Cart-Away®

MixKing - 1.75 Cubic Yards

Cart-Away Concrete Systems has just announced the release of their newest concrete mixing trailer, the MixKing®  It is a 10,000# GVW vehicle.  That means it can mix and carry over 1.75 cubic yards of concrete at a time.  After almost a year of field testing, Bruce Christensen, Cart-Away's General Manager, says, "It is fully tested and ready to release to our customers."   Most customers will want to use a full sized three quarter ton or one-ton pickup to tow the MixKing® though when loaded with less than 1.75 cubic yards, it is possible to tow the new trailer with a half-ton full sized truck.

Compared to the workhorse model CMT-100 concrete mix trailer, this new machine will mix and deliver 75% more product.  Cart-Away also plans to offer an option for on-board water.  This can be useful for those who will use the MixKing® in remote locations.  By offereing water on-board as an option, the 95% of users who have water available at their sites will be able to carry more concrete.  Mixers with water systems typically lose 300-600# of concrete carrying capacity.

If you are a Cart-Away customer and want more information about adding the MixKing to your fleet, contact Scotty or Ryan at 800-909-9809.

If you are a contractor or homeowner looking for a dealer who sells concrete and has MixKings available, please contact Cart-Away at 800-909-9809 or by email at [email protected]

For more information online, go to the MixKing® page at http://www.concretetrailer.com/MixKing.htm

Landscaping or Golf? What will it be this weekend?

Let’s pretend you love to golf.  Let’s also say that you are planning to build a new patio in your back yard.

 

You run the numbers and make your estimates.  You think you can get the patio done in four consecutive weekends.  You think it will cost you $2,500 in materials and services, not counting your labor.  You decide to get a couple of quotes from Landscape Contractors.  You get one quote for $5,000 from a Landscape Contractor who gave very good references.

 

What do you do? 

 

Do you spend $2,500 more and have the job professionally done?  That will allow you to play golf each weekend and keep your handicap low.  If you do it yourself, you will lose four of the best weekends of the year.  Winter will be here before you know it. 

 

Or, do you take on the job yourself?  You are fairly handy.  Think of the personal satisfaction when you have friends over for a barbeque and you’re wife tells the friends, “Sam did all the new patio himself.”  Then you think how expensive that golf will be.  Even if you get in 8 rounds in the four weekends, that works out to over $300 per round.

 

Of course you have heard horror stories about the results of do-it-yourself jobs.   What happens if the patio starts cracking apart right after you finish?  Do you really want to dig the garden up again to find the leak from where you backed over the lawn with your truck to deliver materials closer to where you were working?

 

My advice?  (You knew that was coming.)  Ask yourself a few questions, make a decision, then get on with life.  The questions you should ask are these:

 

1. What is your level of confidence?  The local Cart-Away Supply store experts can help you with great advice.  The proper equipment and supplies are available there.  The question is this – do I have the requisite aptitude or would I be taking too big a risk?  Only you can answer this question.
2. How will this decision affect others?  If it is just you and lost opportunities to golf, that is one thing to consider.  If it is displacing your family from using the yard for a significant part of the season, would it not be better to have a pro do the job and inconvenience everyone for only a week?
3. A year from now, will you be happier that you did the job or that you had it done by a contractor?  Again, only you can evaluate your level of confidence, the disruption you might cause, the value of your golf game, etc.  The value of that feeling of accomplishment in a job well done is a wonderful thing.  You have to consider also the $2,500.

 

I’m not suggesting that either way is better than the other.  I am suggesting that like any project, planning is a very important tool for success.  Sometimes just planning properly gets the job halfway done.

 

Whatever you do, don’t underestimate the time and money it will cost to do it yourself, and, don’t overestimate your chances of hitting a hole in one if you go for the golf. 

Posts (fence posts, not blog posts)

Most projects that require posts come with the same important decisions that accompay almost every construction project – foundations and roofs.

 

Wherever you need a post, you need to place it on or in a foundation..  Most of the time this means digging a hole (or lots of holes) and lowering the post into the hole.  The foundation is made by packing material around the post to refill the hole.  Sometimes, especially for more temporary structures, the material packed in the hole is the same native soil that was removed to make the hole.  Other times, you will want to make the foundation out of concrete.  If you are working  on a concrete  or masonry surface, you may be anchoring a base plate to the surface with expansion bolts.

 

Let’s start by considering placing a post in a hole and refilling the hole with native soil.  If you are in an area with sandy or loose loam soil this may not be an option.  Most soils have enough clay or rock that they will pack well and make a good foundation.  There are a number of advantages to refilling the hole with the soil that was removed. First,  you have no additional cost of materials.  In fact, it saves you from having to haul off all the material that was excavated from the hole.  Second, if you have to remove the post, it is a simple matter to just pull the post, not an easy task with concrete foundations.  You may have to dig a deeper hole than is needed for posts set in concrete.  This also means you may need to use a longer post.  The post will also be in constant contact with the soil. Such contact  encourages rot, bugs, etc.   Even with pressure treated or high-tannin (redwood, cedar) posts, over time, the posts will fail. 

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The most common way of anchoring posts is with a concrete foundation.  Depending on the number of posts, how deep they are, how much they are supporting, you may use anywhere from a sack of premix to a truck load of readymix.  Premix sacks are commonly available in 40#, 60# and 80# sacks.  These are the perfect solution for very small jobs and where the load on the post is not great.  Typically, people set the post, pour in the premix and then just fill the hole with water to activate and eventually cure the premix into concrete.  This creates a foundation that is one step stronger than packing native soil.  If the post will see a significant load (wind, support of an arbor, etc.) it is common to properly mix the premix (usually in a wheelbarrow) and then pour the concrete into the hole.  This makes a much better concrete and therefore a much stronger base for the post.  This is hard work and very time consuming if you have a number of posts to set.  This is a perfect excuse to get your concrete in a trailer (hopefully from your friendly local Cart-Away Supply store or a rental or landscape yard that uses Cart-Away® trailers).  Concrete made and transported in a drum-style mixing trailer should be a strong as any concrete you can buy.  A four sack mix is usually good enough for posts but some uses will call for a five sack mix.  A one cubic yard concrete trailer will hold the equivalent of about 50 of the 40# sacks of premix.  If you have a very big job, you may even need to get a readymix truck to deliver the concrete.  Remember that the readymix trucks are rarely dispatched for less than about three cubic yards of concrete.  That means you would need to have about 100+ posts to set to make it worthwhile to use a truck. 

 

To make sure that your posts last the longest possible, two things should be considered:  water coming from above and water in the soil around the post.  Capping a post will extend its life by preventing water from causing rot from the top.  You can accomplish much the same thing at the base of the post by setting the post on a base of gravel in the hole before pouring the concrete and by tapering the concrete away from the post at the top of the hole.  If you go check out failed fence posts you will often discover that water was puddle against the post for years just because no care was given to the concrete poured around the base.

 

Various hardware manufacturers offer post bases for setting into your concrete patio or for anchoring onto the concrete surface.  Check your local codes as many now require that the post be set with a gap above the grade to prevent ground contact which invites rot and bugs.  

Borders and Edging

Formal gardens and most normal gardens, today , have distinct boarders and edging between features.

Paths almost always have a distinct edge. Transitions from lawn to planter often have a special edge treatment. From a flower bed to a lower care planting of perennial shrubs and trees will often have some sort of border to divide the two areas.

Borders and edge treatments serve a number of purposes but chief among them is to keep things where they belong. A lawn can become an invasive pest if it starts to grow into the annual flower garden. Similarly, you don’t want your gravel path migrating into your lawn where your mower will have the opportunity to turn into a machine gun, shooting the small stones all over the yard.

There are more choices than you can imagine when looking for edging or boarder treatments. First, you have to consider whether you want a sharp or a soft edge. If you are drawing the line between a garden path and a lawn, typically, you will want a very distinct edge. If, on the other hand, you have a quiet bark or natural stone path through your shrubs and trees, you might want a much softer transition.

Here are some of your options listed from the distinct, sharp edge to the softer, less definitive edge effect:

Concrete curbing - This is a great choice around a lawn. It is easier to cut and trim against a durable concrete edge. It can hold up under the pressure of a lawnmower every week. One of the nice new things about concrete edging is color. No longer are you stuck with a concrete grey curb. You can choose from colors as dark as lamp black to warmer tones of brown and red. You can even stamp concrete curbs to look like stone or brick.

Brick or paver edging – In the past, setting the bricks or pavers was a real challenge. Today products like Diamond-lok and others allow you to easily set the pavers or bricks and keep them in place under foot and machine traffic. Many paths are now constructed with the sharp edge of pavers in a soldier’s course on the sides of a more natural look like gravel or bark between the borders.

Natural Stone edging – Some paths are created with vertically placed pieces of flagstone as edging while others may use river rock more as a visual than a physical barrier on the edges of a path. The beauty of using the river rock is you can place it casually and let it move as the path is used. Its lack of a formal look means that if a stone is moved slightly out of place it doesn’t look out of place.

Wood edging – Bender board is the old standby. The plusses include ease of placement and the ability to form nice smooth curves. One downside is bender board’s short lifetime. It breaks easily when stepped on or run over with a mower, and, it is hard to get it made of quality cedar or redwood that will last more than a couple of years. Another downside is the cost. When viewed over its short lifetime, bender board can be more costly than most of the stone and concrete alternatives.

Steel edging – Though rising in cost with the price of steel, this is a product with a long life, can contain almost any material or planting, is easy to install, and can be made almost invisible while holding a sharp edge. This is a personal favorite of mine when combined with a simple quarter minus gravel path.

Plastic edging – This is a reasonable alternative to steel edging with one advantage and one major disadvantage. Advantage? It is less expensive. Disadvantage? It doesn’t hold its shape as well and often, after only a few months in place will move with the soil and look very uneven and unprofessional.

As with any building project, the preparation is essential to the success of the project. With the possible exception of a casual garden path of bark defined by edging of natural stone, any edging treatment in your landscape will require proper excavation, tamping, and careful construction.

Plant PVC in Your Garden

I am posting this again today because I was reminded yesterday of the importance of planting PVC. I went to dinner at the home of friends who decided they needed to take power to the far side of the lawn. It will be years before the level of the lawn and the color and texture of the grass match. Until then it is an eyesore that would not be there, had they planted PVC.

Tom

May 12, 2008

Plant PVC in Your Yard
Of all the landscaping advice I have received over the years, the one tip that has saved the most time and effort is this:

“If you don’t want to have to dig it up, ALWAYS plant a pvc pipe under it.”

If you are building a new natural stone path, plant a pvc pipe under it.

If you are pouring a new stamped concrete walkway, plant a pvc pipe under it.

If you are building a low wall planter bed, plant a pvc pipe under the foundation.

You get the idea. Just do it.

Use 3”pipe. It is just over 3 inches inside which will allow you later to push a number of smaller pipes for water, electrical, or drainage. You can fit up to three 1” pipes inside. It never hurts to have more room than you think you will need. Be sure to put something in the ends of the pipe or use standard pipe caps to keep soil from migrating into the pipe. Trench down below the lowest layer of the feature you are building. It is best to set the pipe in a base of sand and cover it with sand.

Make sure, also, to mark where the ends of the pipe are located on your landscape plans. It also helps if you can mark on your new landscape feature. For example, on a new stamped concrete walk, place a small nail in the concrete at each end of the pipe.

The cost of a 3”pvc or abs drain pipe is only $1.00 to $1.50 per foot. It could save you hundreds of dollars in sawing and repair. Have you ever seen what a walkway or driveway looks like after someone had to saw across it to put a drain underneath? Trust me. You want to have a pvc pipe buried, not a bill for concrete sawing and replacement.

PVC pipe won’t grow if you plant it, but, it will have you smiling from ear to ear when you decide to add lighting to that new brick flowerbed that you just finished and planted.

Hose Guides

I’m not sure it can be proven but my guess is that more plants are killed by pulling hoses, than by gophers, moles and voles combined.

Why do I think this? I’ve killed quite a few, myself. Rather than walk back to where the hose is hung up against a plant, I think I can give it a whip and it will come free. Often times it does come free while topping a plant in its path.

Most people figure out ways to guide their hoses so that this won’t happen. I have tried three basic methods:
1. Driving a stake at the corners of the areas I want to protect;
2. Using the plastic roller on a stake type guide (around $3.00 each at a garden center) or other fancier ‘hose guides,’ some shaped like rabbits or turtles, etc. ($5.00 - $20.00 each) ; or
3. Use a stone or other hardscape feature.

My personal choice is the natural stone. If you choose the right size and shape stone, it will both blend into your landscape and will also do a better job than the other choices. Remember, it does need to have a fairly vertical side facing to where the hose will be. If it is overhung, it will only serve to pinch the hose underneath.

I am not posting a photo with this but if you want to see what the decorative hose guides look like, just do a google search for “hose guides” and then do a google image search for the same. There are some very fancy (read, “very expensive”) options out there. Choosing the right natural stone still seems best to me.

Building My Waterfall Part 2 - Guest Post by Scott Crist

Once the retaining wall was built (see previous post-May 23) we began to fill the area with dirt. I had 7-1/2 yards of a good fill dirt delivered along with another 7-1/2 yards of a planting mix for top dressing. We were able to get the fill dirt in place before we had to start building the front retaining wall with the blocks I had purchased.
used a 1/4-minus gravel for the bed of the block wall. This material is very easy to work with and compacts very well. The pictures may not show it, but the lawn in this section of the yard slopes to the fence quite a bit. I started in the high side and used the 1/4-minus to keep the wall level as I proceeded to the sloped portion. Doing this saved my about 30 blocks that I would have had to dig in if I had started on the low end. It also saved a lot of time. It leaves a bit of the 1/4-minus showing on the one side, but the grass will cover that quickly.

Before I went much further, I ran the water and electricity just past where the wall would be. The electrical service was run to a waterproof box that would sit just below the top of the wall. The water line was split just inside the wall so a valve could be put in to run the sprinklers that would be used to water plants. The other half of the line was a “hot” (always under pressure) line that led to a hose bib to top off the pond when needed.

Next I placed the pond at the lowest portion of the area and positioned it. I used 1/4-minus as a base and then put loose dirt around it to hold it in place. Later, as the mound of dirt grew around it, I would add more dirt to solidify it’s position.

I placed the pump I had purchased in the pond and ran the cord to the electrical outlet I had installed. And here’s an important tip for you: Most pond pumps come with the cord attached. You can bury the cord under the dirt and it’s fine. However, I’d put in a piece of PVC pipe, big enough for the plug to go through easily, under the dirt. Pumps these days last a long time, but nothing lasts forever. Replacing the pump will be much easier if you can pull the cord through a pipe instead of digging a trench all the way to the outlet.

Another note about pumps: Get one big enough and don’t go cheap on it! This is one little piece of hardware that will make the whole thing work, so spend the money and do it right. I chose a 3600 GPH (gallons per hour) unit by Garden Treasures that I bought at Lowe’s for about $180. It has a five year warranty and has 22 feet of head (meaning it will pump it’s rated GPH up to 22 feet above it). Is it the best pump out there? Probably not, but for the size of fall, length of warranty, cost for the budget, and ease of replacement later, it was for me.

I ran the plumbing to the back of the corner and up well beyond what I thought the top would be. That way I had pipe to cut, rather than pipe to add. I used 1-1/4” PVC which was the largest that I could adapt to the unit. The thing that is different about water features versus, say a sprinkler system, is that volume is king, not pressure. I wanted all the water I could get at the top so that gravity, and my handiwork, would take care of the rest.

I kept a small section of the wall down to leave room for the wheelbarrow so I could keep bringing in the topsoil. At this point I wanted to get dirt packed around the pond and plumbing and the balance into the corner then finish the wall. Once all the dirt was in, we could finish the wall and begin sculpting the look we wanted.

Our goal was three streams/falls leading to the pond at the bottom center of the mound. I started with a bowl at the top in the center that would be the basin I would pump water into. From there the water would flow down the streams and the series of falls built in them, finally ending in a last fall into the pond at the base.

I used a ground tamper to start the runs and make grade changes. Once I had a rough path for the runs I placed a pond liner (60 mil plastic) in the center one to test the effect of my labor.

Things seemed to work well with the center fall, so now we had to add the left and right runs. Each run, just like the center one seen above, is lined with 60 mil pond liner.

Either I am very lucky, or this isn’t as hard as it seems. In my case, it’s probably both! I just tried not to put too much thought into exactly sculpting the falls in the runs. I wanted a series of small falls with a stream-like effect so I made stairs, basically, and covered them with plastic and let gravity do the rest. One thing that was important, and a bit challenging, was the bowl at the top. It had to be even on all sides and level so that one run didn’t get more water than another. Once that was done, it wasn’t hard at all to make the runs and I let my imagination take over with help from my wife.

The finishing touches were left to my wife, as in this department she is definitely the brains and I’m the brawn. We placed decorative river-stone in and around the runs and accented them with cobbles of the same type. I put in pieces of slate at every flat spot during the runs, and also as the end at the pond, to give the waterfall effect. We also added some small boulders for height effect at the left right and top. The last thing we will do, hopefully this weekend, is create a “fake” rock that will cover the inlet at the top of the waterfall. I’ve kept the distance between the inlet of the water pipe to the top bowl because I like the sound of the water entering the bowl in addition to the water cascading through the runs. I’m looking for a creative way to hide the pipe, but keep the sound. I let you all know how that turns out.

Here’s the (almost) finished product:

Hardscapes - Patios

The most common backyard hardscape improvements are decks and patios. There is good reason for this. They are the most useful and flexible features of a landscape plan. They can be used for parties, for just plain relaxing, or for leading the eye to another landscape feature like a pond, a large stone, or a piece of garden art. Patios require less maintenance than almost any other part of the landscape. This post will discuss patios.

First, I would like to refer you to a blog that has three “How To’s.” They are written by David Beaulieu. Two of the three are excellent and I highly recommend them to you. The third is out of date – please read my notes. The three posts are listed below with some comments of mine under each one:

Brick Patio - http://landscaping.about.com/cs/hardscapefences1/ht/brick_patio.htm
notes: 1. He mentions that it is easy to do without cutting any bricks. That is true only if you have a shape that conforms to the pattern, e.g. rectangular patio with basketweave pattern. Any pattern that does not conform to the shape of your patio will require cutting. For this you can rent a brick or paver saw. 2. The crushed stone he recommends is usually called 3/4” minus (because it passes through a 3/4” screen). The depth of your cut and the amount of crushed stone needed for your patio base are determined by the soil type you have. Your local rock yard, landscape professional or Cart-Away Supply store can help you with this. In clay soils, you will want the landscape fabric below the crushed rock. To tamp it down, unless it is a very small area, you will want to rent a jumping jack or similar type tamper.

Flagstone Patio
http://landscaping.about.com/od/hardscapefences1/ht/flagstone_patio.htm
notes: 1. The flagstone Mr. Beaulieu suggests is 2” thick and quite large pieces. If you intend to use smaller or thinner (1-1/2”), you will need a better base. I would recommend building the base as he suggests in the above post on a brick patio. 2. I would cut flagstone to size only as a last resort. It is hard to do and make it look natural. It also makes a better, longer lasting, easier to maintain patio if you use larger pieces than smaller ones.

Concrete Patio-
http://landscaping.about.com/cs/hardscapefences1/ht/concrete_patio.htm
notes: This post is worth reading only if to learn what not to do. Don’t get me wrong. If you read the post, Mr. Beaulieu emphasizes that you must do lots of preparation and work very fast. My experience is that this will not happen and the patio poured this way will be jackhammered out in a couple of years. Mr. Beaulieu could have written this 20 years ago and I might have agreed with a lot of it. With today’s trailer-based readymix systems (like cart-away concrete –www.cart-away.com) and the tools that can be rented at Cart-Away Supply stores and most general tool rental stores, the labor described above is just not required. Also, a trailer based readymix supplier can give you far better quality concrete than anything you can mix from premixed sacks. It also will cost far less and be much, much easier to pour and finish. With modern trailer-based mixers, you can also add chemicals to retard the set so that you can have time to do concrete stamping, colored concrete, and different finishes. If you do any area larger than what you can cover with about 1/4th yard, don’t mix from sacks. Sacks are for mixing foundations and fence posts. A cubic yard of concrete will pour a pad that is 8 feet by 10 feet by the thickness of the height of one standard 2 x 4 (3-1/2”). It takes a great deal of skill, tons of preparation and lots of help to mix sacks fast enough to pour an 8 x 10 without cold joints or color and texture variations. If you decide to follow this ‘how-to’ plan do it only if you properly prepare the base under the pour. If you do not tamp and wet the formed area before pouring, you will not be happy with the result.

A better post on how to build a concrete patio is at:
http://extras.berkshireeagle.com/Nebe/pool/concrete.html
It, too, misses the critical step of wetting the base before pouring the concrete. It also neglects to mention using Cart-Away concrete trailers but no one is perfect.

Tip: No matter what patio you decide to build, if there is any chance that you will want water or electricity on the other side of the patio from the source, be sure to plant pvc pipe below it. See my post below: Plant PVC in Your Yard (May 12, 2008). As soon as your patio is finished, you WILL decide you want lights or water on the side not accessible from the source of water and electricity.

Hardscapes – All the Things that Don’t Grow in your Yard

Landscaping is really the art and science of forming the land for a purpose. At one time, the landscape was formed by nature – a natural landscape. If you are typical, the place where you live was created by disturbing the natural landscape and substituting man-made features and structures. These man-made features and structures usually fall into one of two categories: living and non-living. Hardscapes are all those features that don’t grow – the non-living part of your landscape. Aside from the home or office, the most common hardscapes in both residential and commercial landscaping are:
Decks
Patios
Paths/Walkways
grill/bbq/kitchen areas
gazebos/outdoor rooms/trellises
ponds/water features
view/focus points

Hardscapes function best when well integrated into a complete landscaping plan. Landscape architects and landscape designers are the professionals who design and engineer hardscapes. As with any project worth doing, a landscape plan is worth doing well. Often, a qualified landscape architect or designer can save an owner more than his or her fee by applying special knowledge that prevents many of the basic errors that owners are prone to make when creating a landscape plan without professional help. In almost all cases, a landscape that is planned as an integrated whole creates a better look and function than one that is pieced together one feature at a time.

Over the next two weeks, I will post ideas, tips, and resources for each of the hardscape categories noted above. With the exponential growth of the landscaping/hardscaping component of home improvement, new products, new advice and new services are sprouting up all over. I will try to proivide links to many of the best of these in the upcoming articles.

Contracts for Landscaping Work

This starts with a personal story but, there is a moral and a tip worth reading.

Two years ago, my wife and I decided it was time to take the next step with our property.  We had taken out most of the bad trees and underbrush, planted our small vineyard and were ready to tackle the garden around our home.

We searched for, found, and hired a very competent Landscape Architect.  We hired an architect for the outdoor room we wanted to build.  We worked well with both and came to a consensus of what we wanted to do.  Since we both have day jobs (the 12 hour kind) we decided to hire a landscape contractor to do most of the work.  It was a combination of hardscape (paths, patio, pond, etc.) and irrigation, and lawn and lots of plantings.

We got recommendations locally and decided to interview and get quotes from three landscape contractors.  We liked all three when we met but the combination of price and our confidence level brought us to choose the middle of the three quotes.  Okay so far.

They started work in September.  They tore out all the old landscaping, got busy with another job and we lived in mud until they showed up again in the Spring.  >Error number one – no performance clause in our contract.

They finally finished the job in May and by June, plants were starting to die, the pond was not working right, and the landscaper was unresponsive.  On a couple of occasions they came out and did minimal fixes on things that weren’t right.  Each time it was harder to get them to come out.  Each time we heard that it was our fault.  We hadn’t watered correctly,  We had probably driven a car over the sprinklers and that’s why they were leaking,  Etc., Etc.   Since I have personally done irrigation systems in the past and my wife is a Master Gardener, we were convinced that they just wanted to get down the road to the next job rather than complete the one we had paid for. 

When we started replacing the many dead plants, they uniformly came out of the ground easier than they had come out of the pots.  In other words, the landscaper had dug minimum size holes, done no prep, and just shoved the plants in the ground.  It was very fast work but also very bad work. 

In discussing this with many people who have also had landscaping work done, we have come to the following conclusion (and our hot tip of the day):

Have the contract with the landscape contractor include one year of complete maintenance of the garden. 

As our contract was written they claimed they stood behind everything for a year but everything that died was just another battle to get any help.  The fact is they just wanted to get the job done and move on.  They know that plants can look great for a month or two no matter what you do.  By that time they can claim it was their customer’s fault. 

If there is a contract that has them doing the maintenance, they have an incentive to do things right to save them the cost of replantings, etc.  Without that clause, who knows?

This will cost you more money at the outset but I'm convinced it will save money in the long run and get you a much better job.  If the contractor knows that he will have to maintain things for the first year, he will do everything he can to minimize the maintenance and lower the cost of replacement plants.