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Fidlen

Fidlen

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Wife wanted a raised garden bed cause our garden was shit and had maybe 2 inches of dirt before you hit clay. Fucking sucked building and shoveling all that dirt and gravel but turned out great. And good news, she's already set up a new project to do...

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Daidraco

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Fidlen said:
View attachment 532549View attachment 532550View attachment 532551View attachment 532553View attachment 532554
Wife wanted a raised garden bed cause our garden was shit and had maybe 2 inches of dirt before you hit clay. Fucking sucked building and shoveling all that dirt and gravel but turned out great. And good news, she's already set up a new project to do...

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It looks very nice. You did a great job.

I have to ask though, why couldnt you just use the bobcat and excavate the clay down below it four feet and replace that? Am I missing something? (I dont have a wife, so I dont get the honey do's.)
 
Kajiimagi

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Daidraco said:
It looks very nice. You did a great job.

I have to ask though, why couldnt you just use the bobcat and excavate the clay down below it four feet and replace that? Am I missing something? (I dont have a wife, so I dont get the honey do's.)
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Vinyl siding/clay, reminds me of when I lived in Charlotte , good ol' clay belt. Clay has to go somewhere if you dig it out. It also is hard as rocks.
 
Fidlen

Fidlen

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Daidraco said:
It looks very nice. You did a great job.

I have to ask though, why couldnt you just use the bobcat and excavate the clay down below it four feet and replace that? Am I missing something? (I dont have a wife, so I dont get the honey do's.)
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Well the wife wanted raised beds so it would easier to weed. She wouldn't have to bend down as much. Also the clay we have here is very firm. Would need a back hoe to dig through that.
 
Goatface

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neighbors have a giant maple that rained down a ton of whirlybirds a while back.
like this (know they have a bunch of different names)
1718418393584.png

anyway, they got into my gutter and week or so ago notice little trees growing. finally get around to cleaning them today. get the ladder out, it has a big standoff that can rest on the roof, so it goes over the gutter. i am real careful not to bump anything and gently sit it down. before climbing up, make sure to check the feet. while looking down a small bee whizzes by my nose. look up and about a dozen bees are now flying around the top of the ladder.
i shake the ladder a bit and they don't like it, so i go inside. around 9:30 go out while totally dark, no bees. remove the little trees. peck around the gutter, soffits etc, no bee sounds and signs of anything.
really don't want have to take apart the soffit, sucks.
 
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Burns

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Raised gardens are awesome. This dude in Australia has a nice set up, to give you an idea of how much easier it is to deal with:
 
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Intrinsic

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This bed in the corner between my 2nd garage / woodshop and the house / primary garage has been giving us issues since we bought the place. It is downhill to this area, water floods my shop and it honestly is just a mess 99% of the time. So today got a bug to go clean it out and strip it down. Initially was going to just pull everything up, put down a new layer of fabric, and put river rock over it rather than mulch, but as I pulled back the existing rock, weed, and crap found out the previous owner(s) had installed a drain around the edge.

Well, that drain looked shot to shit, full of soil and rocks, roots growing through the flex pipe, and nothing actually connected together.

This is the area in the middle of me clearing it out, just to get a view of it. May be hard to tell but from the top right to the bottom left downspout is a pretty good grade.

Blue is existing 4" flex pipe. There's a 180'ish coming off the downspout to a "red" pipe that goes under my shop and out the other side in to a union in the backyard that runs it away from the house. This does function as I've followed it and seen it work. However, my bet is 90% of that is coming off the gutter and not this drain.

The rain dead ends on bend and connects to nothing, it just stops. It also stops in the middle of the bed and seemingly connects to nothing. Still have a little excavating to do.

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Here is the T on the right side. No connection between the pipe and the about 1.5' PVC that then isn't actually connected to some more corrugated that runs down and stops.

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Here's the end point on the bend of the driveway:

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I've dug up almost the whole thing. My plan now is to replace all the existing 4" with new. Put a 9" catch basin where the green is. That is where water flows across my driveway and empties in to this bed area. Put an actual T-junction in and connect it up, run that branch down to the underground. And carry that other branch around the rest of the perimeter and Y it in to the downspout in to the underground (that was hard to draw from this angle so left it out).

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Then I'Ill put down a new layer of fabric, hardscape it, and come back with some Hostas and a few other things to liven it up.

Thoughts? This is all based on Google and me not knowing wtf I'm actually doing, and some ChatGPT. :p

I'm not really counting on this to solve my flooding issue, it just kind of spiralled and took off as a father's day weekend project.
 
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Daidraco

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Intrinsic said:
This bed in the corner between my 2nd garage / woodshop and the house / primary garage has been giving us issues since we bought the place. It is downhill to this area, water floods my shop and it honestly is just a mess 99% of the time. So today got a bug to go clean it out and strip it down. Initially was going to just pull everything up, put down a new layer of fabric, and put river rock over it rather than mulch, but as I pulled back the existing rock, weed, and crap found out the previous owner(s) had installed a drain around the edge.

Well, that drain looked shot to shit, full of soil and rocks, roots growing through the flex pipe, and nothing actually connected together.

This is the area in the middle of me clearing it out, just to get a view of it. May be hard to tell but from the top right to the bottom left downspout is a pretty good grade.

Blue is existing 4" flex pipe. There's a 180'ish coming off the downspout to a "red" pipe that goes under my shop and out the other side in to a union in the backyard that runs it away from the house. This does function as I've followed it and seen it work. However, my bet is 90% of that is coming off the gutter and not this drain.

The rain dead ends on bend and connects to nothing, it just stops. It also stops in the middle of the bed and seemingly connects to nothing. Still have a little excavating to do.

View attachment 533013

Here is the T on the right side. No connection between the pipe and the about 1.5' PVC that then isn't actually connected to some more corrugated that runs down and stops.

View attachment 533014

Here's the end point on the bend of the driveway:

View attachment 533011

I've dug up almost the whole thing. My plan now is to replace all the existing 4" with new. Put a 9" catch basin where the green is. That is where water flows across my driveway and empties in to this bed area. Put an actual T-junction in and connect it up, run that branch down to the underground. And carry that other branch around the rest of the perimeter and Y it in to the downspout in to the underground (that was hard to draw from this angle so left it out).

View attachment 533015

Then I'Ill put down a new layer of fabric, hardscape it, and come back with some Hostas and a few other things to liven it up.

Thoughts? This is all based on Google and me not knowing wtf I'm actually doing, and some ChatGPT. :p

I'm not really counting on this to solve my flooding issue, it just kind of spiralled and took off as a father's day weekend project.
Click to expand...
You would be surprised. Cause that sounds like a solid plan.

I have two condo's that are right next to each other. About 12 years ago, they replaced the walkways with concrete walkways across the front of these two condos. They come four in a lot, however. I just own the two on one side. When I originally bought the first one, I lived there and saw some water come into the basement from time to time. But didnt think a lot of it, since I grew up in shitty houses that had the same issues. Fast forward to 2020, and I bought the neighboring condo.

The leaks in this corner condo were a lot more prevalent. So I started digging into it a bit. If I still lived in the other one it probably would have been obvious what was going on. The gutter downspout on the front of the interior condo was clogged. So water was just filling up the entire gutter and spilling over into the flower bed. Those concrete paths had basically encircled the flower bed for the interior condo. A bit more exploration, and we found that the corrugated pipe was clogged and water had been draining from the interior condo's front, through a channel following along the front of the exterior condo, off to the side (where the elevation was going down.)

We dug out around the front of both condo's, and under the concrete path for the exterior condo. The foundation guys came in, cleaned the concrete exterior, painted it with some kind of white sealant. Left for the day, met back up with his the next and installed this liner that looked like some really thick bubble wrap. After that, the put a corrugated pipe down at the very base of the excavated area, then filled on top of it, with different layers of sand and varying grades of gravel. Then another corrugated pipe attached to a PVC pipe under the concrete path, that turned back into a corrugated pipe that met up with the lower one down the hill.

Even with as much work as I did with excavating and such, they charged me close to 3500 to do the liners, gravel and all. But the full job was suppose to cost double that. So a buck saved I guess.

Long story short, putting some proper drainage in your flower bed right there will help out tremendously if its done correctly. I havent had a single complaint about a leaking basement from either set of renters after doing all the above work.
 
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Intrinsic

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Daidraco said:
You would be surprised. Cause that sounds like a solid plan.

I have two condo's that are right next to each other. About 12 years ago, they replaced the walkways with concrete walkways across the front of these two condos. They come four in a lot, however. I just own the two on one side. When I originally bought the first one, I lived there and saw some water come into the basement from time to time. But didnt think a lot of it, since I grew up in shitty houses that had the same issues. Fast forward to 2020, and I bought the neighboring condo.

The leaks in this corner condo were a lot more prevalent. So I started digging into it a bit. If I still lived in the other one it probably would have been obvious what was going on. The gutter downspout on the front of the interior condo was clogged. So water was just filling up the entire gutter and spilling over into the flower bed. Those concrete paths had basically encircled the flower bed for the interior condo. A bit more exploration, and we found that the corrugated pipe was clogged and water had been draining from the interior condo's front, through a channel following along the front of the exterior condo, off to the side (where the elevation was going down.)

We dug out around the front of both condo's, and under the concrete path for the exterior condo. The foundation guys came in, cleaned the concrete exterior, painted it with some kind of white sealant. Left for the day, met back up with his the next and installed this liner that looked like some really thick bubble wrap. After that, the put a corrugated pipe down at the very base of the excavated area, then filled on top of it, with different layers of sand and varying grades of gravel. Then another corrugated pipe attached to a PVC pipe under the concrete path, that turned back into a corrugated pipe that met up with the lower one down the hill.

Even with as much work as I did with excavating and such, they charged me close to 3500 to do the liners, gravel and all. But the full job was suppose to cost double that. So a buck saved I guess.

Long story short, putting some proper drainage in your flower bed right there will help out tremendously if its done correctly. I havent had a single complaint about a leaking basement from either set of renters after doing all the above work.
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Cool. I’ll get back on it tomorrow when it isn’t 97 degrees out. Already picked up most stuff from HD/Lowes but may need to Amazon something to fix that downspout.

Appreciate it. Will post pics when finished.
 
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Palum

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Daidraco said:
Im wanting to put something like one of these in my basement. Anyone have experience with them? Price range? Etc. I know its June, so if they usually go on sell in like October or something.. Im ok to wait?

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Is it mostly decorative or for actually heating a space? If you're just looking for decoration any you like that you can get a good deal on are fine. I would probably look at higher quality units if you're planning on using it as a great source. All of this is just a generalization comparing quality at big box vs specialty stove stores though.
 
Daidraco

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Palum said:
Is it mostly decorative or for actually heating a space? If you're just looking for decoration any you like that you can get a good deal on are fine. I would probably look at higher quality units if you're planning on using it as a great source. All of this is just a generalization comparing quality at big box vs specialty stove stores though.
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I've spent a few minutes looking at them. The highly specialized, realistic, drop in ones that you see like in Hotel Lobbies and such go up to something like 20k. No where near what the hell I would spend on my budget. I think my question is more on just how "fake" that particular one looks, and if someone could recommend something else thats in the same price range. Its obvious that theyre all fake, but I guess how much effort they put into disguising it.. I guess? Im not sure how to put into words what I want to say.
 
Palum

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Daidraco said:
I've spent a few minutes looking at them. The highly specialized, realistic, drop in ones that you see like in Hotel Lobbies and such go up to something like 20k. No where near what the hell I would spend on my budget. I think my question is more on just how "fake" that particular one looks, and if someone could recommend something else thats in the same price range. Its obvious that theyre all fake, but I guess how much effort they put into disguising it.. I guess? Im not sure how to put into words what I want to say.
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Honestly I would wait until they're on display and visit some stove shops to compare. IMO, they're all so-so in various ways until you start getting into the high quality ones. Which if that's all you want then you'll have a pick. There's ones with just glass, others with fake logs, some with different colors, lots offer dual color modes, etc. There's really just a bunch of style options and lots available in that low end category that are fine for a piece of ambience, but they're all so different because it's just random stuff from China.
 
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Araysar

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Intrinsic said:
I saw the post last night in bed and was zooming in trying not to trigger myself. Meant to wake up this morning and joke about mocking up some lines to verify that they're all aligned correctly. Really undecided about whether I like this style of switch or not. My initial reaction is no, but then maybe?

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Is this made by the Autismo company?
 
Lanx

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Fidlen said:
Good news. It wasn't all for nothing. First plants are coming through!
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so beautiful, while i just laid down many many amazon boxes to kill all the errant weeds grass n "wtf is this shit" in my garden beds

currently i have 1 mint plant in the homedepot pot, i just wanna make a few quarts of morraccan tea, but i don't think it'll live that long
 
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C

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Just venting about being a dumbass:

A couple of weeks ago I upgraded my thermostat. My house had old four-wire cabling without a common wire and I wanted wifi control, so I pulled the cable and fished a new one. Rewired the furnace, tested (not well enough) to see if the HVAC equipment turned on. One hour job with a little help from my son; not bad for a first-timer. Victory!

Fast forward to yesterday when it's finally hot enough to need the AC. Fans turn on, but blowing hot air. Doh. I must have miswired something. Proceed back up into the 120 degree attic, disassemble furnace, misread instructions, rewire, reassemble. Fail. Disassemble, wire properly (again). An hour of sweating, still nothing.

Seconds before finally giving up and calling a professional, I realize that when I did the initial install I turned off the breaker for the condenser and never flipped it back on. Much swearing ensues. I'm also out of beer. FML. Father's Day afternoon 2/10, would not recommend.
 
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