City of Victoria Tour

Just over a week ago we used a Groupon 'City of Victoria' bus tour... and we saw and learned several new things about our home city.

After driving around through Chinatown and past several sites the tour bus took us to the top of Tolmie Mountain, where we could see a fabulous 360 degrees.

The crane silhouetted against the ocean is for the construction of the Oak Bay Beach Hotel.

The island in the foreground with vertical cliffs is James Island... and behind it is Pender and Saturna Islands.  We had hoped to be able to see Mayne Island... but Pender, which is higher blocks our view from Victoria.

I enjoyed seeing these girls having fun capturing creative photos at the parking lot on the top of Mt. Tolmie.

We have been fascinated by the Garry Oaks in this area... and Mt. Tolmie has the largest group of the most beautiful protected specimens we have ever seen.

We drove thru the most exclusive areas of Uplands and Oak Bay.

This plant sculpture was located on the corner near the Empress hotel.

The Butchart Gardens have this antique car in front of the Empress Hotel.

Tour buses stop in front of the Empress... a great spot for tourists to take some cool photos of the capital buildings and inner harbour.

It is no accident that the Butchart Gardens is the most visited tourist attraction of Victoria.

Victoria is a city of flowers.  Over 25,000 hanging flower baskets are hung on lamp posts thru out the city... and many, many flower beds.

The inner harbour is always busy.  Water taxi's and tour boats leave from here to go whale watching.  Ferry's leave from here to the USA... and float planes are landing and leaving all the time.

As we headed back to the truck, we were drawn to this orca sculpture.  In 2004 the BC Lions Society did a fundraiser and had 50 different artists decorate identical orca's, which were displayed all around the city.  At the end of the campaign these were all sold by auction and brought in between $3,000 to $28,000.  It was a very successful charity project.  You can see the different orcas here.

We look forward now to going back to Victoria and checking out some of the cool things we learned about that we didn't know even existed... and we will keep you posted of our new findings.

Deepening and Widening the Column Excavations

Over a week ago I worked on this No. 1 excavation... widening it on each side, to get the maximum possible footing size.  Then I twisted my brain around how best to layout the rebar.  To go straight with the world here didn't work as good as going straight with the biggest rock.

Each bar has been drilled into the rock on one end and after blowing out the hole with an air compressor I put a generous amount of epoxy in and then pushed the rebar into the hole.

The number "1" is on a stick that I set up to guide me in knowing when there is enough concrete to make the concrete footing 12 inches thick.

In most footing preparations one sets up forms at the proper height.  If you want 12" deep footing you make the forms 12" high.  But here there are no forms except the earth walls of the excavation, and no easy way to know when the concrete is deep enough.

So I came up with a simple tool to help me.  As I am placing the concrete in the hole the bottom of this stick is 12 inches off the bottom of the excavation... 16 inches below the garage floor.  I can move it around all sides easily to check when placing the concrete to insure I have the right thickness of footing.

Ritchie Smith. Hoel Engineering, told me that I needed to make hole No.2 a little wider and deeper than I had already.  So, I made it a full foot wider than he told me... and an extra 6 inches deeper.

There was this rock in one corner that was too big for me to lift out with the tractor.  Trust me I tried... but then decided that it would be easier to leave it there and just pop off the top of the rock.

So with my 12" rock saw I made a series of cuts about 2-1/2 inches apart.

It almost looks like sliced bread... however the rock doesn't cut as easy as most bread!

I then take my heavy rock hammer and one inch chisel and break each slice of rock off.

Once that layer is removed I did another series of cuts and this picture shows breaking the final layer off.

I was able to take off a full 8 inches and now can run the rebar grid each way right into the corner without any hassle.  The horizontal white board gives me the top of footing guide again, making it easy to get the concrete 12 inches thick overall.

I appreciate having an engineer who explains the reasons for criteria. This gave me the choice of going a little deeper and wider, which is better able to withstand the uplift and twisting in the event of an earthquake.

Hole no. 3 was such a hard dig to just get it 22 inches deep initially, I soaked the bottom of this hole a couple of times.  It made the digging a lot easier... but it seemed like it made the rocks grow!  Ritchie asked me to increase this hole to 4 feet by 6.5 feet and 36 inches deep.  

I needed to use the tractor at least 5 times to lift heavy rocks out of this hole... and you can see I was working pretty late in the day as Shirley had to use flash to capture this shot.

There were also lots of smaller rocks that I could dig up and lift out by hand... some will be used in future rock walls and rock facing.

I never realized when I started how deep that this hole would finally end up.  I just kept digging and kept pulling out rocks until I reached one rock that was bigger than my John Deere could even budge.

I drilled into the rock and pounded in a short rebar to prevent my chain from slipping off the rock... but this was just too much rock for either of us to handle.  So I ended up digging lower and was able to set a full pattern of rebar at about 52 inches below pavement.  This will now tie the huge rock into the footing, providing more weight to the foundation.

My next task was to build the rebar columns that will be poured full of concrete. We tackled the toughest one first... this one had 16 vertical bars, 12 horizontal wraps 11 inches square and 13 -  4" x 11" wraps in between.

Here the engineer specified the rebar layout showing the difference between pad 3 and pads 1, 2 and 4.

To bend the horizontal wraps I needed to make this jig by welding a couple of short rebars to an angle iron and attach it the workbench.  I was lucky to have guests coming from Victoria who brought me a new package of welding rods since I could not buy any here on Mayne Island.

With a stop set at 11 inches it is easy to make all the square wraps the same size using a short piece of steel pipe as a bending handle.

We learned how to tie rebar in Mexico, so made a couple of these hooks out of 1/4 inch scrap wire I found at Home Hardware here on Mayne Island.

I doubt that there are very many women in this country who know how to tie rebar... but Shirley's help was much appreciated this week.

There is more than 240 wire ties in this single column... and we have another three to make up next week.

With this column weighing over 240 pounds, it would take more than me and Shirley to lift it into the hole.  Enter John Deere to the rescue!

Once in the hole I tied the hooks on the bottom to the footing rebar and then plumbed it and braced the column both ways. This one is now ready for concrete.... but I first must get my building permit and get the Regional District Building Inspector to give me a green light.

Completing New Pantry Excavation -Number 7

I cut the pavement last Friday and dug it up... but there was lots of extra work on this excavation that was not on the others.  Since the laundry room cantilevered over the foundation about 16 inches, a makeshift brick wall that was to keep the planter dirt contained had to be removed.

Also, the front steps hung over into the space where the new pantry wall had to go... so I had to cut it off.  Problem was the solid rock steps were over 7 inches thick and my diamond saw blade, which is 12 inches actually only cuts about 4 inches.  So that left a little chisel and hammer work.  I also cut up the planter footing into liftable blocks so I could dispose of them in my favourite fill site behind the greenhouse.

Victory at last and was able to pack away the unwanted foundation and step blocks.

After working a day digging mostly by hand after loosening the dirt up with the front end loader, I came up with a way to go further into the excavation with the tractor using a pile of short 2 x 8 boards.

It was amazing how the four-whell drive allows you to do things you could never do without it.

Shirley zoomed in to capture this shot of my bandaged kneecap.  When I caught my toe on the edge of the pavement as I was coming out of the shallow stairway excavation number 6 on Sunday evening, I not only banged my knee up pretty good, but I got a nasty crunch on my favourite zoom lens... which is now in the Victoria Camera Repair shop.

It was no ordinary trip and fall... I had so much momentum that as the ground was coming up to meet me I let go of the camera and folded into a summersault... the end of which still ended up skinning my knee and ripping a good hole in my jeans.  I wore shorts most of this weeks since long pants irritated the bandage and gave me grief.

I finished Number 7 today... over 30 inches below pavement on the outside, with washed bedrock readily visible.  I salvaged several loader buckets of sandstone rock for future walls... but there was one very heavy and ornery rock that was too far under the pavement to readily move.  A chain around it to the front end loader could not budge it... so it will become part of the footing.

I did the calculations to see at what elevation the pantry floor would end up... and we decided to have a 6 inch step down and use 8" floor joists. The bottom of the level is where the top of the floor will one day be.

Most of the photos in the blog post were done by Shirley... and she caught me feeling pretty happy to have all the excavations completed today!  All done mostly by hand... and not a single broken service line.

Excavating for the New Addition

After completing most of the excavations I set up the model in the driveway between the house and the garage and took this shot with the real trees in the background.

It is going to take quite a bit of work to complete this project, but we will just do what we can every day until we see it thru.  Here you can see where I have cut the pavement and started excavating.

I have numbered this plan to show each individual excavation.  Each one is unique.  Number 1 is located inside the existing garage and required cutting the concrete slab so that I could dig down to bedrock.  Number 2 is outside the garage and inside gravel path contained by a rock retaining wall.  Numbers 3 and 4 are in the middle of the driveway and must carry about 35,000 pounds.  Number 5 will be a closet extension for the master bedroom.  Number 6 is for the stairway to the second level... and Number 7 is for a pantry which will be accessed off the laundry room.

The garage floor concrete was cut 28" by 36" and we found some huge boulders that are very tight and immoveable.  I may still have to try to widen where possible before drilling into these rocks and pining them together with rebar.

Here is another angle on Number 1 taken from the other side.

Number 2 has been excavated 4 feet wide and is 54 inches between the garage and the rock wall... about 36 inches deep... and I expect to see a 12 inch thick footing 42"  by more than 60"... the full distance from under the slab to under the rock retaining wall.

The garage is a slab on grade with no footing or foundation... so I have dug under the slab 8 inches so that I can drill into the slab to tie in rebar to the new foundation and footing.  The centre of the post is 36 inches off the garage wall.  The black 3/4" poly pipe is water supply for irrigation.  The yellow level is 48 inches long.

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Both Numer 3 and 4 were cut 36 inches square.  This was the tightest material of all the excavations... hence I stopped going deeper at 22 inches.

 It took me 90 minutes just widen the base three inches to 42 inches square to receive a 12 inch high footing... that is how tightly packed this gravel is.

This hole was much easier to dig as it was full of many rocks, which I separated out and saved for future rock facing, which I plan to do on the posts supported by this footing an foundation.

This base is undercut to receive a 48" square by 12" thick footing... and the bottom is 28 inches below the pavement.

I took this  photo to show not only the amount of rock, but the size... the largest ones are already loaded into the tractor bucket.  A few of these rocks came from the hole Number 2 by the garage... but one day many of these rocks will graduate to a place of honour in rock facing on these posts or the house.

Number 5 is the master bedroom closet expansion... and it all is down to bedrock.  Only where the service pipes are laying on the bedrock will I cover with sand and soil so the concrete will not touch them.  Minimal footings here will be used to level up the base so that a standard 24-inch plywood form can be used.

Knowing there were electrical, phone and water service lines in this area, I choose to dig most all of this area by hand... it took most of two days.

Under the stairs we plan to set up our recycle department... which will be on a concrete slab on grade.  But next to the house at each end of the stairs that go up we will need support for posts that will carry a double truss joist the will support the outside wall and roof joists.

There still is some excavation to complete here, regardless of if I do slab on grade or floor joists.  From the steps to the left there is a cantilever... so to contain the planter next to the house bricks were stacked under the outside wall.  The planter footing 24 inches away from the house will be removed if this is going to be crawl space... which it likely will be.

As the sun was setting we look back from the future pantry towards the garage.

From the pantry side we look at the model again.