(home) (door opening) ( jack hammer 1) (jack hammer 2) (pouring 1) (pouring 2) (outside wall) (ceiling)
Believe it or not, I actually did get back out to the garage _before_ the weekend. Yes, I was shocked too.
Anyway, lots of folks have been asking me why we want to go to all the trouble to take out the existing floor. I submit Exhibit A:
And Exhibit B (a close up):
We didn't know that gap was there before we started, but we _were_ kinda worried about what the ground looking like next to the house foundation (The basement to the house is on the other side of the block wall there). I'd guess there was a good 6" between the bottom of the concrete slab and the actual ground. It looks like maybe it settled where they backfilled the foundation? I dunno. Anyway, when I saw that, I was quite glad I'd decided to remove the existing concrete. I can just see our new floor all of a sudden dropping 6" along the side of the house if we'd decided to take the easy road and pour over the top of the existing slab.
A little while later after that picture, the floor looked like this:
That's right... I'm done breaking up the floor! Before the weekend! I can't do any more work on the garage over the weekend and can slack off!
I gotta say, the jackhammer really worked out even though its a cheapie Harbor Freight version. I think they 'borrowed' the design from the Bosch 'Brute', which retails for $1200+:
Anyway, once I figured out to crack off pieces, it went quite well. I think altogether it took me about 14 hours to bust up the floor myself, spread over three days. And that included a good couple hours wasted because I didn't know what the heck I was doing. Still, call that two days of work even for a motivated person. A rental jackhammer costs about $80/day, so even with this "boy you were lucky there was no rebar" floor, I only paid $200 for a jackhammer ($160 from $368). That's a pretty good deal, even if you don't factor in that if I'd rented the jackhammer the floor would have had rebar in it.
Note to you tool buying novices, this is the type of logic you'll need to master if you want to succeed. Another good thing to note here is that we should be about $800 or so ahead of having Joe the concrete guy do it, even including the full cost of the jackhammer.
For you tool buying novices that are married, you'll want to use the second example. And no, don't point out that you probably shouldn't count the full cost of the jackhammer since you still have a perfectly good tool for the next project. This is because she'll want to know what you're going to use it for (and you'll have to say "Um, I dunno") and where you're going to store it (like storing a tool is something to worry about. Wives! Surely the baby's room has a corner where a jackhammer can be stored. Its not like a baby is all that big.) Anyway, just go with the "I saved about $800 by doing this myself honey!" and you'll be fine.
So, now that I can't work on the garage, I can just lay around all weekend catching up on "Modern Marvels", right? Well.... No. There are about 900 other things around here that need doing. With the recent weather, getting the Kubota I stole from my dad ready for plow duty is top on the list. Dad, if you're reading this, I'm just joking about stealing it. As soon as it stops snowing in Ohio, you can have the tractor back. Well, "stops snowing forever" I mean...