Garage Started
 

Figured I'd do a spinoff thread since my other one got clogged up with the work to get here.

Finally got the permit approved a few weeks ago to proceed with my garage build. It's both exciting and scary to finally be setting off on this journey!

Had a hard time finding a surveying company to come mark the area. Construction is still in a major boom out here, so specialities like this are totally booked. Given the absurd property line setbacks (15 and 40 feet), I wanted to push it as far into one corner of the lot as I could - so I ideally wanted a pro to come mark it out to be right up to the inch.

But after losing a couple weeks looking for a place with no luck, we just conservatively marked it ourselves. Took the county assessors maps and measured from the nearest landmarks still existing. That puts it in a couple feet further than it could be, but at least its a safe bet without wasting more time trying to track down a surveyor with open time this century. I'll admit I'm a bit surprised it was so hard to find someone as it seems like really good money for the limited time spent (i.e. something they could come knock out in an hour one evening to pocket an extra grand).

Unfortunately doing that put my 3 fruit trees inside the garage foot print. They always needed to be moved as they were in the way of the driveway - but Id hoped to leave them until the garage itself was done so I had some shade out in that part of the yard. Hired a company to do this as I wasn't at all comfortable (thats another story for the "pros" thread...).

Marked out the 4 corners with rebar (folded the tops over for safety since Id tossed all my rebar caps). Got it to about 3/8" difference corner to corner which is close enough for me.

Also set some initial grade stakes to establish a common plane to figure out height deltas across the area and to pick a target grade level to base everything off of. Luckily its fairly level - one side ramps up about 6" for 10% of the area, but its very manageable.

To dig the footing, we went out and rented a trencher from Home Depot as the soil is pretty hard. Its got a 6" wide cutter, so I was hoping to do 2 side by side passes to get my 12" minimum footing width. Unfortunately that was a no go - cutting two lines side by side isn't possible as it jogs the machine back to the original trench.

Oh well, I got the depth cut perfectly and cut more precisely than I could've with a bucket digger. Working now to widen the hole out with a hand shovel (which isn't too bad as you can just shear the dirt into the existing trench).

Hope for next weekend is to get a skid steer and dig out the center pad area to depth to make room for the fill gravel. Luckily its not as deep as the footings so it should be pretty light work. I did make several passes with the trencher at the correct depth below grade based on the location, so I should be able to just keep skimming the surface down until the trencher cuts all disappear.

PIc of 1 corner:


https://cimg4.ibsrv.net/gimg/monteca...b48b1e91e3.jpg

The red candy cane is #3 rebar marking the corner. The wood stake has the laser markings for a common height plane to measure from. Stopped the trencher cuts a little short so as not to disturb the rebar marker until I get the form boards up.

Digging the footing trench.

I was impressed how easily this chopped through the hard dirt.


https://cimg6.ibsrv.net/gimg/monteca...84312bfd08.jpg

Awesome stuff! And those trench diggers (I am used to them being called a "Ditch Witch") are awesome!

I loved that machine! I actually ended up using it for another project while I had it.

When we put in the driveway along the side of the house (going back to the new garage), I hadn't thought through drainage. The problem is the whole lot is lower than the street, so the main house driveway slopes down to that area. It also gets about 1/3 of the roof runoff. The whole area is only a few feet wider than the new driveway on each side, so there wasn't much dirt left exposed once we got done. Id never thought how much water had been historically absorbed by that patch of property.

So the first few times it rained heavy, the new driveway went half a foot under water.

Id been working to dig trenching on both sides of it for drainage piping, but it was brutal work by hand. Lots of rocks, lots of roots (from the few remaining trees) and a fairly deep trench (its a 75 foot total run, so the required slope adds up over that much distance). This thing breezed through the whole rest of that project plus digging the perimeter for the dry well it will feed into in about an hour.

The torque must be enornous. It cut through several 1.5" roots and even a 2" root right at a tree base without blinking.

Pic below is the easy side, the other side runs full length of the driveway.

https://cimg5.ibsrv.net/gimg/monteca...465936652e.jpg

Got the rough grade dialed in with a tracked skid steer. Right side was sloped up a bit so it took a deeper cut on that end to get things flat. Rented a plate compactor and went over the whole thing to get rid of all the marks from the tracks and such.

https://cimg2.ibsrv.net/gimg/monteca...81c9def597.jpg

Came back over it with some landscape fabric to ensure the gravel above doesn't get forced into the dirt. Left the central grade stake for now to help guide the gravel layer:

https://cimg2.ibsrv.net/gimg/monteca...4974a3e670.jpg

Just ordered the gravel base on lunch today. Coming Thursday- 35 tons. Should make for about 4" of fill.

Id originally planned to dig deeper, but the ground was getting pretty hard for the skid steer to remove, even when dampened. So I just cut back on the gravel layer thickness a tad to even things out.

I figure once I get the gravel spread and level, I'll use that to figure out the top of the slab and back calculate the target adjacent grade level from that. Then I can start installing the forms based on that target grade level.

I'm sure it's exciting getting closer by the day. I can attest that finding a surveyor is a royal pain. We tried getting one to locate property lines and as you mentioned it was a forever wait. On top of the outrageous price the guy wanted for finding the corners we just gave up. Glad to see you're finally to construction point.

That really surprised me - I had no idea that field was so overwhelmed with work. Being in a major metro area, I figured we'd find somebody even if the price was high.

Final tally was 3 places 'not taking new customers' (i.e. didn't even want to hear what the project was - they were fully booked for the foreseeable future), 5 places not interested in this small of a job, and probably another dozen that wouldn't even answer the phone / email / web contact form. I never received a single quote.

The gravel came. Didn't look like much, but 35 tons is a lot more to move than I was counting on (3 full dump trucks plus a partial). Goal was to get about 4" of coverage across the whole slab area.

They dumped it in front of our RV gate so as not to block the garage, but I hadn't thought to leave space to get equipment back there to move it. Ended up moving about 10-15,000 lbs from the front driveway to the back at the garage pad shoveling into wheelbarrow + the tractors trailer. That was absolutely brutal. Luckily Id realized a few hours in I wasn't going to move it all by hand, so I focused my efforts on clearing a path to get a machine back there.

Ended up renting a walk behind loader / skid steer that made things infinitely easier.

Still took nearly a full day with that loader to carry every last rock to the back as there was so much volume (you can see the rental over on the right in green):
https://cimg9.ibsrv.net/gimg/monteca...c68869b3e3.jpg

Spent the second day trying to level it. To my surprise, this was even harder than the moving process. It takes a good bit of practice / skill to make this even relatively flat. I found there were several times during the learning process that I was making it worse rather than better. Finally got the hang of it (relatively speaking) and got things roughly flat and level enough within less than an inch besides a few localized digs with the bucket. Picture looks a bit odd as we've had some rain lately, but it looks a lot smoother when its all dry. Added a few more grade stakes too so I could run some grid lines to help fine tuning the final hand grading/ leveling:

https://cimg6.ibsrv.net/gimg/monteca...8905c0b957.jpg

This weekend was a total wash. We got some big storms that rolled through, so I covered the whole thing with my vapor barrier material so it didn't get completely drenched/ washed into the footings.

My hope over the upcoming long weekend is to finish getting it flat and level, compact the gravel, apply the termite treatment, then do the final install of the vapor barrier. I think for final leveling I'm going to use a long straight board to shave the high spots / fill the low - almost like concrete screeding. I had some success with this method while trying to make a 'starting pad' for the loader (as it was so much easier to level other sections when coming off a flat spot).


Then I can shift focus over to squaring out the footings and start building some forms. Lots of fun to come...

Can't say id want to be in your shoes working all that material. I'm sure it's quite a learning experience. Glad to see progress pictures. 😎

Making progress! Has to start somewhere, but that is awesome to see (and I bet that was a lot of work). Be great to keep seeing this take shape!