Gopher holes? No, it's not Caddyshack, but I do have to mention my favourite line from Bill Murray though: "I got to get into this dude's pelt and crawl around for a few days. Who's the gopher's ally? His friends. The harmless squirrel and the friendly rabbit"!
The holes are to be made by going nuts in the back yard with a post hole digger, not a gopher. Forty three posts are required to be dug to a depth of 600 mm and a diameter of 300 mm to hold up the eight bearers that will support the back deck.
There were way too many holes for my poor old Bunning's Chinese made post hole digger to dig, and my arms wouldn't have been able to handle it, so I called in Stefan to do the ground work for me. He hired an auger to fit on the back of his Dingo digger and set to digging. There's quite a large tree in the yard as has been previously detailed, so we were really worried about hitting tree roots, of which he found not one. However what he did run into was storm-water pipes! Lot's of them!
Below the RED line shows the storm-water pipes we discovered (and destroyed) with the auger.
This was a nightmare on two fronts.
Tackling the first issue, it was off the to hire shop to get a trencher. Stefan then cut a new trench for the pipe between the first two rows of holes, and laid down a new section of pipe, connecting it in with the pipe coming in from the left of the yard. He then finished off the holes per below, where you can see all the broken pieces of pipe now littering the yard!
Next fix was a little trickier. The smashed pipe coming down from the front yard needed to be replaced, but it also ran right along side where the row of holes were, leaving BIGGER holes and not enough depth to hold the footing without concreting in the pipe as well. Too much concrete and probably not a good idea to concrete in the pipe.
I left it to Stefan to set the posts as he had the truck, concrete mixer and other equipment needed. Like Dirty Harry says, "a man's gotta know his limitations". I'm happy to admit it would have taken me a month of Sundays to lay each post. He had it done in two days.
Next up I start in on the frame.
The holes are to be made by going nuts in the back yard with a post hole digger, not a gopher. Forty three posts are required to be dug to a depth of 600 mm and a diameter of 300 mm to hold up the eight bearers that will support the back deck.
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| That's a whole lotta holes! |
There were way too many holes for my poor old Bunning's Chinese made post hole digger to dig, and my arms wouldn't have been able to handle it, so I called in Stefan to do the ground work for me. He hired an auger to fit on the back of his Dingo digger and set to digging. There's quite a large tree in the yard as has been previously detailed, so we were really worried about hitting tree roots, of which he found not one. However what he did run into was storm-water pipes! Lot's of them!
Below the RED line shows the storm-water pipes we discovered (and destroyed) with the auger.
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| Who knew there were so many pipes? |
This was a nightmare on two fronts.
- The storm-water pipe that ran across the yard aligned right where the post holes for the first bearer needed to go
- That busted pipe intersected with another pipe coming from the front yard, which was right next to where the holes went in on the northern edge of the deck. The auger nicked the pipe four times meaning it would have to be dug out and replaced
Tackling the first issue, it was off the to hire shop to get a trencher. Stefan then cut a new trench for the pipe between the first two rows of holes, and laid down a new section of pipe, connecting it in with the pipe coming in from the left of the yard. He then finished off the holes per below, where you can see all the broken pieces of pipe now littering the yard!
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| Three rows of holes and a new pipe laid. |
Next fix was a little trickier. The smashed pipe coming down from the front yard needed to be replaced, but it also ran right along side where the row of holes were, leaving BIGGER holes and not enough depth to hold the footing without concreting in the pipe as well. Too much concrete and probably not a good idea to concrete in the pipe.
The solution was a product called Formatube, which luckily was sold at a place about 5 mins drive away called The Tubeworks in West Heidelberg. It did the trick! The pipe was repaired, the form tubes dropped in, and then the lot was backfilled over.
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| Holes dug, pipe fixed, forms dropped in. Problem fixed! |
Next stop was the council inspection, however the rain gods decided to drop a ton of rain the night before the inspection, filling the bottom of the holes with water and slop (a technical term for sticky, sloppy, smelly wet mud). You all know the trouble I've had with the council on this project, and there's no way they'd pass inspection on this, so there was nothing else but to get horizontal in the mud and reach down and scoop it all out with a small bucket.
Two weeks later after digging the holes out another 10 cm deeper to get rid of the slop, and a lot of praying for no more rain, the council gave the holes the tick and we could start laying in the posts. 100 mm x 100 mm 'wet' treated pine.
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| Plopping in the posts |
I left it to Stefan to set the posts as he had the truck, concrete mixer and other equipment needed. Like Dirty Harry says, "a man's gotta know his limitations". I'm happy to admit it would have taken me a month of Sundays to lay each post. He had it done in two days.
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| Panorama. All the posts are in! |
Next up I start in on the frame.
