Now it’s my turn for a workshop build thread
 

And the story goes….

About three years ago we found the house we wanted but it didn’t have a garage. One could be added to the carport/utility room pretty easy so we went ahead and bought the house. The first step was removing a few pine trees. One was in the footprint of the building addition and two others needed to be removed now or it would be a real chore to the get them out in the future. I got the trees out and ground the stumps down but the roots were the hidden below the surface. More on that later.

This will be a workshop not a garage but it will have a garage door and I can get my 914 in it. It will be wood framed and will have lap siding to match the house. The roof line will tie into the existing carport roof so it will not look like a bastardized addition. The first picture shows the back wall of the utility room which will be removed and on the right is the pine tree that was removed. I had to find an architect and a structural engineer for the signed/sealed drawing as I needed a permit.


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I put in some stakes for reference to the area of the addition and I rented a walk behind loader to clear the site and scrape down a few inches of top soil to remove the grass. It sounded like a great plan until I hit the first bundle of tree roots. The roots stopped the machine in its tracks and without teeth on the bucket I wasn’t able to hook the roots and get under to pull them up. After a few hours of playing in the dirt I decided I need something different.

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The roots are beginning to show....

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Cool

Very rich soil. Great place for roots to grow....

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So it was time to step up with a better tool for the job. I borrowed this from a friend. It was a blast to play with.......

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Subscribed. Looks interesting. Good luck

The more I pulled up roots, the deeper the hole got. I would hook the roots with the bucket and pull them up use the blade to push the material. :(

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Roots, roots and more roots..........

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Fast forward a few weeks and I paid my forming crew to backfill and prep the pad. Here it is all formed up. In Florida it's a simple slab-on grade. Note the pile of roots in the fore ground. If you look on the right there's a pile of roots out at the street.

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Can the architect do the structural calc in FL? That seem to be a pretty simple built and its a non living space. I wish we have that much land out here I would do the same thing. I am keeping on eye out for this thread, interesting for sure.

It's been compacted, tested and inspected. It was like this for several weeks while we waited for a concrete plant to be open on a Saturday. The crew is doing this as a side job so the concrete will be placed on a Saturday.

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This past Saturday was the day. Pump set up in the street about 8:00, first truck showed up at 8:30. Sorry neighbors there will be no sleeping in today. First truck was 10 yards.

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The boys started filling in the raised curb and footers from the far side.


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This is heavy hard work. I didn't offer to help. The old guy on the right in Delmar. He's the father of 2 of the guys.

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Awesome project you have coming along. Looking forward to seeing the build come to fruition!

After the perimeter is filled they come back and start in-filling the slab.

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All poured out. 14 yards at $130/yd. You do the math. It's fibermesh so there is no welded-wire-mesh in the slab. Footers have 2 #5's.

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And then it started to rain. And rain and rain. They cover it up and we wait.


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