Building the Shop: Power Concrete and More!

At last, real progress on the shop building! And I get to operate a skid steer for the first time in 30 years. That was fun! Power and water are extended to the shop and FINALLY the concrete is poured! After that, I do some grading next to the new slab with my Kubota and box blade to insure good drainage.

In the previous video of this series, I worked into the night to trench in a water line for the future shop building to be ready for concrete that didn’t come the next day as planned.  However, the crew did finish prepping the slab form and, in the process, made a new mountain of dirt that needed to be moved. I offered to start moving it with my Kubota tractor while they went to lunch, but the crew made an offer I couldn’t refuse: they suggested I use their skid steer! So, I get to operate a skid steer.  It’s only been thirty years since I’ve used one, but it should be like riding a bike, right? 

I am taking the dirt around to the back of the shop site to build out the area more.  After some jerky movement and partial buckets of dirt, I get the hang of it again.  Scoop.  Dump.  Then squish it down.  Rinse, repeat and the whole pile is moved in short order.

One week later, the electrical contractor arrives to run a 100 Amp service from my house to the shop building, along with a 60 amp service to the site of my new pool house. The water for the shop will be fed from a buried valve that will be behind the new pool house.  Both water and power pass under the pool walkway. It was my job to run the water line in the same ditch as the power so I stayed busy piecing it together.

Once it’s all put together, the trench is covered up.

One more week later, the concrete finally arrives!  And so it begins.

A few days later, I use Big Orange and my box blade to grade beside the new shop slab so that water will drain away.  Once again, my leveling box made setting the angle on the box blade easy.  Hmmm… there just might be some rock in that there dirt!  More dirt collects on the right side because of the tilt angle of the box blade.  This ensures the ground is graded so that the water run away from the slab and not toward it. Again, I dump the dirt on the backside of the shop site.