it houses a couple of my addictions.



my rc track thread

New water heater and a new roof this month. Fun times.

surprised this thread gets no traffic.

anyway, i'm building **** again.

pergola / patio cover time. haven't figured out the details, just know that i will need 3 badass redwood 6x6 beams, 10' from each other on center, 10.5' from the house.



spec calls for 12x12x12" footings for the anchors, so I made 18x18x18" ldo



new style heavy duty style simpson strong-ties that let the post sit ~1" off the concrete. i dont like the new little z-max adjustable ones. measure twice.



and, ready for posts



used 10 80lb bags. cement mixer i bought was worth every penny.

Anyone have any experience dealing with crappy lawns? My lawn was ok, good not great the first 2 years, but its really gone to crap this year. Moss here, Crab grass there, no grass over there etc. It gets sprinklered every other day and I mow once a week.

I'm pretty sure I need a new HVAC system for my house, but I don't know anything about the merits of a heat pump, other than the fact that heat pumps don't work very well in cold temperatures.

I live near Washington, DC, so it's not like we live in upper Michigan or anything.

Any basic guidance?

You'll never be warm in the winter with a heat pump.

i did mine from scratch (rototiller), but what i would do is remove all the weeds and then rough up with a strong rake any dirt areas, can also rake in some fresh soil if you want.

then re-seed the whole thing, more on the empty spots of course and water the hell out of it so you keep any new sprouts coming in nice and damp for 3 weeks or so.

after that, make sure you spread in some food/fert also from time to time or you might end back up at square one.

make sure to use whatever seed works best in your area. i used the scotts tall fescue that says it will grow in shade or sun. my spot is shade 70-80% of the day

hire some guys like these and then sit on your deck and enjoy your lawn:

http://www.turfguysomaha.com/default.html

I think it was like $150 for the whole summer if you paid in advance.

Seems like heat pump in DC wouldn't be enough but I could be wrong

Think of the problem this way:

When you pay rent you get a place to live in return.

When you own a home you pay mortgage + some other stuff and get a place to live plus equity in a house in return.

Do you see how we can equalize these two equations?

Take your mortgage payment and strip out the part that's going to equity in a house (i.e. principal). Everything else can be thought of the same way as rent. Figure out this effective rent number for a house you're thinking of buying and compare it to renting prices for similar places in similar neighborhoods.

Note that it's not quite as simple a calculation, basically, the longer you stay in a house you're owning the more attractive owning it becomes.

This is because there are closing costs when you buy (money you have to pay up front for things like title insurance) and because the longer you stay in a house the more of your payment goes to principal (and less goes to interest).

You also need to adjust the part that goes toward property tax since you can write it off assuming you are itemizing.

And when you own and the furnace breaks you're reaching for your checkbook instead of calling the landlord.

looks really good thin. seriously. and rockin some vans?

thanks! looks like i'm digging 3 more holes. can't find any design i like that attaches tot he house, and don't like the idea of attaching anyway, so I'm going to do three posts next to the house and have the pergola sit at about 9' tall or so, just over the roof line.

rockin vans! need to head to santa cruz soon and pick up a new pair actually.

I wanna build a pergola

Just a caution that if you have crabgrass in part of your lawn, rototilling can be a great way of spreading it to all of your new lawn. You want to get those roots out or dead before you rototill. Alternatively, rototill, but don't seed for a while, and spend time weeding your dirt patch.

Whats the best time of year to do this? I was told not do anything now, wait just before the fall, when I usually stop mowing.

How deep is that footing?

18" + a couple inches of compacted base rock.

The following may not apply for grasses used in the southern US and Caribbean. It does apply to bluegrass, fescues and ryegrass.

If you wait until you no longer have to mow b efre you add new grass, it means your new grass from seed won't have a chance to mature into strong enough plants, or your new sod wont have time to establish roots into the soil below the sod. You want to put your new grass in at least a month before mowing is no longer necessary.

BTW, tilling may not be necessary if you are using seed for your new lawn, though you will have to rough up and rake the existing soil. Often, reseeding is done in late summer/early fall, after using a general herbicide to kill the entire lawn in an area that is badly infested with weed grasses. That is because crabgrass is an annual weed, so lawn renovation is often a response to the maturing of a new crop of crabgrass, which won't happen until summer.

The drain field in my septic system is fubared, so now I have to hook into city sewer. I've had 3 plummer out for a quote: the 1st one was $6600, the 2nd one was $5400 and the 3rd Plummer hasn't sent me his quote yet. All of these quotes include the $2800 fee I have to pay the city. Why the **** does the city charge me $2800 to connect a pipe to their sewer?

No new taxes!

Good luck.

Can't you just put in a new drain field? I rented a backhoe at my last house and installed a new field for around $1200 complete. Pretty simple if you're handy.

im starting to realize that i really dislike digging holes. :/

Nope, city won't let any new septic be put in. Must connect to city.