The lawyer bill (and resulting fallout) will make those $75 co-pays look like pocket change! Cheaper to keep 'er 'n all...it would be a worthwhile investment if it changed you n your families future too...and if it didn't work out in the long run, hey, you can hold your head high knowing you went down swinging...my 2 unsolicited cents on the matter...and as Red Green says, "I'm pullin for ya, we're all in this together!"
Man, my heart breaks for you guys (Eric). Our (Mrs. Chopsalot and Me) common faith has given us a third party to base secisions on when we dont agree. We just turned a corner, that was kinda a do or die corner. It took 10 (perhaps 20) years of steady degredation to get there. Things are finally going in a better direction. Eric, I'm not asking what your faith tradition is, but finding/following one might give you some strength, direction, maybe even resources or help. My faith tradition believes in a higher power who can influence other folks' hearts in a way I cannot....who can change my heart as needed too. I will keep both of ya in prayer according to my faith: That your evident talent for taking the old and broken, and transforming it into something unique, beautiful, and functional, will apply to this relationship. You scoured your landscape, looking for the best pieces, did hours of prep, measuring, contemplating, tossing the pieces that would not be helpful, or would only degrade the final product. You carefully prepped the ground, bringing in resources and materials as needed. You assembled your sidewalk with a good creative eye, and allowed the imperfections and unique pieces to lend their touch and create a new and beautiful thing. Best always Sirchopsalot
Taking notes Eric. I have brick walkways around half my place. Next spring I will dig into it. I know about the polymetric sand but what was your base layer(s) under that?
The first layer was the paver base, which is a mix of 3/4 stone and stone dust: https://www.homedepot.com/p/Pavestone-0-5-cu-ft-Paver-Base-98001/100580973 Followed by a thin layer of leveling sand: https://www.homedepot.com/p/0-5-cu-ft-Leveling-Sand-64-Bags-32-cu-ft-Pallet-98000/314818971 I went through 22 bags of 0.5 cubic ft. paver base on this project. After spreading it out evenly with a shovel, I compacted it by hand with a homemade compacter (a 4x4 piece of scrap lumber with a 2x6 screwed to the end). The paver base compacts really well, leaving a surface that's almost like concrete. If this was going to be a forever walkway, or if it was a larger area to be covered, I would've considered renting a plate compactor machine, saving myself a lot of manual labor. So once the base was established, I brought in the leveling sand. Here I went through 4 bags of it. I spread it evenly as I could without making mountains out of molehills, again, for me this didn't have to be perfect. I watched how-to videos where guys would lay 2 straight pieces of pipe along the walkway, bring in the sand, then run a 2x4 along the pipes to get a perfect surface to build on with no high or low spots. In my application here, I just had to be close enough. As long as the bricks were at the same level as my existing concrete slab, I was good enough. My walkway was on a slight grade but I also pitched it a little bit in the other direction, so that rain coming down would be shed into the grass.
Here’s a funny unexpected outcome of building this with randomly scrounged bricks. Looks like some of these hold heat more than the rest:
Hey that's interesting! I wonder if they're darker and absorbed more heat from the sun? Did it shovel well (we havent gotten any shovelabls snow here yet) Sca
I thought either it’s holding more heat, or the bricks absorbed some kind of salt somewhere along the way. Kind of strange. As far as shoveling goes, I’ll have to wait until we get a real storm to find out. We only got a good dusting here in Bristol. Being that a lot of bricks are pitted, I’m guessing I’ll be shoveling the bulk of it but then sweeping it off with a stiff bristle broom, before throwing salt down.
I found that with my brick sidewalks, a backpack leaf blower was the most effective snow removal tool, assuming that it wasnt a wet, heavy snow. Sent from my SM-N950U using Tapatalk
