raining pretty heavily. I hope the hole back yard isnt pure mud by time the guy get here in the morning. I really dont have much to say because I am pretty exhausted. My hands dont hurt as much any more but they sure are ruff and dry. I will take some pictures and add to the blog for tomorrow. I think I will be working on the front yard sprinklers during the day because the concrete guy will be taking up all the space in the back yard.
Anyway, as always just because they are called cat tails, it doesn't mean you can shoot them with a shotgun.

Monday, June 1, 2009

4 in one...

I just wanted to show everyone my awesome find. I was eating peanuts at work today and I happened upon a peanut with 4 nuts in one shell. ( I'm not really supposed to be eating peanuts because I believe I have developed a food allergy because of them)
I was excited to see this. so I am sharing it with everyone else.
Enjoy

Sprinklers...Day 4

On the forth day of the sprinkler project, I had to take back the trench digger to the rental store by 7am. When I took it back to United Rental, the guy who recieves the equipment back tried telling me I didn't fill up the gas tank for the trencher. This was absolute B.S. I thought he was joking at first but he was serious. He tried to say that unless the gas tank is almost overflowing then the tank wasn't full. I was so pissed off because they charge like $10 per gallon of gas there. When he walked me into the service area he told the sales guy that the tank was a 1/4 tank empty. I told him he was full of it and told the sales guy that if he charged me for the 1/4 tank, I would cancel my next rental which is in two weeks. The sales guy made a smart choice, however because of the one guy I think I am going to cancel my rental anyway and go some place else. So if anyone reading this wants to rent from United Rental, I would recommend going someplace else because the employees who receive the equipment back must make a percentage on the amount of gas they have to replace in the rentals.

Back to the sprinklers, last night we found out that the neighbor to the north of us has decided to block access across his property beginning Friday. This causes us a major problem because if we cant get a cement truck in that way, we will have to pump the cement over the house which is quite a bit more expensive. This limited access also causes a problem for other neighbors on the street because they have also been doing yard construction. Anyway, since we are facing a possible non-access situation, we are trying to get all the pipe in the backyard in and buried inorder to have our cement guy come and do his job on Thursday. This is kind of pushing our schedule but I hope we can do it.
Luckily my brother and his wife came over to assist with the mess again. With their help we were able to get 90% of all the pipe work for the backyard completed. The storm that was coming in from the West force us to call it a night earlier then I had hoped, but with the wind and the blowing dirt there wasnt much that we could even do. We still need to bury most of the pipe so that the cement and other trucks can drive in the backyard to get the cement work done. However we are a lot closer then we were this morning. I think by tomorrow we should have the dirt covering the pipe in all the major areas of the back yard. Once the cement has been completed, then I can finish installing the sprinkler heads in the backyard. We still have a lot of pipe to lay to finish the entire yard, but I think we are slowly making progress. I only have to work 2 days this week, which will help in getting a little more completed.
So until next time, If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck then you could probably eat it for dinner.

Sunday, May 31, 2009

Sprinklers...Day 3

Is it over yet? Wow this is a lot of work installing the sprinkler system. Scratz and I have been working all day long, with not much to show for it. We were able to get the first of 2 manifolds in and we finished one of the 10 zones.

Also was able to put in one of the two hose bibs.


When I went to test the first system, all the sprinklers in that zone came on execpt one. I forgot to cut the hole on the pipe where the sprinkler attached. Duh... Anyway, I also found out that the water would not turn off. So I had a ton of mud to deal with while I tried to figure out what I did wrong.
After about 40 minutes and a lot of mud, I found that one of the automatic valves was broken. I had to borrow one from the other manifold in order to make things work. Currently I do have a few leaks, but I will take care of them once I get a little more time to get things together. The other problem I had was when I was running a long pipe out to the end of the yard to allow for a hose bib. After getting the pipe ran, I realized that the company had send the wrong fitting to connect the metal pipe to the poly pipe. Darn it.
At about that time the storm started rolling in, so we cleaned up our pipe and tools. Once the tools where put away, we had to re-install the dog kennel so the dogs will have a place to stay when we head back to work. I hope the tarp that blocks the rain and sun stays in place because the wind was blowing pretty fiercely when I was finishing getting it all back together.
That was the end of the project for today, I forgot to mention scratz and I did spend about thirty minutes chatting with the neighbors who live two houses to the south of us. They too have been doing house projects all weekend long.
Tomorrow I believe my brother is heading over to help out a little. If he cant, then I will be working away at it myself and hopefully I can make some progress.

Until next time, remember the bear isn't the only thing that S***'s in the woods, so watch your step.