So close!

Today was stairbuilding day.  Thanks to my beau for cutting stringers for me last night, after I struggled with the circular saw yesterday and ended up blistered and grumpy.  I decided to simply patch over the old decking that was still attached to the house--attached so well I'd have needed to resort to removing concrete screws to get it removed--and this is what I ended up with:

 This is my end-of-the day shot, after building the steps and the little boxy business against the house, and then laying some weed guard and filling with rock.  The red cinders are a local color and fit the environment here nicely, and their redness is a nice contrast with the light grey blocks.

I had just a little energy left after clearning up, so I made this cairn.

The very last bits of the project will be adding dirt back into the flower beds and planting, and doing a little more detailing with rock.

I have 2 pavers left to place, and a group of about 4 in the very back corner that I want to lift and re-place.  Then it's edging time and (yay!) time to get to work on the decorative work around the edges.

By the time I was about halfway through my pile of slabs I was finally figuring out how to regularly get them dropped just right.  The trick seems to be to not focus on the inside edges/corners, but rather to align the outside edge or corner with the surrounding slabs and then let go--and let gravity plop that sucker tightly down in the corner.  Otherwise fingers and gloves end up in the way and the slab drops all cattywampus.  Or worse, it goes in on its edge or corner and messes up the sand.

The patio is actually a bit bigger than this but I can't get the entire thing in the frame, at least not from the house.

Screeded?  Scrod?  Scrud?

After a bit of a screeding snafu I got the sand layered on gravel and leveled.  Dragging a 2x4 across two pieces of 1 inch PVC pipe worked pretty well although I find I barely have enough material.  This strikes me as a little odd since the math I did before ordering materials had me using less sand than I ordered.

Slabs look pretty flat from this angle.

What the heck.  Live and learn.

The pavers are going down.  Funny how from some angles they look nice and even and from others they seem a bit off kilter.  I think I have stared at them too long today so I am going to hang up my tools and come back with a clear head on Sunday or Monday.

From here the slabs seem a bit uneven

.

It strikes me that the instructions people give for a project like this may be excessively detailed in some respects, while being deficient in others.  People seem to be really concerned with making everything straight, though --at least with slabs this large-- it's easy to see when things are not straight so eyeballing things seems to be fine.  On the other hand I wish I knew exactly how to handle the edges.  I measured and added gravel and sand only to the measurements of the finished patio, because I figured I'd need to add edging with stakes and wanted those to go into the lawn.  But I think it may have been wiser to add half a foot to all the dimensions, all around the edge.  I'm filling in an inch or so of dirt on the very sides of the patio.  In my climate and with a sandy soil I think this will be okay, but I suppose there is some potential for things to sink and the pavers to become unlevel as the dirt at those edges settles.

Moving the pavers is surpisingly easy.  Laying them down evenly is a little hard because I want to lay all their weight on an edge in the sand....which leads to smushed sand and an uneven slab.

Finally! 

The pavers are here.  These are gonna be sweet.  Yes, they are pretty heavy, but I can manage them on my own and if there were two people working with them, moving them would be easy.

Just one little complication....

I was greeted this morning at 8:10 by a guy in an ancient dump truck (sorry, no pictures) who looked like he'd seen some work over the years.  A sinewy older guy with that sun-blinded look you sometimes see on pictures of civil war soldiers and cowboys. 

He walked up to me, took off his hat, bowed and said, "Greetings, fair lady."  What a great start to the day!

He left me with 2 yards of base gravel and one of sand, placed neatly in piles just as I wished BUT the truck couldn't maneuver into the back with this stuff, so I spent the day going back and forth to the front yard every time I needed another wheelbarrow load.  Oh, well.  Wheelbarrowing isn't so bad.

Before adding in the gravel I drove some marked chopsticks into the site at about 2-foot intervals, measuring each one to stick up about 4" and to be level with the others. 

Almsot as versatile as duct tape!

This worked pretty well as a guide to my gravel-dumping, though with 90% of the gravel moved I am still a bit low in much of the patio space but if the gravel is for drainage I think we'll be okay.  This is a desert after all. 

Next step: some more-serious compacting of the gravel and addition of dirt to the site to hold the gravel better, then it's time for sand.

It's starting to look patio-like!

Materials are ordered, and the digging is done.

 This weekend is for R&R, with the exception of about half an hour's worth of junk-moving that will allow a dumptruck into the side yard on Monday.

I can use the rest. 

Now that THAT's done:

It's time to move on to the next stage of the project, which is the construction of our patio.  After putting the yard back together at the conclusion of the sewer part of the project, I spent a good part of today taking the patio area back apart.  My excavation revealed the presence of lots of big roots from our beautiful elm right at the surface in several places where we planned to put pavers. But the Plan B I drew out today looks like it may not only work around the roots but also provide us with more useable paved areas, and it could be simpler to put together.

Tomorrow is commitment day, when I place the order for base gravel, sand, edging and the concrete slabs.

Here are some photos of the most recent work.

Here is some dirt that I have been removing

Here is some dirt that needs to move....tomorrow's project

My trusty wheelbarrow.  In red of course.

The dirt pile.  I must have about 2 cubic yards here.

2:21  
All done!
Just a parting shot of the old pipe.  It's possible to see here how this stuff was put together....and how it comes apart.  Pressed cellulose (wood) fibers, embedded with bitumen/asphalt.  When it is damaged you can see the layers separate.

12:11
Clean-up phase.

Now comes the clean-up, but there is really not much mess.

 The lawn could use a little extra water and some fixing of the divots from the excavator. 

Remains of the old fence will move here shortly.  Pipe will get put with the rest of the trash.

Wait...Where is my shovel?! 

11:50
16 and a half feet of new line is all.  Less complicated (and less expensive) than anticipated.  No need to get the repair inspected.  Done in only an hour and a half.

11:40
The cleanout is installed, pipe has a good drop along the line away from the house.  Dirt is going back into the hole....bye bye pipe!  Hope to never see you again!

One final remaining item will be the breakup of the old stone/concrete fence with the excavator. 

11:28
New pipe (blue PVC) is going in.  Fortunately the problems appear to be isolated to the half of the line that is closest to the house.  That means no digging back to the fence, no worries about taking out a portion of that fence, messing with the neighbor's yard, etcetera.

It also means less damage at the checkbook I am sure.

The evidence that the rest of the line is fine comes from a little test they call a hose test:  run water into the line for a while and see that the pipe routes it all quickly and completely down to the main.

Installing a cleanout at ground level where the galvanized pipe abuts the new material. 

11:12
Behold the sweet sounds of saws through pipe.

11:09 
It's called Orangeburg Pipe. 

Can you believe there is a website dedicated to sewer history?  Of course there is.  There is a website dedicated to ANYTHING AND EVERYTHING.

http://www.sewerhistory.org/articles/compon/orangeburg/orangeburg.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orangeburg_pipe

11:02 

Biggest problem....but not very photogenic.

Hole in the pipe.  Look beside the shadow of the root.  

Exterminate!  Exterminate! Exterminate!

Pictures!  The one of the pipe is taken from a wonky angle, so the pipe appears to run vertically.
The material is cast iron for about 4 feet out from the house, and then is joined to something called Orange-ade or something, which is an asphalt coated pipe.  Affectionately called "that cheap crap" when I am out of earshot.

10:49
Two problems located--one smallish hole on top of the pipe and another spot where there was not only a hole in the pipe, but a rock stuck down in it.  Trench is dug back to about the spot where the edge of the deck used to be.

10:36  
They're here!  Exploratory holes are being dug, the line is located up by the house, and the excavator is in the back yard.

9:11
Well, 9 am has come and gone and no sign of any excavators.  There was a pickup truck that passed the house slowly around 8:45, which looked momentarily like someone casing the place, but I haven't seen any other unusual activity around here.  Just cats on their morning prowl and the occasional mom with a stroller going by.

8:43
Just one more "before" pic, this of the stone wall that we discovered ran under the deck all the way up to the house.  Hoping it can get dug up today, too.

8:25 am
The setting:  views of the yard after deck removal but before any digging.  Just waiting to see if the crew is coming to us for their first job at 9, or if we are going to be their second appointment of the day.

Irrigation lines are located with holiday curling ribbon.

From the sliding door looking south

From the south fence, looking north

 

And what is this, a new green mark in the grass?