On Sun, 25 Jul 2004 18:55:09 GMT, "John Moorhead"
wrote:

Folks -

Well, yesterday I put in another drip system for the half barrel planters
along
the West fence line and removed the remaining debris that was where the pad
will be poured. I have a *load of scrap, piled on a 4x8 table, and then
some, and getting that sorted out will be a trick. I have TONS of off cuts
and scrap and hate to part with ANY of it.

So, for the foundation... I have ....questions..... Now, this is a 24x36
Covered Patio - the North Side is a solid wall and it is open to the South.
The East wall abuts the garage, the foundation is tied to the garage slab
and the roof peak meets at the peak of the garage roof. The entry to the
patio is from the garage, in the Southeast corner.

The plan calls for the foundation to be level with the garage slab,
approximately 14" above grade. The foundation has perimeter footings, 16"
wide and 12" tall, a minimum of 6" below grade, adjoining a thickened edge
for the 4" (min) slab and 2x6 walls.

Based on my calcs, I am going to need just under a foot of fill - so ~864 CF
or about 32 yards. If I use rock for fill, it will come to just over 800
bucks. I don't know how much fill dirt is or which is the better way to go.
That seems expensive, but how often do I buy rocks? I was planning on
renting a compactor....

Is a 4" thick slab going to be enough? Is 6" silly? I have/will have most
of the regular tooling... the heaviest thing I could imagine I'd own would
be a 15" planer or other old iron... 1,000 - 1,500 max. How much do I need?

Like everything else, I have to balance cost/benefit to the nth... so....

My estimates for Aggregates is $3,478, Foundation Mat'ls at 1,617- ... and
equipment rental and "handholding" oversight are 672... So it's just a notch
under 5 k for materials and my own work or about 5.78 per SF.

Tomorrow morning we are going to lay out the foundation lines for the
backhoe guy. The footings extend 6" beyond the perimeter of the slab
proper, and the fellow said to give him a chalkline 3" outside of that. So,
I need to mark out 24'9"x 37'6" (24'+ 9" = 24'9" (one end only) by 36"x
(9"x2) = 37'6") for him to work with.

I worked up an Excel Spreadsheet for these figures, and I can email it to
anyone that would like to use it for their own projects.
You can plug in your own numbers and it will factor the
total yards and cost, and adjust totals... you can edit easily enough for
your own porpoises as well.

Any feedback or cautionary tales will be deeply appreciated!

TIA

John Moorhead




pay somebody with LOTS of experience to finish the slab. you won't
regret it.