Sprinklers...Day 6...Postponed

Postponed the sprinklers install for today to hang out with the baby. Well actually that was just an extra benefit of today. Really what happened today was the concrete guy showed up to frame everything and decided that he was going to poor today instead of tomorrow. So I just made sure I was here with the checkbook to pay for the gravel truck and the cement guys. I am having a lot of concrete poured today. It is just after 9pm and they are still working. Here are a few pictures from earlier today.

Sprinklers...Day 5

Arrg, yet another long day. Today started with a full day at work. Since it had been raining on and off most of the day, I let my help know that I wouldn't be doing sprinklers today. However when I got home, I figured I better get as much done as possible since the cement guy was coming bright and early in the morning. It was to late to cancel him. So I came home, changed clothes, ate a few Ritz crackers, and started working. It sprinkled on and off for the first 30 or so minutes, but I was making decent progress. The only major problem I had was I kept forgetting to cut the little hole in the poly tube before attaching the fittings. After I was out working for a little while, scratz came out to assist. With her filling in the trenches, I finished putting the fittings on the pipe. Once that was done I helped with the trenches. In the last 10-20 minutes before were "finished", it started raining pretty heavily. I hope the hole back yard isnt pure mud by time the guy get here in the morning. I really dont have much to say because I am pretty exhausted. My hands dont hurt as much any more but they sure are ruff and dry. I will take some pictures and add to the blog for tomorrow. I think I will be working on the front yard sprinklers during the day because the concrete guy will be taking up all the space in the back yard.
Anyway, as always just because they are called cat tails, it doesn't mean you can shoot them with a shotgun.

4 in one...

I just wanted to show everyone my awesome find. I was eating peanuts at work today and I happened upon a peanut with 4 nuts in one shell. ( I'm not really supposed to be eating peanuts because I believe I have developed a food allergy because of them)
I was excited to see this. so I am sharing it with everyone else.
Enjoy

Sprinklers...Day 4

On the forth day of the sprinkler project, I had to take back the trench digger to the rental store by 7am. When I took it back to United Rental, the guy who recieves the equipment back tried telling me I didn't fill up the gas tank for the trencher. This was absolute B.S. I thought he was joking at first but he was serious. He tried to say that unless the gas tank is almost overflowing then the tank wasn't full. I was so pissed off because they charge like $10 per gallon of gas there. When he walked me into the service area he told the sales guy that the tank was a 1/4 tank empty. I told him he was full of it and told the sales guy that if he charged me for the 1/4 tank, I would cancel my next rental which is in two weeks. The sales guy made a smart choice, however because of the one guy I think I am going to cancel my rental anyway and go some place else. So if anyone reading this wants to rent from United Rental, I would recommend going someplace else because the employees who receive the equipment back must make a percentage on the amount of gas they have to replace in the rentals.

Back to the sprinklers, last night we found out that the neighbor to the north of us has decided to block access across his property beginning Friday. This causes us a major problem because if we cant get a cement truck in that way, we will have to pump the cement over the house which is quite a bit more expensive. This limited access also causes a problem for other neighbors on the street because they have also been doing yard construction. Anyway, since we are facing a possible non-access situation, we are trying to get all the pipe in the backyard in and buried inorder to have our cement guy come and do his job on Thursday. This is kind of pushing our schedule but I hope we can do it.
Luckily my brother and his wife came over to assist with the mess again. With their help we were able to get 90% of all the pipe work for the backyard completed. The storm that was coming in from the West force us to call it a night earlier then I had hoped, but with the wind and the blowing dirt there wasnt much that we could even do. We still need to bury most of the pipe so that the cement and other trucks can drive in the backyard to get the cement work done. However we are a lot closer then we were this morning. I think by tomorrow we should have the dirt covering the pipe in all the major areas of the back yard. Once the cement has been completed, then I can finish installing the sprinkler heads in the backyard. We still have a lot of pipe to lay to finish the entire yard, but I think we are slowly making progress. I only have to work 2 days this week, which will help in getting a little more completed.
So until next time, If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck then you could probably eat it for dinner.

Sprinklers...Day 3

Is it over yet? Wow this is a lot of work installing the sprinkler system. Scratz and I have been working all day long, with not much to show for it. We were able to get the first of 2 manifolds in and we finished one of the 10 zones.

Also was able to put in one of the two hose bibs.


When I went to test the first system, all the sprinklers in that zone came on execpt one. I forgot to cut the hole on the pipe where the sprinkler attached. Duh... Anyway, I also found out that the water would not turn off. So I had a ton of mud to deal with while I tried to figure out what I did wrong.
After about 40 minutes and a lot of mud, I found that one of the automatic valves was broken. I had to borrow one from the other manifold in order to make things work. Currently I do have a few leaks, but I will take care of them once I get a little more time to get things together. The other problem I had was when I was running a long pipe out to the end of the yard to allow for a hose bib. After getting the pipe ran, I realized that the company had send the wrong fitting to connect the metal pipe to the poly pipe. Darn it.
At about that time the storm started rolling in, so we cleaned up our pipe and tools. Once the tools where put away, we had to re-install the dog kennel so the dogs will have a place to stay when we head back to work. I hope the tarp that blocks the rain and sun stays in place because the wind was blowing pretty fiercely when I was finishing getting it all back together.
That was the end of the project for today, I forgot to mention scratz and I did spend about thirty minutes chatting with the neighbors who live two houses to the south of us. They too have been doing house projects all weekend long.
Tomorrow I believe my brother is heading over to help out a little. If he cant, then I will be working away at it myself and hopefully I can make some progress.

Until next time, remember the bear isn't the only thing that S***'s in the woods, so watch your step.

Sprinklers...Day 2

Today was a very exhausting day. I was able to finish the trenches for the yard. What a pain. I can't even imagine doing this by hand. The shoveling is bad enough just to clean out the corners or crosses where trenches meet.



My brother and his wife showed up to help out. We still didnt make much of a dent in the overall system but their help was appreciated. I didnt think it would be this much of a hassle to get a sprinkler system in the ground. My brother and I spend a large portion of the day trying to figure out where and how to place the sprinkler boxes that house the manifolds. One of the things we were able to complete was connecting to the main city water and installing a mainline filter for the sprinkler system.
As far as actual pipe, we were able to run 1 main line all the way out to the end of the property which will feed a hose bib. We also were able to dig the location for the first bank of 5-manifolds for the backyard sprinkler zones. We ran into the problem of location due to how the sprinkler plan was written up. The sprinkler box was going to run from East to West. When we tried it in that orientation, it was found that we wouldn't be able to connect the main line to it. Therefore we had to dig an even bigger hole to get the box turned correctly. The part about digging which really sucks is that the ground has spots of clay which is not very fun to try and dig through. With my hands killing me from yesterdays excitement, shoveling proved to be even more painful.
Anyway, at about 4:30pm my help had to go home and get ready for a party that was being held at my place at 6pm. This is why if you notice that scratz wasn't mentioned as to helping out, she was busy cleaning the house and running errands to get ready for the party. I did a few minor things to the sprinkler system before I too had to go get cleaned up for the party.

The party was a combined Birthday party for the Parents. It was a nice little get together and even the infamous flat mate of my sister showed up. The only downside was that I am completely exhausted from the two days of working in the yard. This was probably a nice change for the rest of the family because I wasnt as loud and rambunctious as I normally am. All-in-all I had a pretty nice day.

Tomorrow, I took the day off with the hopes of getting a little more completed on the sprinkler system. I hope to finish the section of the system which is located where the dog kennel usually sits. This way I will have a place to put the dogs when we head back to work on Monday.

That's all for tonight, it is past my bedtime and I can hardly think. So if this post doesn't make much sense, I will correct my errors tomorrow. until then, remember rabies isn't the worse thing you can catch.

Long time coming...Sprinkler install...Day 1

Hello to all of you faithful fans. (in case you were wondering I am not dead, just busy) Today I decided I would start with some of the home improvement updates as I get my lawn ready for the year. I keep thinking of things to blog about then another part of live takes center stage, so I forget what I wanted to blog about. Hopefully this project will allow me to have something to post about.

I finally had the chance to get a start on the "house to-do" list. The top thing on the list is getting the yard ready for the sprinkler system. A few weeks ago I reserved a trenching machine to help speed up the process of digging the trenches in the yard. Part of the reason I scheduled the trencher was to insure that I would actually start the work.

Once I made the reservation, I drew up a plot map of the yard and took it to the local sprinkler supply store for them to design my sprinkler system.

Here is a photo of the map I drew.


With the plan made, it was time to move forward with the project. A few days ago we paid for and had all the parts for the sprinkler system delivered. For the main piping, we are using black poly pipe instead of PVC. Due to the location, we had to buy pipe that is rated to 125psi.



Once the supplies were delivered, scratz and I placed fancy red flags all over the yard to show the location of where the sprinkler heads are to be placed. This took a couple of days because of work schedule and because the baby needs to be played with as well. :)

Front yard with hard to see flags


Backyard flags




Which brings us to today...Today was the day to pickup the trencher from the rental store and to start the fun work. I had my mother come over to watch the baby while I went to get the trencher at about 2:30pm. I finally got started trenching at about 3:30pm. Since it took me a little time deciding on my game plan, but once I got started it wasn't to bad.

Here I am just getting started for the day.


Shot of me making the first of many long trenches with this beast.



This think is like 800lbs if not more. It takes my whole body weight forcing against this beast to try and keep it on the path I want it to be on.


Making a little progress...Had to stop to text.



Here is one of the long runs.




This continued on for about 6 hours and I had to stop because it was getting to dark to see what I was doing. I only have a little more to go in the front yard. That should mean tomorrow I will finish up the rest of the trenching. I do need to figure out a few more things about main valve placement and which is the best way to run the pipe.

As for tonight, after many hours of trying to force that beast where I wanted it to go, my hands are killing me. When I was younger and worked construction, I don't think this would have made my hands this tender and sore. However because I work a desk job now, the most physical labor I have done recently is falling of my chair...I do have it on video but I think I would be in trouble if I posted it.

Anyway here is a shot a of my hand, both of them are this bright red.


So that is all for today, tomorrow we are going to see about getting some of the pipe in the ground.

Until then, don't get arrested.