Putting the Sidewalk Back In.

     Life (and engineering) is full of compromises.  To put the solar panels at the location that I wanted them, I had to take out the sidewalk.  This was a ton of work and I would have loved to avoid it.

    Sadly, it was only half the work.  Now I need to put the sidewalk in at a new location.  There has been nothing but dusty dirt there for a while, and I cannot believe how much dirt has been tracked into the house.  It is time to fix that.  Also I would rather get the concrete in before the panels go in, rather than the other way around.  Seems like mixing concrete so close to new solar panels is a bad idea.

   To get started, I had to dig out about six inches of soil and cart it away in a wheelbarrow.  Then I had to put in forms made out of 1x3 strapping with stakes holding them in place about every 25 inches.  I worked to match the slope of the soil on the grassy side of the walkway.  If the sidewalk is too low, soil will wash on to it if it rains.

   With the forms in place, I went over to Home Depot and purchased 1000 pounds of gravel.  I took two trips in the Corolla so that I didn't risk overloading the suspension.  I would hate to break a spring in the process of doing this project.  The level of the gravel was flush with the bottom of the form so I would have approximately 3" thick concrete when I was done.

   To hold the concrete together, I added, so called, six six ten ten mesh.  This is steel mesh of 6 inch squares with ten gauge wire.  I purchased a small pair of bolt cutters to cut the material.  Bold cutters are so cool.  I wonder if I will ever use them again.  When I poured the concrete, I periodically pulled up on the mesh to get it in the middle of the concrete.

     Starting at 6am, I went to work.  I made two trips to Home depot to purchase 24 bags (80 pounds each).  That is a total of 1920 pounds or just short of a ton.  The bags of concrete were in place on the site just before 8am.  That is my son in the picture, but he was heading out to Maratha's Vineyard with the girlfriend for the weekend.  So no help there.  I am not complaining.  I am glad he went.

  And so it began.  Pour the concrete into the wheelbarrow, add water, mix, dump into forms, compact, screed, float, trowel, edged, add brushed finish, repeat, until just about noon and it was done.  I had two bags of concrete left over which I returned to Home Depot because concrete does not keep well.

  I am very happy to have the concrete in.  I am not sure I like the surface finish that I left on it, but I will know better once is hardens.  I wanted a little bit of texture for traction.

   Underneath the solar panels, I would like to add a stone bed.  I think this will be good for keeping down the weeds.  By next weekend, the three solar panels should be here.  Actually, they should be at my work because if I shipped them to my home there would be a $200 added charge.  Hopefully my buddy Doug will help me get them home using is big F-150 pickup truck.