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June 12, 2006
Something we'd missed completely in the original design (myself, contractor & engineer) was a way to shore up the sides of the upper driveway. We ended up going with eco-blocks (spelling might be off). These are 6'x2'x2.5'. Huge suckers. The local concrete company makes them by taking the left-over concrete at the end of the day and dumping it in molds. They then take the cured blocks, and voila! Unusable waste product now sells for a decent price. They interlock via the raised half-cylinder along the top (just visible on the end of the top block) and a tunnel in the bottom. A steel cable is embedded in each block for using a crane to move them.
The picture makes it look like the block wall is leaning out, but it's actually the retaining wall that's off. The upper half slants in just ever so much. Once we're done, we'll clean it up and you'll never notice. It's not structural, so no worries.
The dirt piles are gone! It's not exactly smoothed out yet, but we're almost back to usable area. In the end the outside will be graveled.
I've shown this before...can't wait until I'm actually looking inside.
It's a little bit cleaner on the back side of the building.
I'm not sure why Kenny ran the pipe to the upper level. It's to catch the gutter run-off, but I'm planning to just use a chain and a french drain at the bottom to collect the gutter downspout. Easy to lop off later.
A better shot of the top of the blocks.
A better shot of the upper driveway. By the time the slab is poured, it'll be near the top of the eco-block. We're still thinking about how to finish off the top of the blocks. They are kinda ugly. One idea is to build wooden planters along the top. Another is to just pour some extra concrete and even out the top.
This is the view from the road.
The view from the top of the wall looking down.
I'd like to put in a recommendation for Zuber & Sons Excavating (Construction?). They did a terrific job, did it quickly, and were overall a great group of guys to deal with. They even showed up a day early to get started. If you need excavating work in the Spokane area, these are the guys to call.
I got a new camera! A Canon PowerShot SD700 IS. The image stabilization will be nice, but I'm looking forward to the 2cm macro range! It's also a 7 megapixel camera, so I'll have plenty of resolution for shooting non-plane stuff. It's also an ultra-compact form factor, so it's small and light, and has an optical telephoto range (35mm equivalent) of 35mm-140mm. Battery is finally finished charging. Tomorrow's pictures will be on the new camera, we'll see how the images look.
Speaking of tomorrow, the steel company is due to arrive between 8 & 8:30 in the morning. By the afternoon, I should finally start having the shape of a building!
