Gate Coming to a Zolacmanor Near Me!
It was 2006 when my friend MF made me a metal gate and helped me plant the posts in October 2008 (at least according to a photo dated from then by Marisa--strange though I have no post about this).
At the time there was no wood fence at the north edge of the lot, but a chain link fence I was looking forward to removing. So it felt the useless gate because you could walk around it! I often piled a bunch of bricks between the chain link fence and the post with the gate hinges, but some animal usually collapsed the pile after a while. So we lived with that for six years.
In 2012 we had the chain link fence removed and my neighbor put up a nice wood fence. The landscape people, however, removed my fence posts and gate so they could resurface the lot. In a way, this was good because I would need to line up the gate to the new fence anyway.
However, it took me seven more years to actually put up the fence posts which had been waiting nearby all this time! They were waiting for the addition of the garbage area for House70, removal of the extra dirt from the landscaping company to Byron Hill, then my drywell, connections to the downspout, and the French drain with accompanying path...and finally the drive-way (and the removal of Byron Hill).
I lined up the posts with the back corner of the garbage area where MB, my neighbor, had left an open spot on the post for me to connect to with fence rails. Until everything was finished I had not yet decided where the gate would go, but it seems this was the place.
The gate was wide enough to accomodate a 3 foot path plus the one foot wide French drain. In part this is because the path and the drain were planned according to the width of the gate, however it also seemed the only way to do this: we need a 3 foot path to handle wheel barrows, garbage containers and pretty much any non-motorized conveyance. We also needed the drainage area and it would have been difficult to make it any narrower than a foot, but didn't want to make it any wider.
It all fit together!
I put in the hinge post first, displacing some of the bricks which line the north side of the drain. After digging down a little more than two feet, I put down a concrete fragment from some old walkway or possibly the carport: buried in the dirt by the landscaper and excavated by me while lowering the overall dirt level around the house.
Then I used about 25 pounds of concrete which I didn't use for the post I replaced last January.
That wasn't enough to finish the job, so I bought 100 pounds in two sacks.
I got through 50 pounds and had a little left in the wheelbarrow, so I dug the other post hole and got it ready just before the concrete was too hard. I added a little more water, stirred and then shoveled the concrete into the post hole with the post lined up and a similar piece of concrete base.
To keep the post steady I used two retaining wall seat blocks on the north and west sides, then shoveled in concrete from the other sides. I then used up the other 50 pound bag.
This was not quite enough: I will need another 25 pounds to finish up to-morrow.
At the time there was no wood fence at the north edge of the lot, but a chain link fence I was looking forward to removing. So it felt the useless gate because you could walk around it! I often piled a bunch of bricks between the chain link fence and the post with the gate hinges, but some animal usually collapsed the pile after a while. So we lived with that for six years.
In 2012 we had the chain link fence removed and my neighbor put up a nice wood fence. The landscape people, however, removed my fence posts and gate so they could resurface the lot. In a way, this was good because I would need to line up the gate to the new fence anyway.
However, it took me seven more years to actually put up the fence posts which had been waiting nearby all this time! They were waiting for the addition of the garbage area for House70, removal of the extra dirt from the landscaping company to Byron Hill, then my drywell, connections to the downspout, and the French drain with accompanying path...and finally the drive-way (and the removal of Byron Hill).
I lined up the posts with the back corner of the garbage area where MB, my neighbor, had left an open spot on the post for me to connect to with fence rails. Until everything was finished I had not yet decided where the gate would go, but it seems this was the place.
The gate was wide enough to accomodate a 3 foot path plus the one foot wide French drain. In part this is because the path and the drain were planned according to the width of the gate, however it also seemed the only way to do this: we need a 3 foot path to handle wheel barrows, garbage containers and pretty much any non-motorized conveyance. We also needed the drainage area and it would have been difficult to make it any narrower than a foot, but didn't want to make it any wider.
It all fit together!
I put in the hinge post first, displacing some of the bricks which line the north side of the drain. After digging down a little more than two feet, I put down a concrete fragment from some old walkway or possibly the carport: buried in the dirt by the landscaper and excavated by me while lowering the overall dirt level around the house.
Then I used about 25 pounds of concrete which I didn't use for the post I replaced last January.
That wasn't enough to finish the job, so I bought 100 pounds in two sacks.
I got through 50 pounds and had a little left in the wheelbarrow, so I dug the other post hole and got it ready just before the concrete was too hard. I added a little more water, stirred and then shoveled the concrete into the post hole with the post lined up and a similar piece of concrete base.
To keep the post steady I used two retaining wall seat blocks on the north and west sides, then shoveled in concrete from the other sides. I then used up the other 50 pound bag.
This was not quite enough: I will need another 25 pounds to finish up to-morrow.