|
|
It isn't particularly happy jacking up the Rambler under a tree in the dirt. Really, it is fairly dangerous. I need a concrete pad. It would also be nice to protect Ruby from rain. There are some problems. First, I'm doing this by myself. Second, there is no easy way to get a cement truck back to the corner where I'm putting the pad. Third, I can only work on this in small chunks of time. Here is the carport I built With Ruby resting:
The first callenge was building a pad. This way I can jack the car up without fear. Now, there is already a curb from the previous garage that extends 20 feet, so I can use that as the border on two sides. Luckily, I've rotated my moveable chicken coop around this area, so the chickens have already loosened up the soil.
Here is the corner where I'm starting. You can see the curb on the right, just to the left of the bush:
Here I'm getting the board level with the curb:
Here I've put in the form. This is 3 feet by 3 feet. I drilled holes in the boards for the 3/8 inch rebar. This is 4 foot rebar, so 1 foot sticks out of each end for the next square. The boards are 1 by 6, which is really 5.5 inches or something like that, but this worked out fine:
Here is the form filled with concrete. It took seven 80 pound bags of premixed concrete to fill this square:
A 3 foot square pour is a nice pour if you are using sacks of concrete mix. It is starting to get in the upper 40's and lower 50's, though, and it is possible to pour in 30 square foot strips (15 cubic feet at my depth). I pour the first layer just above the rebar, and then pour the second layer. It takes about 24 bags of concrete to do this, so you have to be prepared to pour over 2300 pounds of concrete. Add the labor of stirring the concrete in a wheelbarrow, and this is quite a task. It is faster pouring this way, though, than pouring the smaller sections. You can see the ten foot lengths of rebar in the picture:
Here you can see I have the pad poured and can now jack the Rambler (Romeo) up safely:
For the carport, I used 4X6 treated posts for the supports, 2X4s for the crossmembers, and 2X6s for the rails. I used polycarbonate roofing sheets for the roof. Here is the design. Click on the images for a pdf:
The pictures above were drawn with Xfig, a free drawing program. Here are the fig files: carport, carport2.
|
|
