I am glad I don't have that problem by me! I have deer, raccoons and skunks as the common animals doing property damage (and it is either eating flowers, digging in trash or digging in the yard). And even at that, their issues are small for me. Are you going to leverage metal or pvc conduit?

 

Definitely PVC. For the large diameter / long run, I think itll be cost prohibitive to do metal. The wire alone is going to be expensive enough.

I'm also not sure there's a benefit to me. No doubt metal would be impossible for them to chew, but they're not very big - not much larger than a common mouse but with huge teeth. The roots they eat are pencil sized. They could defintiely open enough to get around a single conductor of wire, but I think even a 1" conduit is going to be far too wide for them to get their teeth on to.

As another precaution though I will go overkill on depth. I plan to at least do the 24" requirement for direct burial despite being in conduit. The trencher at the local hardware does 3 feet, so I'll probably set it as deep as it can while cutting smoothly.

Fortunately the vast majority of digging they do is within a foot of the surface for making tunnels. Its the dens that worry me theyll dig deeper down to make their main house. I'm hoping that I'm catching them quick enough to stop that though.


Unfortunately its going to be a never ending problem with this property. We've got a big empty commerical corner lot behind us thats all dirt for now. There's probably at least a hundred over there at any time judging by the dozens of new mounds every day. Our neighborhood also isn't great about staying on top of them - theyre all large (ex agriculture) lots - very few have pristine golf course quality lawns. Id bet at least 2/3 of the people just let them run rampant.

 

Baby steps. Top coat stucco next week once this layer cures.

 

One more step down - stucco fully completed.

Ive got a few minor corrections to make during paint, but at least the step is done.




Next big thing I need to get moving is to find a local place that sells roof polyiso foam. Im really blown away at how well even that 1" of xps over the walls helped - both in terms of heat rejection and sound dampening, so I think Im going to go at least 1.5" thick on the roof insulation.

The plans dont technically require it, but its an easy way to add R value / reject the heat before it even gets to the framing members. It'll also give me a glass smooth surface to bond the roof membrane to.

 

Looks great! And nice that you are finding value in a material you had to use that now you want to cover the roof too. Awesome stuff! Keep moving

 

Lots of work this weekend. Got the whole thing coated in "hot" stucco primer (pH is still 12+) and one coat of gray paint. Still needs a second coat of paint to complete the system / even out the finish.

The colorful stuff around the doors is just me using up every scrap of painters tape I had left in the house to keep the deep gray off the white trim.




Lots of labor hours left to go, but at least its all on just a handful of projects rather than a mile long list.

 

That looks awesome!

 

Jeez man that is looking amazing!

 

Thank you guys, I appreciate it!

Definitely bit off more than I can chew on this project, but at least it's nearing a successful conclusion...

 

Main painting is now done. Still need to finish up the trim board painting / caulking, but that's low on the priority list.

Started garage doors this weekend. Got the first one up, mostly... found out they sent me spring shafts for an 8 foot wide door, not a 9. Reached out for replacements - fingers crossed I can get them soon as the doors are basically unusable without a spring.

Got all the rest of the openings prepped, so it should go more quicker now. Im holding off on installing any more until I can get 1 fully functional. Just hate to repeat some kind of error across them all given we can't really open this door fully (safely).




Edit - Clopay customer service was pretty good. Offered to ship 2 piece shafts via UPS today (but I dont want to deal with a 2 pc shaft on a tiny door like this) or 1 pc shafts via their local distro center (likely 2-5 weeks). Went with the latter. I'll get the doors up for now and will shift to another project until the springs come in.