A door that goes up and down

I’ve never had a legitimate garage door. What’s the point in installing a good door on the world’s worst garage?

But as I refurbished that garage into a minimally acceptable garage, I began to yearn for something more. And of course that meant research and a trip to Lowe’s.

Short attention span
Bringing home two large boxes diverted my attention from carpentry to mechanical things. Garage doors come in sections, with lots of hardware to be attached to the sections. This picture shows two sections installed and resting on the concrete curb. So far, so good.

On the inside, the two sections look like this—firmly attached and adequately aligned. I use the word “adequately” because it’s a challenge to align things with a garage that leans in several directions.

For want of a nail . . .*
Now’s a good time to criticize poor technical writing. The door’s instruction manual was almost impossible, with dense paragraphs of tiny text, referring to illustrations that were at least 50% accurate.

There were several red nuts and bolts that were allegedly important, never to be removed after installation. I ended up with several of these bolts still in the box.

Don’t you dare!
Also, I resent warnings like “Don’t attempt this operation by yourself.” It’s almost like a dare, so I had to try to lift the installed door (without its helper springs without the electric door opener) all by myself. On this issue, they were correct!

On the other hand, the Genie door opener had instructions that were almost perfect—maybe the best I’ve seen for such a product.

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After two days I programmed the remote control and made this video.

My minimally acceptable garage door

Modified elation
My initial happiness with an adequate door was tempered when I realized the door opener didn’t work unless I first entered the garage and switched on the lights. Not a problem with a section of missing siding (on the right).

Unwelcome revelation
I’ve discovered that squeezing between studs is not as easy as it used to be. Maybe I measured wrong.

So my next step is to change the electrical outlet so that it is always powered.

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*A proverb

For Want of a Nail
For want of a nail the shoe was lost.
For want of a shoe the horse was lost.
For want of a horse the rider was lost.
For want of a rider the message was lost.
For want of a message the battle was lost.
For want of a battle the kingdom was lost.
And all for the want of a horseshoe nail.

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Next: Electrical work

Concrete

I needed a concrete curb (threshold?) at the bottom of the door opening. Why? Because I intend to install a real garage door, just like you see in nicer neighborhoods.

Function follows forms
The wood forms for the concrete will define a 4” thick slab, 10” wide and eight feet long. Just so you know, this takes about nine 50-pound bags of Quikrete concrete mix. Here’s what those bags do the the suspension of my little purple truck.

When leveling things, it’s important to verify that everything is accurate. I feel that three stacked levels are sufficient, especially when the top one comes from Harbor Freight Tools.

Mixer does not meet minimum expectations
I dragged out my 40-year-old concrete mixer and switched it on for a quick test. It flunked—not once, but twice:

First, the switch didn’t work because it was full of ants and their various future ants. I simply removed the switch and used the old-fashioned plug-in/unplug method for control.

Second, the belt was broken. The mixer has been sitting in the rain for decades, so I guess it could have been worse. I installed a new link-belt.

The fun begins
Now I can mix concrete. Watch the video. It looks and sounds like something from the early days of the industrial revolution (when I was just a kid).

Old Sears concrete mixer

Here’s the finished slab. It certainly meets my minimum expectations.

 

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Things you need to know about concrete

• Cement is not the same as concrete! Concrete is a mixture of Portland cement, sand, gravel, and water.
• Concrete does not harden by drying; it cures through hydration—a chemical reaction between the cement and the water.
• Theoretically, concrete gets stronger forever, but it acquires most of its strength in about 28 days.
• Concrete weighs about 150 pounds per cubic foot.

Next: The garage door

Restoring the law of gravity

If you recall, the back corner of the garage had a problem: It was floating! Here’s how it looked, with several feet unsupported on two sides.

 

As I removed the old siding, I found more termite damage—even worse than the other side. The entire sill was pretty much gone, and the bottoms of all the studs had to be cut out and replaced.

The studs dangling from the top plates, with the cut-off pieces still attached to the sill (lying below).

The gravity of the situation
Before continuing, I had to take care of that back corner. Here’s the first step—putting a cheap bottle jack under the corner and jacking it up until everything is level.

 

Putting a post where there was once only air
Another piece of pressure-treated wood from my stash (this time a landscape timber) along with a yard-sale concrete pier, and the job was done.

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Next, we mix and pour a concrete curb across the door opening.

Click here for lots of bottle jacks.

 

 

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World’s worst garage slightly better

When you’re dealing with something this bad, almost anything is an improvement.

Here are the first real repairs, involving cutting out the termite-damaged lower parts of studs and replacing them with pressure-treated studs.

In the corner is a 4 x 6 pressure-treated timber that’s been lying around the yard for years. I knew I’d use it if I saved it long enough.

This is a lesson we can all learn: Never get rid of anything!

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Come along with me
Using a come-along (right), I pulled the leaning structure until it was vertical. It’s easy: you just pull until your wife yells that the bubble is in the center.

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Four sheets to the wind
Four sheets of T1-11 plywood are installed. Careful observers and nit-pickers may notice a slight stair-step effect. Trust me, it’s about the best I could do, and it certainly meets minimum expectations.

The facts: the old garage’s stone foundation is probably about 70 years old, it’s remarkably level in most sections. But the Allstate Insurance garage is not quite the same, so I had to make a few compromises.

Other things you need to know if you want to be a better person
T1-11 plywood is also known as texture 1-11. It has a rough finish with grooves at four inches on center. You can find out more at the Georgia Pacific website.

A come-along is a mechanism using pulleys, steel cable, and a ratchet crank to pull with tremendous pressure. It also puts tremendous pressure on me as I listen to the creaks, groans, and cracking as the building yields to each click of the ratchet. Scary.

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Next: Restoring the law of gravity

World’s worst garage?

It’s my garage, built after a tree crushed my even older garage in the 1970s. This brown plywood monster was paid for and built by Allstate Insurance. As you can see, they spared no expense.

 

Sure, I could demolish it and start again, but it’s much more interesting to try to salvage what’s there—and it’s cheaper.

 

Let’s begin with the termites. They’ve been on a high-fiber diet for two decades. This is a front corner with its plywood siding damaged by termites and rot.

 

Here’s the same corner with the plywood removed. It looks bad—and it is—but it’s old damage. The termites are long gone. As mentioned in the previous blog, the planarian worms and black-widow spiders are still there.

 

Was Isaac Newton wrong?
This back corner is defying gravity by supporting the walls and roof without any foundation. The old stone foundation caved in a few years ago.

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Next, the rebuilding begins. Here’s a preview:

New project: Garage siding

It’s time for a new project. This time: new siding for a very old garage.

First, you have to cut all the vegetation to get to the rotted and termite-eaten garage, all the time watching for interesting little creatures that live there in relative peace—until now!

Critter number 1
I knew this lady lived close by because I had recently seen her inside the garage. At that time, I left her alone.

Today I found her again on a piece of plywood I removed. I took several pictures, then killed her. Cruel? Not really. I didn’t need to be working in the proximity of a fat black widow spider. Also, she had already killed her husband.

Critter number 2
These things always interest me because they look like something from a scary movie. This one was quite long, maybe 18 inches or so. Or maybe it was just stretched out after I started moving it around for photos. After the photo session, I moved him (her?) to a safe location.

It’s a wormlike creature called a Land Planarian or an Arrowhead Flatworm. Note its head at the upper left. It’s slimy and sticky, like a slug.

Best of all, its mouth is halfway down the underside of its body, and its mouth also serves as its anus. Talk about a foul-mouthed creature. If that’s not disgusting enough, it eats earthworms by lying atop the worm and letting its sticky mucus adhere the worm to the ground. Then out of the Planarian’s mouth (or anus) comes a pharynx that sucks the bodily fluids from the poor earthworm. “In space, no one can hear you scream.”

Just so you feel better, they are not harmful to humans or plants, but are “a nuisance in the southern United States.” But I’ll bet earthworms the world over consider them a nuisance.

Here’s a wonderful and entertaining video showing a Valdosta-based Planarian eating an innocent earthworm. It’s just another reason you shouldn’t live in south Georgia.

 

 

Tin man alive and well

OK, so he’s not really alive, but he’s sturdy, reliable, and dedicated. He stands guard over the Little Free Library, and he’s on duty 24/7.

No pay, no benefits, and best of all—no complaints (except from my neighbors).

 

Unlike the tin man in the Wizard of Oz, my tin man has a heart.

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Library open for business

After several weeks of deconstructing and reinventing an old metal newspaper box, the Little Free Library is fully stocked and open for business.

A view from the sidewalk

Below we see the canvas circus sign, complete with staples and grommets and springs to keep it stretched. Actually, it’s something called marine vinyl from Jo-Ann’s—and it’s pretty costly at about $18 per yard. But like everyone else in the world, I had a 40%-off coupon.

 

Open and closed case (but not in that order)

 

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Next: The tin man