There goes our tax incentive check!
The good news is we made our town happy. We have been waiting for our contractor Freddy (the guy who did our blockwall) who was going to pour an extra driveway for us. Well after months of waiting for Freddy to get back to us and being threatened with a fine from the town we hired someone else. It is illegal to have an unimproved area of our front yard. 
Billy was doing a job at someone's house this week and was impressed with the concrete work so he asked for his #. We already had one guy quote us at $2,600 that was with a $600 discount. 
This guy showed up Thursday for an estimate, his estimate was $1300 so Billy said go ahead. He said he would show up Friday and start. We laughed because contractors hardly ever even show up. But sure enough he was here yesterday and started digging. Today they poured the concrete.  It's all done except for the dirt removal from our driveway. We can start using the driveway on Monday.
Pictures to follow. |
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| glad you got that rebate check. For some reason we don't get one which is so needed. |
Looking forward to pics  |
| The best part is the gate there was Lacey's former escape route. The gate didn't meet the ground and we had rocks there so she couldn't get through, but somehow the rocks always seemed to get moved . Now there is concrete under the gate. No more escapes or attempts.
Also we have added value to the house, we now have room enough for an RV which is a BIG selling point here in the land of the Snow Birds. Here it is formed out 
This is while they were pouring. 
Smoothing 
And DONE! 
I'll take another pic when the dirt is gone....hopefully Monday. |
Pepsi's Mommy wrote: we now have room enough for an RV Hmmmmm.....
Say, how many inches thick is that concrete? |
I believe 3 inches, maybe 4.  Hubby is sleeping now so I can't ask. |
| Looks great |
| Looks great Elissa!!!
Although I have a hard time with the concept of someone TELLING you what to do with your yard!!!! We are hoping to put up a garage this year, have been getting prices for the building and pad. I cannot believe how expensive the concrete is! |
| Thanks Jean and Ginny!
Ginny, I was pretty annoyed. Guess which city dept was going to issue the fine? The Fire Department. The area was sand and Billy had been parking his work truck there. It had been grass until we put the knee wall there and we knew we wanted to put a driveway there. So we graded it down at that point. The work truck has been broken into so he prefers to have it close to the house instead of behind one of the other cars. It's not like parking the truck there would have caused a fire. But it is illegal to park on and area that is not paved with concrete, asphalt or pavers. You can not even have a gravel driveway, which would have been a lot cheaper. We looked into pavers and it would have been $1,800 just for material. So we choose concrete as nobody has asphalt here due to the heat. Most of the fines issued here are to houses that have been foreclosed upon. Due to dead grass and landscaping making the neighborhood look bad. But the rest of our yard looks fabulous. So I am very annoyed by this. If you can see the pictures looking across the street, look at the area with the beige wall. That is owned by the town and is as they say unimproved. I will be writing a NASTY letter to them about that. It used to have landscaping. But they did not take care of it and it was an overgrown mess. There are also two unimproved empty lots filled with tumbleweed. I feel those need to be at least cleaned up, they are owned by someone.  So I will be sending a letter to the paper too about how it is totally unfair to single out people that are trying to improve their lots. We are not made of money and money was really tight for us there for a while.
After the first citation we immediately contacted this woman at the Fire Deparment and told her that we had planned on paving and that we would not park there anymore until we had a driveway. I made two calls to her and Billy made three. No call backs, so we assumed everything was okay. Then the fine arrived. I called and left a nasty message for the woman saying we had called 5 times and didn't receive one call back. The final time I called I asked if there was someone else I could talk to about it..... of course there wasn't. But the Lady did finally call Billy back, they removed the fine and gave us three month to do it, this was last month. I guess we did exactly what Bush wanted us to do with the money though. Put it right back into the economy. So much for those new clothes I was hoping to buy. Surprisingly enough the guys came back TODAY and are carting the dirt away. I may be able to get a good pic later today of the finished project. |
$1300 sounds like a pretty good price for that amount of concrete, though. We had our driveway done and the footings poured for our garage and it was quite expensive. I'd have to dig out the receipt for the exact amount but it was much, much more and it looks like a comparable amount. But, it does suck to have to spend money on stuff like that. It's like paying for a big car repair or something. You need it, but it's kind of a bummer spend.  |
| Concrete might be expensive....but it is best! (P.S. I am the bookkeeper for our locally owned concrete company that's been around for well over 40 years!) |
ChSheepdogs wrote: (P.S. I am the bookkeeper for our locally owned concrete company that's been around for well over 40 years!) Will they deliver to Boston cheap?
Will it still be uncured? |
Ron wrote: Pepsi's Mommy wrote: we now have room enough for an RV Hmmmmm.....Say, how many inches thick is that concrete? Ron, 4 inches thick. Are you coming for a visit? Jill, it was a great price, we paid for the cement truck ourselves so no added expenses. You are right, it just sucks spending it on a driveway. I would rather have put new flooring in. Oh well! I am uploading a pic of the finished product. |
Elissa the cement work looks great, room enough for Ron to park his camper while he and Joan visit. Sorry you couldn't have more "fun" with the money...that is the bummer about growing up. You have to buy stuff you need instead of want. lol It looks like a great place for the kids to roller skate also. 
Enjoy your new cement! |
| Thanks Helen!
Here are the finished pics: 
 |
Looks nice.  |
| Thanks |
| 4 inches.... hmmmmm
How does one get their TV past the grass or whatever you're gonna plant in front? How long is it? Access to water/electric/sewer hookup? |
| It's close to 35 feet long. Hubby pigeon holed the measuring tape, so I cannot measure.
There is a faucet out front, water lines in the garage, sewer line VERY close and electricity right next to the garage with outside plug and I believe Billy had bought the adapter thingy for an RV.  |
| I dunno, this may not work
My RV is about 38 feet long. Now the front end can hang over your garden, but how am I gonna back it in there without trampling your grass? Got a really big forklift? I could back onto the driveway and we could forklift it into place! |
| You could just park in the driveway. It's about 42 feet long. |
| Not really sure if I'm allowed to PARK in a DRIVEway.
How many inches thick is the driveway? LOL See, my leveling jacks come down and put a tremendous load on a very small area. If the driveway is quite level (side to side and front to back) then the jacks only pick up a little bit of the weight of the RV, the 6 tires still hold the bulk. But on an uneven surface, most of the 25,000 pounds could be on four little legs... So If I park on the driveway, does this mean that you guys will have to park on your new section? How will you get in there with my RV in the way?? LOL  |
| The driveway is also 4 inches, but it does slope slightly towards the street.
The old driveway is two car wide, so I think we could get around your RV to the new parking area. |
| hey e, why didnt you take the concrete all the way down to the street? what are you going to do with that other patch?
looks great! and at least you got a check!!!! |
| It does look good! We haven't parked on it yet. Just giving it an extra couple of days. I know my next door neighbor did not park on his for a week.
We couldn't take it all the way to the street because the drainage pipes are there for the sewer. It is also the reason we ended the knee wall where we did. Also our water meter is there. We are thinking of planting some bushes or a small tree there. |
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