Busting out the Concrete

I'm finally to the point that I'm busting up the concrete around the house. Today I moved the large pavers that led to the back of the house. I temporarily placed them at the end of the parking area. I still have a pile of small river rock I need to sort out near the parking area too. The siftanator does a good job of sifting but it doesn't separate the debris from the rocks, arggggh.

I wanted to bust out the slab along the side of the house where the stairs were, but the mortared tile on top proved to be a tiring job. I removed all the tile from the top of the slab and called it quits. I'm going to try and get back to it on Monday after work. Hopefully I'll get the slab busted out then.

The school down the street had a car wash today. Also, the City of Glendale was setting up for some sort of downtown event.

Catching Up

I've been out of town for a few weeks so I haven't been doing too much blue-myrtle blogging let alone working on the house. What work I have done has been mostly along the back side. Once the small addon was removed it was easier to get to the air conditioning unit about 10 feet away. I had access to the A/C unit from the alley side, but removing the addon gave me more light to see what I was doing. Oh did I forget to mention it's like a jungle back there? You may be able to tell from the photos there are a lot of oleanders along the back of the house. They are majorly overgrown and go pretty high. They actually created a kind of canopy. It was great for shade but made it hard to see. I was always worried some critter or scorpion was about to attack.

The A/C was a pain in the butt to get out. Todd helped me with it. It was no good so we tugged and pulled at it pretty aggresively. It really smelled bad for some reason. Once we got it free of the house and dragged around front we looked it over for anything salvagable. The only thing worth keeping was the fan. Todd detached the fan, and I took the remainder to the dump.

With the A/C and addon gone it was time to start digging along the back. I cannot figure out where all the dirt came from. It was above the foundation by about 3 inches. The dirt was really taking a toll on the wood siding. It took me all day to get the dirt dug down to about 5 inches below the foundation. That's 8 inches of digging if you're keeping track. Oh yeah, I forgot to mention the A/C and addon had a concrete slab under them. I busted out both slabs. I have a big pile of concrete I need to haul to dump.

I met Rhonda. She manages the property across the alley and is an all around handy-woman. She introduced herself and we talked for awhile. She asked me if I got the plans and permits for the house when I bought it. I told her I was even aware there were plans and permits.

I called down to the City on Monday and sure enough they had plans that the previous owner submitted for the fire restoration. They were all approved by the City of Glendale. Problem is they expired last November. The City said I could pick up the plans but would have to resubmit and start the whole process over. Oh well.