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28 January, 2010

The Great Wall Keeps Growing

It's been a while since I've updated the blog with progress on our canal bulkhead project. If you're a regular reader, you may remember my initial posting about the problem we had with our canal bank caving in. You can go to that posting here: (http://winjama.blogspot.com/2009/11/just-when-you-think-its-smooth-sailing.html).

There's several other postings and plenty of pictures showing the various stages of the project and the progress that's been made since November (Geez, has it really been going on that long?). If you go to the index along the right-hand side, click on it and scroll down to 'bulkheads' or 'canal bulkhead', you'll be able to see the rest of those postings.

This posting will bring you up to where we currently are with this project.
A Lot of Work
As you can see, there's been just a ton of progress. In the shot above, you're looking from the canal into the boat slip, with the guest house just beyond the fence. The tall flag pole-looking thing that's sticking up in the middle of the shot is actually a mooring bollard or pole. It will be trimmed down to six-feet above the concrete walkway that will be cast (you can see the gray line at the bottom of the fence. This marks the level of the walkway when it's cast). The remaining six-foot pole will be filled with rebar and concrete and have a rounded concrete dome on it's top.

The theory is (which I 'borrowed' from Pastor Doug's boat moorage, just up the canal), is that if canal water overtops the banks of the canal, and assuming we have a boat moored there, that the boat will simply ride up the poles and stay relatively safe and in proper position. That's the theory anyway.

Here's a few more pictures that will help give you a good idea of the work that has gone on. The project probably has used around two-thousand bags so far. I don't know how may bags of concrete, rebar, and loads of gravel and sand. A fair bit of all those materials though. I'll try to find what the tally is and post it later on.
North Side of Slip To Channel
From North End Looking South To Slip
Another View of the Slip Area
Showing Elsie's Side of the Slip And South
Elsie's Side South From the Slip
May and Craig and Dianna - Looking At the Project
Mae and Craig came over to drop off a big bag of books for Dianna's lending library (books are like gold down here). They wanted to see how the project as coming along, so I also took the opportunity to snap a few shots. They're also getting ready for an extended absence from the area. They're cashing in some air miles and taking a trip to Australia and Bali - the lucky stiffs. Not that I'm all that stoked on seeing Australia, but Bali has interested me ever since I saw the Balinese paintings by Paul Gauguin when I was eleven or twelve.

Once the guys get the walls done, then they'll let it sit for a month or two, so it has time to settle - both the bulkhead walls and the fill behind the walls. This will be before the beam or chain and the concrete walkways are cast. So, there's still a ways to go before it's finished.

4 comments:

toupeeo said...

Bravo, Bravo. I have been waiting for update on the canal project. It looks great. Imagine what it will be like when the cement cap is in place. Will you now switch your attention to the guest house. Norm

Dave Rider said...

Hi Norm,

It should look pretty good when done. We've even talked about putting some sort of skin coat of concrete on the face of it, but that'd have to wait a couple of years before we did anything like that. It'd be strictly cosmetic.
Hopefully, if nothing else pops up in the meantime, the guesthouse is next. I know Dianna is really anxious to get moving with that.
Cheers,
Dave

Julian in SC said...

Looking great!! I'm like Norm and was wondering how the project was going. It is really turning out better than I first imagined. Helps to know where you're going I imagine!!

Did you have a chance to see this approach and the finished product on another lot before you started?

Julian

Wilma said...

Very nice, neat work there. It looks very stable. I hope that takes care of your problems!