Patio Renovation Phase 1

This has been a really busy year for just about everything except my hobbies! The latest renovation is expanding the patio into more of an outdoor living space. The original concept was just to add on to the existing concrete patio. However, after all the outdoor furniture and rugs had been removed from the old space we discovered that it had continued to crack quite badly. The contractor recommended we replace the old concrete at the same time so that everything would match. We bit the bullet and coughed up more cash to get the project done right. 

Phase 1 involved the destruction and removal of the existing concrete, digging out the area for the new concrete, prepping everything for the concrete pour and then pouring and finishing the new surface. The concrete is setting now under a bundle of thermal blankets as winter finally decided to arrive here in the middle of the project,

I really didn't keep a good photographic record of this project so it begins with the pile of concrete, the remains of the old patio. This is about half, one load has already gone to the dump or where ever they take this stuff.

The pile of concrete by the time I realized I had not taken any pictures of the work.

The edges are defined by the 2x4s and the wire mesh is in place

They were able to cut around the concrete base of the garden entry and the existing water fountain.

The concrete pour starts. I found the whole process rather fascinating.

Larry supervised the entire operation

Renovating the Garden - Round 2

We learned even more interesting things about that wall today. One its like an iceberg with more concrete underground than above. I think its about 20" top to bottom (the contractor is estimating a full 24"). The long side and one short side are out but the concrete on the west side is almost completely buried. Also the earth is so compacted after years of use that its almost like concrete itself.

They brought in a Bobcat instead of my predicted jackhammer. The Bobcat just didn't have the torque necessary to really dig into something this compacted but they made it work, mostly, in the end.

If all goes well this morning, then they will be able to install the paver wall on Thursday.

The primary tool for the day, none of that electric jackhammer business. They wanted a bigger version of the bobcat but this is all that was available on short notice.

Serious progress by noon.

Finally the east wall gives up the ghost. Note that it came away in three large chunks rather than the hoped for easy to handle pieces. It took about an hour to get this part of the wall out.

End of the day the west wall stands alone

There is still a lot of dirt to pull out of there. Hopefully the grapevines aren't going to suffer to much.

The pavers ready for installation, we hope on thursday

A pile of large concrete pieces. Earl didn't mess around when he built the wall for his garden.

Taking out the west wall will be a challenge since its mostly buried.

Renovating the Garden

The house sits on a L shaped lot with approximately a half acre in the front and almost a full acre in the back. This is right in the middle of a residential neighborhood that was created from old five acre horse properties, when it was at the edge of Denver.

Keeping the back acre mowed was quite the chore, so the decision was made to sell it off. This required that a long drive way (120' long or so) 20' wide would be carved out of one edge of the property to provide access. The land has been sold and now the vegetable garden extends on to the new property and has to be revamped to fit on to our property which is now only extends 2' from the south wall of the garage.[There is a reciprocal use agreement that allows the two properties that are next to each other to access their garages using this driveway. Talk about twisted legalize!]

The vegetable garden is approximately 10' wide and 42' long and runs along the wall of the garage. It is surrounded by a concrete wall about 12" high and about 6" or so thick (it might be 8" I didn't measure it). Originally I thought I could just take a sledge hammer to it so I talked to the original builder and asked if he used rebar in it. He said no, although he didn't mention what he did use. This wall was poured about 30 years ago and in that time it only developed one crack in it. That should have been a clue.

Since concrete would have to be removed and dirt relocated we decided to contract this little job out. They started yesterday figuring that they would have all the concrete knocked out and broken into nice size pieces for handling. 8 hours later they hadn't even managed to get a third of it knocked down, let alone move any of the very compacted earth that was behind it. It was thirty year old concrete and they figured it would come apart pretty easily. The electric jack hammer just wasn't cutting it. They didn't count on the fact that the builder poured concrete for a living and replaced a good portion of the flagstone sidewalks in Denver. He really knew what he was doing and didn't cut corners just because it was a wall for his vegetable garden. The foreman said that if they still built foundations this way no one would ever have cracked basement walls.

Seems that while there isn't any rebar in there, the builder did use some braided metal wire pieces that kind of look like barbed wire, but quite a bit thicker. Today they are coming with a real jackhammer, the kind that uses compressed air. If that doesn't work I'm not sure what they will do.

Here is the garden in full bloom one year. 12 Kale plants, 30 zucchini and 60 tomatoes by the end of the season.

No planting was done this year because the land was up for sale. Although the grapevines produced a bumper crop this year. They will stay in place.

The crack in the wall was here. They didn't make much progress,

Did better over here.

The pile of concrete. Not to many nice sized chunks though. Some of those will still have to be broken up.

The culprit. A six inch piece of twisted wire with hooks at the ends. It really holds things together.